Latest / Best of the NFL Podcast Network / The Season with Peter Schrager: Texans GM Nick Caserio

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The Season with Peter Schrager: Texans GM Nick Caserio · Best of the NFL Podcast Network

• 0:07
  Speaker 1: The Season with Peter Schreeger is a production of the
• 0:09
  Speaker 1: NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, everybody, Welcome to
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: another episode of the Season with Peter Schreger. I'm Peter
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: Schreeger recording this on a Monday, November sixth, and I've
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: got my lovely producer, Aaron wan Kaufman here, Aerin. I
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: thought yesterday, with four games that were kind of billed
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: as premiere games, was one of those great NFL Sundays.
• 0:44
  Speaker 1: And yet what happens when you do that, when you
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: hype certain games, you get these other sneaky ones. And
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I wanted to start this podcast off by talking about
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: Josh Dobbs and the Minnesota Vikings and what an amazing
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: story that is. I'm personally close to this. Josh Dobbs
• 1:01
  Speaker 1: and I have become friendly over the years. He was
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: a Tennessee quarterback and then he obviously goes to Pittsburgh.
• 1:07
  Speaker 1: Steevens is the third stream quarter record as well, like
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: those beloved guys in the league. But why I have
• 1:11
  Speaker 1: a connection to Dobbs. He did this thing where he
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: did an externship with NASA and it was in the
• 1:16
  Speaker 1: off season a couple of years back where he was
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: in I think an aeroscience major or arow is that
• 1:23
  Speaker 1: even a thing?
• 1:23
  Speaker 2: Aaron aeroscience?
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Is that? I think aeroscience engineering major in college. I'm sorry,
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: clearly this was not my forte And in our off
• 1:33
  Speaker 1: season shows for Good Morning Football, it's like, who's doing
• 1:35
  Speaker 1: something cool this offseason in the world of football?
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: Who wants to come on as a guest? And Josh
• 1:41
  Speaker 2: Dobbs came on.
• 1:42
  Speaker 1: I would say it was a summer of twenty twenty
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: or twenty twenty one, probably three to four times. And
• 1:46
  Speaker 1: then he and I struck up a friendship over text
• 1:49
  Speaker 1: and like always just wish Josh Dobbs well.
• 1:51
  Speaker 2: Well.
• 1:52
  Speaker 1: Then he goes to Cleveland. Then he goes to last
• 1:55
  Speaker 1: year on like short day notice, like maybe like a
• 1:59
  Speaker 1: random like fifteen days like heads up. He goes to
• 2:02
  Speaker 1: Tennessee where he ends up starting at their final game
• 2:05
  Speaker 1: of the regular season and almost beating the jar and
• 2:06
  Speaker 1: a winning in game played very valiantly, and I was like,
• 2:09
  Speaker 1: you know this dude, like good for him, Like Josh Dobbs,
• 2:12
  Speaker 1: that's awesome. Then this year, with eight days you know,
• 2:18
  Speaker 1: left before the start of the regular season, he's traded
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: to the Arizona Cardinals, and he starts Week one for
• 2:22
  Speaker 1: the Cardinals, and a couple of weeks later, he's beating
• 2:24
  Speaker 1: the Cowboys in a game, and we had this really
• 2:27
  Speaker 1: funny moment on the show where he was like, Dobbs
• 2:31
  Speaker 1: was at the Arizona Cardinals team store and they had
• 2:34
  Speaker 1: all the different team jerseys, and he did a little
• 2:35
  Speaker 1: Instagram video where he's like, I can't even get my
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: own jersey. They don't sell my own jersey. I'm the
• 2:39
  Speaker 1: starting quarterback of the team. They don't steal a Dobbs jersey.
• 2:42
  Speaker 1: And we had such a fun time with that, And
• 2:43
  Speaker 1: then I reached out to Mark Dalton, who's the PR
• 2:45
  Speaker 1: guy for the Arizona Cardinals, and I'm like, you got
• 2:47
  Speaker 1: to get me a Dobbs when you start selling those
• 2:49
  Speaker 1: Dobs jerseys. Sure enough, Mark gets it to me. I'm
• 2:52
  Speaker 1: rocking a Dalton a Dobbs jersey multiple times in the
• 2:55
  Speaker 1: past few weeks, almost as a goof, but also because
• 2:58
  Speaker 1: we got love for this guy. Sure Enough, Cousins goes
• 3:01
  Speaker 1: down with the injury and my phone starts buzzing on
• 3:04
  Speaker 1: the trade deadline day that you know, the the Vikings
• 3:07
  Speaker 1: are making calls. I thought they were gonna sign Colt
• 3:09
  Speaker 1: McCoy Culte. McCoy had played for Kevin O'Connell for three
• 3:12
  Speaker 1: years in Washington. He's a free agent. I thought that
• 3:15
  Speaker 1: would be the move. Instead, they trade for Josh Dobbs.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: I don't send a note to Dobbs. I'm like, yeah,
• 3:21
  Speaker 1: I can only imagine the whorld winning this guy. As
• 3:23
  Speaker 1: it comes out later that he still hadn't moved into
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: his place in Arizona yet, he has unpacked bags and
• 3:29
  Speaker 1: several shipments that still were coming for the Arizona house. Well,
• 3:33
  Speaker 1: now he moves to Minnesota and they're like, we're starting
• 3:35
  Speaker 1: Jaren Hall, who's a fifth round pick and has been
• 3:37
  Speaker 1: the backup and they really like him. And he's out
• 3:39
  Speaker 1: of BYU and he's got Jaren Hall, and what I think,
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  Speaker 1: what mighte be? Like? The second drive runs around like
• 3:44
  Speaker 1: a chicken with his head cuddle. It gets Clawbern and
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  Speaker 1: I'm laughing, but like.
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  Speaker 2: Right away, oh, we got Dobs. Has the play? Tops
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: has the play? Now? I know Dobbs just got there.
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  Speaker 1: Now everyone who's listening might say, yeah, well, Baker Mayfield
• 3:57
  Speaker 1: did this last year.
• 3:58
  Speaker 2: Here's the difference.
• 3:59
  Speaker 1: Baker Mayfield got there on a Tuesday to the Rams
• 4:02
  Speaker 1: and beat the Raiders on a Thursday. Very very incredible
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  Speaker 1: quick turnaround, get it. But also Baker was the number one,
• 4:09
  Speaker 1: so Baker took the number one snaps in practice, Baker
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  Speaker 1: had a chance to do a crash course.
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  Speaker 2: Baker was there all night with McVeigh. Josh Dobbs not
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  Speaker 2: the number one.
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  Speaker 1: Jaron Hall this week took the number one snaps. He
• 4:20
  Speaker 1: just got there on Wednesday. He had never taken a
• 4:23
  Speaker 1: rep with the first team offense before they played this
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: game on Sunday afternoon against the Atlanta Falcons. So he's
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: thrown into the game and he saw the footage. He's
• 4:34
  Speaker 1: on the sidelines and he's practicing the cadence with Garrett Bradberry,
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: their starting center, and the rest of the offensive line.
• 4:42
  Speaker 1: I was amazed by this watching this and then he
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: goes out there, Aaron.
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: He was awesome. He was awesome. This is against the
• 4:47
  Speaker 2: number six defense in the league.
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: It's against Arthur Smith coached offensive was hum and also
• 4:53
  Speaker 1: with Heineke.
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: And it also was on the road, so you're dealing
• 4:56
  Speaker 2: with the road crowd.
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  Speaker 1: He had never taken a snap with any of these players,
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: and sure enough. On a fourth and seven, wiggles out
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  Speaker 1: of the sack, runs, makes a play, gets the first down,
• 5:09
  Speaker 1: moves the chains, and then throws a game winning touchdown
• 5:11
  Speaker 1: to Powell. The Josh Doabs stuff is incredible. More and
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: more stuff keeps on trickling out. I want to say
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: it was Kevin Seffert from ESPN had a couple of
• 5:21
  Speaker 1: really good tweets about how he didn't know all the
• 5:23
  Speaker 1: names to all the players on his team and he
• 5:25
  Speaker 1: hadn't taken and he's and he was like just freestyling
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: it with with Kevin O'Connell. I called O'Connell yesterday. We spoke.
• 5:32
  Speaker 1: I was like, just give me anything. Ye He's like, dude, no,
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: it's it's unbelievable. It's unbelievable because as the game is going,
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: what we did was for Josh to keep it simple.
• 5:40
  Speaker 1: Was like, here is the most basic stuff, maybe ten
• 5:43
  Speaker 1: to fifteen plays, like what you need to know, like
• 5:46
  Speaker 1: the most pig and he ran the full playbook and
• 5:48
  Speaker 1: he kind of did it on like an improvisational whim,
• 5:51
  Speaker 1: like I am so blown away by what Josh did.
• 5:54
  Speaker 2: Josh Jobs did yesterday. And then here's the crazy part.
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: Now, the Vikings are five and four, and they're looking
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: at the playoffs picture in the NAC The Giants done,
• 6:02
  Speaker 1: the Rams look to be done. The Packers aren't scaring anybody.
• 6:06
  Speaker 2: Who's team? Who's that six? There's seventh? You know?
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: Okay, let's go through it, Aaron. You got Cowboys and Eagles, right,
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: so there's two there. Let's say the Saints win the
• 6:14
  Speaker 1: NFC South, so there's your third NFC North.
• 6:17
  Speaker 2: The Lions is your fourth.
• 6:19
  Speaker 1: You've got the five and the six being probably the
• 6:21
  Speaker 1: Niners in the Seahawks.
• 6:22
  Speaker 2: There's a seventh spot sitting there. I don't know.
• 6:26
  Speaker 1: It's gonna be who the Buccaneers, the Falcons. Who's beat
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: the Falcons? The Buccaneers, I don't know. Panthers aren't doing it,
• 6:33
  Speaker 1: Giants are done, Commanders.
• 6:34
  Speaker 3: Mike's selling players off at the deadline.
• 6:37
  Speaker 1: Sure, I mean this Vikings team could be really, really fun.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: And Josh Jobs is a heck of a story. The
• 6:43
  Speaker 1: other story I want to talk about is the Raiders.
• 6:46
  Speaker 1: So again, we were piping up the Chiefs, Dolphins into Seahawks,
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: Ravens into Eagles, Cowboys into Bill's Bengals. We hyped it
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: up as like these are like the four premier matchups
• 6:58
  Speaker 1: of the week.
• 6:58
  Speaker 2: There's no reason to talk about the other games. They're
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: so good. And then you had that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: One in the early window, and then in the four
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: o'clock window, here come the Raiders blow out the Giants.
• 7:06
  Speaker 2: What a story that is.
• 7:08
  Speaker 1: You saw the Jay Glazer report that you know, in
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: my report in the morning, was that people were surprised
• 7:14
  Speaker 1: that Ziggiler lost his job at the GM because he
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: rebuilt the whole front office over the last off season.
• 7:18
  Speaker 1: Now they have like a legitimate front office where you know,
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: in years past, people would look at the Raiders front
• 7:22
  Speaker 1: office and say, okay, well that's that's kind of a
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: wild wild West situation out there. Now they you know,
• 7:28
  Speaker 1: they hired from some of the best teams and Ziggler
• 7:29
  Speaker 1: is really.
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: Building it up. He gets fired. But also Mick Lombardi,
• 7:33
  Speaker 2: who if you.
• 7:33
  Speaker 1: Listen to Mike Lombardi, who's on a lot of these podcasts,
• 7:36
  Speaker 1: does a GM shuffle couse that's his son, Mike, Mick Lombardi.
• 7:39
  Speaker 1: He was a Belichick for years. He gets fired also,
• 7:41
  Speaker 1: So you fire the head coach the GM and.
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: The offensive coordinator.
• 7:46
  Speaker 1: So the quarterbacks coach, Bo Haggerty, he takes over as
• 7:50
  Speaker 1: offensive coordinator and calling plays. Sure enough, the team looked alive.
• 7:55
  Speaker 1: They looked great. Antonio Pierce has those guys humming. They
• 7:58
  Speaker 1: look awesome. They're moving the ball, like just really really
• 8:02
  Speaker 1: inspiring stuff. Then after the game, they're smoking cigars, they're
• 8:07
  Speaker 1: dancing in the locker room and Antonio Pearce, who's rocking
• 8:10
  Speaker 1: two earrings, and I said, I'm good morning football. Think
• 8:12
  Speaker 1: it's the first head coach in NFL history to wear
• 8:13
  Speaker 1: two earrings on the sideline, says, you guys are off
• 8:17
  Speaker 1: till Wednesday. And like you could see in that little video,
• 8:19
  Speaker 1: DeVonta Adams nodding, smiling, like gosh, it was like a
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: cloud was lifted. And I'll be completely honest. And our
• 8:25
  Speaker 1: guests today as a long relationship with them too, Like
• 8:28
  Speaker 1: I like Josh McDaniels. I don't play for Josh McDaniels.
• 8:31
  Speaker 1: I'm a media guy and Josh mctaniels has always been
• 8:34
  Speaker 1: great to me and I've had a good relationship. He's
• 8:35
  Speaker 1: a family man. Like feels like a totally different team.
• 8:38
  Speaker 1: And now suddenly they're alive. They're four and five, they're
• 8:42
  Speaker 1: a real team. Raiders look good. I mean Devant Adams
• 8:44
  Speaker 1: is still good. Josh Jacobs look good, Max Crosby look good.
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: I look around the league and it's it's it's every
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: week is different story. Because I was ready to come
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: in and Aaron, I mean, like, we talked Seattle two
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: weeks ago, like, oh my god, Seattle, well they just
• 8:58
  Speaker 1: got the doors on off them. We talked the Niners
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: the first five weeks, and they've now lost three in
• 9:03
  Speaker 1: a row. And I'll tell you you, look at what's
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: going on around the league. The team that I think
• 9:08
  Speaker 1: might be the most exciting and the one that has
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: me out of my seat the Houston Texans.
• 9:15
  Speaker 2: Did you watch any of that game? Oh yeah, Houston Texans.
• 9:20
  Speaker 2: Not only did c J.
• 9:21
  Speaker 1: Stroud though for four seventy and five touchdowns, the most
• 9:24
  Speaker 1: passing yards of ever buy a rookie, the most touchdowns ever
• 9:27
  Speaker 1: buy a rookie, but they also had to go on
• 9:29
  Speaker 1: a game winning drive in the final minute and he
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: did the job and found Tank Dell Oh yeah, a
• 9:33
  Speaker 1: fellow rookie for the score. So as we look at
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: things here, this is kind of the halfway mark. There's
• 9:38
  Speaker 1: eighteen regular season weeks. We're through nine of them. We
• 9:41
  Speaker 1: got a Jets Chargers game tonight. I think the NFL
• 9:45
  Speaker 1: is wide open. I would say my Super Bowl pick
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: before the season was Chiefs over Niners. I'll stick with
• 9:50
  Speaker 1: it as good as the Eagles. Look, Aaron, what was yours?
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: Mine was Eagles over Bengals?
• 9:57
  Speaker 2: And would you off it or would you stick with it?
• 9:59
  Speaker 3: I'm actually kind of feeling okay with it right now.
• 10:01
  Speaker 4: I mean, like you said, Niners have suddenly just hit
• 10:05
  Speaker 4: this weird streak losing, and you know, Bengals last night
• 10:11
  Speaker 4: like they're they're overcoming whatever ills they had in the
• 10:14
  Speaker 4: beginning of the season. Yeah, and Higgins was, you know,
• 10:18
  Speaker 4: like posting people up last night.
• 10:22
  Speaker 1: For ten catches there tight ends that have not played
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: many roles. Yeah, Tanner, Hudson, IRV Smith and Drew Sample, those.
• 10:29
  Speaker 2: Guys were all the place.
• 10:31
  Speaker 1: So I asked you about as a Bills fan, like
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: you panic mode.
• 10:35
  Speaker 4: I don't think panic mode. But it's in the last
• 10:39
  Speaker 4: three weeks the Bills have not scored. They haven't scored
• 10:43
  Speaker 4: like they should, like obviously, they're too many injuries. The
• 10:45
  Speaker 4: defense is getting hurt all the time. I feel like
• 10:47
  Speaker 4: every week I'm just texting my dad during the game,
• 10:50
  Speaker 4: like how are we so injured every week? I love
• 10:54
  Speaker 4: seeing Dalton Kincaid get some great work, but it's rough.
• 10:58
  Speaker 4: And I do think the Bengals are a very good team,
• 11:03
  Speaker 4: Like if the Ravens weren't there.
• 11:06
  Speaker 1: Well they are, yeah, then this is good, like the
• 11:08
  Speaker 1: Bengals of red hot. They've now swept the last three.
• 11:12
  Speaker 1: They beat the Seahawks, they beat the Niners, and then
• 11:17
  Speaker 1: they beat last night the Bills. Those are three real teams.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: They played the Texans this weekend and then they have
• 11:23
  Speaker 1: the Ravens again. So they've got their they've got their
• 11:25
  Speaker 1: slight ahead of them. Real quick quick story. My son
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: is a big Tyreek Hill fan, and like everything is
• 11:35
  Speaker 1: Tyreek Hill right now.
• 11:36
  Speaker 2: I don't know, you know what.
• 11:38
  Speaker 1: I was a Will Clark fan when I was a kid.
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: Did you watch baseball as a kid? Like Will Clark
• 11:42
  Speaker 1: was on the San Francisco Giants. I was on the
• 11:43
  Speaker 1: Giants little league team and Will Clark was their first baseman.
• 11:46
  Speaker 1: It was like late eighties, and he was will to
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: throw and he was great, and he was lefty and
• 11:50
  Speaker 1: he was great.
• 11:51
  Speaker 2: And that was like my guy as a kid.
• 11:53
  Speaker 1: And my brother was done maddingly and I was Will
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: Clark like we had our guys. My son just loves
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: Tyreek Hill and everything about him. Watches like YouTube highlights
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: and he's only seven, like die Hard, right, So going
• 12:06
  Speaker 1: in this is like a parenting corner type thing. I'm
• 12:08
  Speaker 1: biting off Simmons, I guess. So going into this game,
• 12:10
  Speaker 1: I want my son to watch the Frankfurt game. I said,
• 12:13
  Speaker 1: I say, you know, I think the Chiefs are going
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: to beat the Dolphins.
• 12:16
  Speaker 2: And I gave them all my reasons why.
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: I think the Dolphins, uh, you know, are coming in hot,
• 12:20
  Speaker 1: but they struggle against.
• 12:21
  Speaker 2: The best teams in the league.
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: I also think the Chiefs such a veteran team, and
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: I was really big on Spagnolo and the defense knowing.
• 12:31
  Speaker 2: And I've been papping myself in the back on this one.
• 12:33
  Speaker 1: So long story short, saying my son, I've never done this, Like,
• 12:37
  Speaker 1: let's make a bet. So my son collects these toys
• 12:40
  Speaker 1: called squeeze Mates. Okay, never had them as a kid.
• 12:44
  Speaker 1: They are like literally there's these little toys, but they're
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: really cool. They are all the different.
• 12:49
  Speaker 2: Players in the league, all right.
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: So it's like you collect them and each team has
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: one and some of them are random, like the Bills.
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: One is like Dalton Kincaid, I think, and like the
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: the Colts.
• 12:59
  Speaker 2: One is Michael Pittman Junior.
• 13:01
  Speaker 1: But then you've got the Mahomes, and you've got and that,
• 13:04
  Speaker 1: You've got like the the Jalen Hurts.
• 13:05
  Speaker 2: They're really cool.
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: Google Google Squeeze. You have the Max Crosby Squeeze Mates.
• 13:11
  Speaker 2: They're ten bucks a pop.
• 13:12
  Speaker 1: So they're like old starting lineup toys. With these old
• 13:14
  Speaker 1: squeeze my son is obsessed. All he wanted for his
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: birthday was Squeeze Mates. And like, what do you do
• 13:18
  Speaker 1: with them?
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: Nothing? You collect them?
• 13:20
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you just have.
• 13:21
  Speaker 1: Them, right, So I'm thinking, like a wait, and then
• 13:24
  Speaker 1: my son comes to me and says, let's make a bet.
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: I'm like, oh great, all right, all the promo codes
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: we're giving out or paying off here, let's think a bet.
• 13:32
  Speaker 2: Okay.
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: Now, he's a picky eater, my son mel He'll eat
• 13:35
  Speaker 1: pasta and butter every meal. He'll have pizza every meal.
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: He'll have bagel and cream cheese every meal. That's what
• 13:41
  Speaker 1: he eats, all right, doesn'ty vegetables, doesn't eat chicken, doesn't
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: eat anything.
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: I said, all right, here's the bet.
• 13:50
  Speaker 1: If the dolphins win, I will get you a new
• 13:55
  Speaker 1: Squeeze Mate next week. This is post birthday, post Halloween,
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: more gifts, just what the kid needs. I said, if
• 14:01
  Speaker 1: the Chiefs win, you have to have a steak dinner
• 14:05
  Speaker 1: with me next week. Now does that sound like a
• 14:08
  Speaker 1: punishment to you?
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: Not at all?
• 14:10
  Speaker 3: That sounds that sounds like quality time with dad.
• 14:13
  Speaker 2: Steak dinner. Kids had steak one time in his life.
• 14:16
  Speaker 2: He claims he hated it. We don't force it. I
• 14:20
  Speaker 2: would love nothing more than a steak dinner.
• 14:21
  Speaker 1: I mean, what world are you living in where if
• 14:23
  Speaker 1: you lose, you get a toy and if you win,
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: you get.
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: A steak at dinner with Dad.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: Yes, sign me up for that bet.
• 14:28
  Speaker 1: So sure enough, game's going on. I'm texting my wife.
• 14:31
  Speaker 1: She's out with him. They're watching the marathon. Runners are
• 14:33
  Speaker 1: on Fourth Avenue in Brooklyn and they're giving out water
• 14:36
  Speaker 1: and they're slapping five and I'm like, it's twenty one nothing,
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: tell mel I'm in LA And she's like, oh, that's
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: gonna put him in a bad mood. I'm not telling him. Whatever,
• 14:43
  Speaker 1: it's twenty one seven, then it's twenty one to fourteen.
• 14:45
  Speaker 1: I'm like, get in front of a TV. Have mel
• 14:47
  Speaker 1: watched this end of the game. It comes down to
• 14:49
  Speaker 1: the final thing to out of a shotgun ball, snap.
• 14:54
  Speaker 2: Fumble, japs wind.
• 14:57
  Speaker 1: I FaceTime from la as I'm on my way to
• 14:59
  Speaker 1: the airport, and I'm like, nol that just my son
• 15:02
  Speaker 1: is distraught.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: I don't want to eat dinner.
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: I want to have to get I'm just taunting. I'm like,
• 15:09
  Speaker 2: we can do flas we get a rib, but.
• 15:12
  Speaker 1: Truly the greatest thing, and like we're in New York City,
• 15:14
  Speaker 1: Like I will take him anywhere for this, so we
• 15:16
  Speaker 1: have like this tradition.
• 15:17
  Speaker 2: Now maybe that we could do this.
• 15:19
  Speaker 1: He was distraught and then he was so upset, and
• 15:21
  Speaker 1: then I got home last night and whatever, and I
• 15:23
  Speaker 1: talked to my wife and I'm like I should probably
• 15:25
  Speaker 1: still get him the squeeze mate, right, And She's like, no, no, come,
• 15:30
  Speaker 1: he can't just always win, and like he's got a
• 15:33
  Speaker 1: steak dinner and like when are you going on this
• 15:36
  Speaker 1: steak dinner?
• 15:37
  Speaker 5: What?
• 15:39
  Speaker 2: Like in my head, like it's like a fantasy land.
• 15:41
  Speaker 1: We're just gonna take him to like Peter Lueger tomorrow night,
• 15:44
  Speaker 1: table for two.
• 15:45
  Speaker 2: Me and my son wearing Chiefs and Dolphins logos. End
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: of the story.
• 15:49
  Speaker 1: I will keep you up there, and I know everyone
• 15:50
  Speaker 1: at home is very, very compelled to learn how this goes.
• 15:53
  Speaker 1: But the Steak Dinner slash Squeeze Mate. Bet they sell
• 15:57
  Speaker 1: Squeeze Mates online. But there is one toy store in
• 16:00
  Speaker 1: Tribeca on it's like on like church and probably like
• 16:07
  Speaker 1: Warren Street, like down there our church and somewhere they
• 16:11
  Speaker 1: sell them. And they this random toy store a church
• 16:13
  Speaker 1: and read like down there. Like my son knows it,
• 16:16
  Speaker 1: he's like he wants to go back there. But steak Dinner,
• 16:20
  Speaker 1: I will tell you how it goes. That's important stuff, Aaron.
• 16:23
  Speaker 1: I think everyone needed to hear it real quick. Halloween,
• 16:27
  Speaker 1: what'd you go at?
• 16:28
  Speaker 3: We talked about the slash.
• 16:29
  Speaker 2: You told me you went to parties with Halloween itself.
• 16:31
  Speaker 2: Halloween proper.
• 16:32
  Speaker 4: Oh, it's a little depressing.
• 16:37
  Speaker 2: So I rushed Elliott Smith.
• 16:40
  Speaker 3: I didn't dress up for how So I ran.
• 16:44
  Speaker 4: I rushed home, and I like got out our big
• 16:46
  Speaker 4: bowl I put in.
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: We had a bunch of reeses.
• 16:49
  Speaker 4: We had some leftover like gushers and all sorts of stuff.
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: Some weird party we.
• 16:53
  Speaker 4: Had typically Yeah, and I sat out there and no
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: children came.
• 17:00
  Speaker 3: Really as I was walking home from the subway.
• 17:02
  Speaker 4: I saw a bunch of kids in costume going into
• 17:04
  Speaker 4: bodega's and stuff.
• 17:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I gotta come. Yeah.
• 17:07
  Speaker 4: And I got to the house, like, ran upstairs, filled
• 17:09
  Speaker 4: the bowl and I sat there for probably thirty forty minutes,
• 17:13
  Speaker 4: saw no one at all, And eventually I went back
• 17:16
  Speaker 4: upstairs and I stayed by the window just in case nothing.
• 17:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I dressed as a slice of pizza.
• 17:22
  Speaker 3: Nice.
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: My son, Mel was a slice of pizza.
• 17:25
  Speaker 1: Okay, fits with his Yeah, I was a cheeseburger nice.
• 17:32
  Speaker 1: My wife was she kind of she she was like,
• 17:35
  Speaker 1: I'm getting dressed up, but she couldn't just put on
• 17:37
  Speaker 1: my cattiers.
• 17:38
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, it counts sixy cats.
• 17:39
  Speaker 2: I don't know whatever it is.
• 17:40
  Speaker 1: Yeah. And then my daughter was a unicorn. We left
• 17:44
  Speaker 1: her at home with a babysitter. We went out, three
• 17:48
  Speaker 1: of us. My wife lasted a few hours. Me and
• 17:50
  Speaker 1: Mel were out late though. We were out till like
• 17:52
  Speaker 1: seven eight o'clock, and we went to our favorite pizza
• 17:56
  Speaker 1: place for Scotti, which is on Henry Street, Henry in
• 17:59
  Speaker 1: between like Orange and Pineapple, probably down in Brooklyn. For
• 18:05
  Speaker 1: Scotti cash only old school and usually there's not a
• 18:08
  Speaker 1: huge line. We go in and I'm like to the guys,
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: we're there all the time.
• 18:12
  Speaker 2: Like, guys, look at Mell. They took a photo with mel.
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm gonna frame it, gonna put it up here.
• 18:15
  Speaker 1: Because when you go at a slice of pizza and
• 18:17
  Speaker 1: you get to finish your night with at your favorite
• 18:19
  Speaker 1: pizza place, that's pretty damn good. With no further ado,
• 18:24
  Speaker 1: this is the general manager of the Houston Texans, a
• 18:26
  Speaker 1: team coming off one of the coolest wins in the
• 18:29
  Speaker 1: NFL during Week nine and of course having one of
• 18:32
  Speaker 1: the great starts and surprising starts to the season, the
• 18:35
  Speaker 1: Houston Texans, Nick Casario.
• 18:38
  Speaker 2: Welcome to the season with Peter Schreger.
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: Good morning, Peter, Thanks for having us.
• 18:42
  Speaker 1: I love having you on. I've been trying to get
• 18:44
  Speaker 1: you on for weeks last year. I tried to get
• 18:46
  Speaker 1: You're like, we're building something.
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: When the time is right, like.
• 18:49
  Speaker 1: Let me and you did me the favorite to come
• 18:51
  Speaker 1: on today after yesterday's miracle win. Now when we look
• 18:53
  Speaker 1: at that game and we look back at it, you
• 18:55
  Speaker 1: lose the kicker scores.
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: You have c J.
• 18:57
  Speaker 1: Stroud who has more yards and passing touchdowns and any
• 18:59
  Speaker 1: rookie in the history of the sport. This is now
• 19:02
  Speaker 1: twelve hours removed from kickoff last year. Last the twenty
• 19:05
  Speaker 1: four hours move from kickoff, Like do you have a
• 19:08
  Speaker 1: day to enjoy it or is it on to the
• 19:09
  Speaker 1: next one.
• 19:10
  Speaker 2: We've got to prepare because we've got a big game
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: on Sunday. Yeah.
• 19:13
  Speaker 6: I think when you get home at night, you kind
• 19:15
  Speaker 6: of reflect and part of you know, a lot of
• 19:17
  Speaker 6: coaches my process to go back through the game, kind
• 19:20
  Speaker 6: of watch all three phases, kind of see some of
• 19:22
  Speaker 6: the things that we did well, what are some areas
• 19:24
  Speaker 6: that we can improve, whether some of the things that
• 19:26
  Speaker 6: popped up, and that game there was an ab and
• 19:29
  Speaker 6: flow to it. First half we probably didn't play as
• 19:31
  Speaker 6: well as we either wanted to, kind of got off
• 19:34
  Speaker 6: to a slow start, put ourselves a little bit of
• 19:36
  Speaker 6: a hole.
• 19:37
  Speaker 5: But in the second half we held into.
• 19:39
  Speaker 6: The field goal and then we were able to go
• 19:41
  Speaker 6: down and scoring get some points and then it was
• 19:43
  Speaker 6: kind of back and forth here till the end. And
• 19:46
  Speaker 6: in the end, it's about players making plays. So this
• 19:48
  Speaker 6: is a player's game. It's about the players when they're
• 19:51
  Speaker 6: on the field, and our players fought. The one thing
• 19:53
  Speaker 6: about this team, and I think it starts with Demiko
• 19:55
  Speaker 6: and his thought process and mindset is we're going to
• 19:58
  Speaker 6: battle to the end and we're gonna do everything in
• 20:01
  Speaker 6: our power to try to give ourselves an opportunity.
• 20:04
  Speaker 5: And we talked about it at halftime a little.
• 20:06
  Speaker 6: I mean, for as badly as we had played, it
• 20:09
  Speaker 6: was a one score game, so let's just for all
• 20:13
  Speaker 6: the things that have happened, kind of erased that and
• 20:16
  Speaker 6: let's get ready for the second half.
• 20:17
  Speaker 5: It's a one score game.
• 20:19
  Speaker 6: So we kind of kept chipping away, and you know,
• 20:21
  Speaker 6: those last couple series there, we scored. Dari makes the
• 20:25
  Speaker 6: field goal, which was interesting. It was a discussion. He
• 20:28
  Speaker 6: hadn't practiced that, but we were kind of looking at
• 20:30
  Speaker 6: it as points were probably at a premium, So Tamiko
• 20:34
  Speaker 6: and Frank talked about it and made a decision to
• 20:36
  Speaker 6: go ahead and kick a field goal and then went
• 20:38
  Speaker 6: up three. Then they scored and we got the ball
• 20:40
  Speaker 6: back and we were able to capitalize there at the end.
• 20:42
  Speaker 6: So there's certainly an emotional aspect to the game that's involved,
• 20:47
  Speaker 6: but you have to decompress at night and then come
• 20:49
  Speaker 6: in this morning. The coaches will go through the film
• 20:52
  Speaker 6: and the reality is we're it's Dono Cincinnati. I mean,
• 20:55
  Speaker 6: we're getting ready for Cincinnati against good football team next Sunday.
• 20:58
  Speaker 2: That's interesting. On to Cincinnati, you've heard that one from
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: that works. Let's go back to like.
• 21:05
  Speaker 1: January, February March, and the Texans are in this really
• 21:08
  Speaker 1: interesting time where you've got two picks in the first round,
• 21:13
  Speaker 1: you've got a void at quarterback, or at least we
• 21:16
  Speaker 1: thought so. I mean, there's a lot of rumors that
• 21:18
  Speaker 1: you guys might take a defensive player and no quarterback,
• 21:21
  Speaker 1: and you work out c J.
• 21:22
  Speaker 2: Stroud.
• 21:23
  Speaker 1: Now that it's you know, coming into fruition and he's
• 21:26
  Speaker 1: having one of the greatest seasons we've ever seen from
• 21:28
  Speaker 1: a quarterback as a rookie. What was the pre draft
• 21:31
  Speaker 1: process with Cj? When did you fall in love with him?
• 21:33
  Speaker 1: And when did you know that finally after a couple
• 21:35
  Speaker 1: of years of not taking a quarterback on the front
• 21:37
  Speaker 1: of the draft, this was the year and this is
• 21:39
  Speaker 1: the guy.
• 21:40
  Speaker 6: Yeah, we were positioned fairly well, as you alluded to,
• 21:43
  Speaker 6: with two and twelve kind of going into the draft,
• 21:45
  Speaker 6: so we knew we were going to have either a
• 21:47
  Speaker 6: some flexibility or hopefully we're able to get some good
• 21:50
  Speaker 6: players there at the top of the draft, we were
• 21:53
  Speaker 6: pretty confident that we were going to pick somewhere in
• 21:55
  Speaker 6: the top ten.
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: However, when whether we moved back or we moved up,
• 21:59
  Speaker 5: and you know.
• 21:59
  Speaker 6: Once the season was over, you know, we had done
• 22:03
  Speaker 6: quite a bit of work here as a scouting staff.
• 22:05
  Speaker 6: It's say lip in the college scout staff do an
• 22:07
  Speaker 6: unbelievable job during the fall accumulating information. And once you
• 22:10
  Speaker 6: really the line of demarcation is once the juniors underclassmen
• 22:14
  Speaker 6: actually declare, then you kind of know the pool of
• 22:16
  Speaker 6: players that's going to be available. And those are the
• 22:19
  Speaker 6: groups of people and players that you really have to
• 22:21
  Speaker 6: spend the most time on or with because sometimes you
• 22:24
  Speaker 6: have the least amount of information. But we had gone
• 22:28
  Speaker 6: through the quarterback group pretty extensively. You know, I think
• 22:32
  Speaker 6: it kind of separated itself there. There was kind of
• 22:34
  Speaker 6: a couple of groups of players. There was probably a
• 22:36
  Speaker 6: handful in one kind of category. Then there was a
• 22:39
  Speaker 6: tier below that we really went through every player, whether
• 22:44
  Speaker 6: it was an all star game combine thirty man visits,
• 22:49
  Speaker 6: I want to say we had I don't know, however
• 22:51
  Speaker 6: many it was a handful of quarterbacks in our building
• 22:53
  Speaker 6: is a part of our it's part of our process.
• 22:56
  Speaker 5: And then the zoom calls.
• 22:57
  Speaker 6: So you're just trying to accumulate as much information as
• 23:00
  Speaker 6: possible as many and give them different angles. Maybe you
• 23:02
  Speaker 6: feed them some information, see how they absorb it, then
• 23:05
  Speaker 6: follow up. Okay, we talked about this a little bit earlier.
• 23:08
  Speaker 6: See what their recall was. I think the most important
• 23:11
  Speaker 6: thing is with any player is they just have to
• 23:15
  Speaker 6: be who they are. So whatever their personality is, you
• 23:18
  Speaker 6: just want to see a consistency at every checkpoint from
• 23:21
  Speaker 6: whatever interaction you had, whether it's in the school, whether
• 23:25
  Speaker 6: it's at the combine, whether it's with one coaches, he
• 23:27
  Speaker 6: act the same way with one staff member as he
• 23:30
  Speaker 6: does with another staff member, because you would be surprised
• 23:33
  Speaker 6: at times you find some gaps or they say one
• 23:35
  Speaker 6: thing to one person and then they say another thing
• 23:38
  Speaker 6: and you're like, wait a minute.
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: Let's like in the movies where it's like that he
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: treated the cafeteria people poorly, like that kind of stuff.
• 23:46
  Speaker 5: In some respects.
• 23:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, but even you know, whether they make a commentary
• 23:49
  Speaker 6: about something or their persona or their attitude, or how
• 23:52
  Speaker 6: they interact with other players that are in the building.
• 23:56
  Speaker 6: On the day, we usually bring in I don't know,
• 23:58
  Speaker 6: four or five players or groups of players in on
• 24:00
  Speaker 6: one particular day. We have a pretty extensive process from
• 24:03
  Speaker 6: the time that they walk in the building to they
• 24:05
  Speaker 6: meet with the entire group, and then we reconvene at
• 24:08
  Speaker 6: the end of the day and kind of recalibrate what
• 24:11
  Speaker 6: are our collective observations. You really get input whether it's
• 24:14
  Speaker 6: a strength and conditioning coach, position coach, offensive coordinator, player development, scouting,
• 24:21
  Speaker 6: training staff, medical, You're looking for consistency and behavior across
• 24:27
  Speaker 6: I would say the different areas.
• 24:28
  Speaker 5: So it's a pretty rigorous day.
• 24:31
  Speaker 6: We're not on the you know, let's bring them in
• 24:33
  Speaker 6: and bring him to a steakhouse like Yeah. In the end,
• 24:37
  Speaker 6: you're trying to simulate as much as possible. What is
• 24:40
  Speaker 6: it going to be like in the building on a
• 24:42
  Speaker 6: day to day basis when you're around these people when
• 24:44
  Speaker 6: in the end it's about football. There's nothing else they
• 24:46
  Speaker 6: have to worry about. This is their primary focus, and
• 24:49
  Speaker 6: some can handle that better than others. So I would
• 24:51
  Speaker 6: say as we work through that process, things start to
• 24:54
  Speaker 6: declare themselves there a little bit, you know, specific to CJ.
• 24:58
  Speaker 6: I mean, I think his personality. You feel it, you
• 25:00
  Speaker 6: feel his presence when you're in the room with them.
• 25:03
  Speaker 6: There's a confidence, there's a competitiveness, there's an edge and
• 25:06
  Speaker 6: a good way of what you want and he has
• 25:09
  Speaker 6: I would say, he's It's that balance of confidence in humility,
• 25:12
  Speaker 6: like you believe in yourself, but you also have to
• 25:15
  Speaker 6: make sure that there are times when you take a
• 25:17
  Speaker 6: step back and you know, you put your ego aside.
• 25:20
  Speaker 6: So I'd say by the time we got to April,
• 25:23
  Speaker 6: we kind of had an idea and then really the.
• 25:25
  Speaker 5: Draft is about positioning.
• 25:27
  Speaker 6: So really those last couple of weeks in April, you're
• 25:30
  Speaker 6: having dialogue, you're looking at your options, you're getting more information.
• 25:33
  Speaker 6: Let's say, you know, we did pretty extensive work and
• 25:37
  Speaker 6: just kind of go back and just check and double check.
• 25:39
  Speaker 5: And part of the.
• 25:42
  Speaker 6: You know, part of this process is finding the right
• 25:44
  Speaker 6: people to talk to that give you the true representation
• 25:47
  Speaker 6: of really what you're going to get, you know, because
• 25:49
  Speaker 6: then they can bottom line it for you and say, look,
• 25:51
  Speaker 6: in the end, here are the things that are important,
• 25:53
  Speaker 6: and each player is going to be a little bit different.
• 25:54
  Speaker 5: So a lot of.
• 25:55
  Speaker 6: Discussions, a lot of dialogue, and we felt confident by
• 25:59
  Speaker 6: the end, and you know, we really didn't know where
• 26:02
  Speaker 6: or how things were gonna unfold on draft day.
• 26:06
  Speaker 5: You know, I know Demiko and I you know, we've talked.
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: We talk every day.
• 26:10
  Speaker 6: I'd say during that time, I mean we talked Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday,
• 26:13
  Speaker 6: went through scenarios, Hey, what are some different options, and
• 26:16
  Speaker 6: he was great. And then I'd say by the end,
• 26:18
  Speaker 6: we certainly had conviction. And then you know, when it
• 26:20
  Speaker 6: came time to make the selection, then we you know,
• 26:22
  Speaker 6: went ahead and did what we felt made the most
• 26:24
  Speaker 6: sense for our organization. So it was pick and then
• 26:27
  Speaker 6: you know, we were able to consummate the trade there
• 26:30
  Speaker 6: with Mani and move up to three and then pick
• 26:33
  Speaker 6: both players.
• 26:33
  Speaker 5: And you know, here we are.
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: Go back into your shoes because in the media, in
• 26:38
  Speaker 1: my world, it was understood that Bryce Young was probably
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: going one, and then there were stories that you guys
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: were going to take Tyree Wilson out of Texas Tech.
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: Then there was stories that you're gonna take Will Anderson second. Overall,
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: then there was the S two cognition test stuff that
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: can and all this stuff is going on, and it
• 26:53
  Speaker 1: makes for great TV and good morning football when you're in.
• 26:56
  Speaker 2: That building and I'll give you a great show. Thank you,
• 26:58
  Speaker 2: great show, great show. We love that stuff.
• 27:03
  Speaker 1: But when you're in that building and there's all this
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: other stuff swarming, is it like we don't even pay
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: attention to that stuff, all those rumors, or because I'll
• 27:11
  Speaker 1: say it like it is, Nick, no one knew what
• 27:14
  Speaker 1: Houston was doing two overall until that pick was in,
• 27:17
  Speaker 1: and no one knew what was happening at three overall
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: until that pick was in. So is that a source
• 27:21
  Speaker 1: of pride that no one was on your tail? There
• 27:24
  Speaker 1: is no leaks in this building and there's no one
• 27:26
  Speaker 1: giving it away. Or is it one of those where
• 27:28
  Speaker 1: it's like, this is what we were going to do,
• 27:31
  Speaker 1: what we weren't going to do, We don't care what
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: the media says.
• 27:33
  Speaker 5: No, it's a great question.
• 27:34
  Speaker 6: I think it's really a credit to a lot of
• 27:36
  Speaker 6: the people that are in the building. And I mean
• 27:39
  Speaker 6: Dimiko's really main message to the team, and the number
• 27:43
  Speaker 6: one rule is protect the team. So we all have
• 27:46
  Speaker 6: a responsibility to protect the team and do what is
• 27:49
  Speaker 6: right by the team, not by one individual or not
• 27:53
  Speaker 6: subject to i would say public perception or external factors.
• 27:57
  Speaker 5: So part of your job, I mean, that's what you
• 28:00
  Speaker 5: all do.
• 28:00
  Speaker 6: I mean, there's a lot that you want to talk about,
• 28:02
  Speaker 6: need to talk about because there's a gap. There's no
• 28:05
  Speaker 6: football being played, so you have essentially when free agency
• 28:09
  Speaker 6: is over, as you know, middle of March. Free agency
• 28:11
  Speaker 6: is done the first or second week in March. You
• 28:12
  Speaker 6: have four to five weeks or what else is there
• 28:15
  Speaker 6: to talk about. There's no offseason program in no football,
• 28:17
  Speaker 6: so you're going to talk about the draft every day.
• 28:18
  Speaker 5: So I think the thing that you have to.
• 28:20
  Speaker 6: Guard against more than anything is misinformation during the spring.
• 28:25
  Speaker 6: And it goes back to trusting your work, trusting the
• 28:29
  Speaker 6: time that you've put in, trust the people in the
• 28:31
  Speaker 6: building that who have I would say invested a significant
• 28:35
  Speaker 6: amount of time and effort, and just have constant dialogue
• 28:39
  Speaker 6: and communication and quite frankly, you have to ignore the
• 28:43
  Speaker 6: external factors. We're cognizant that it's there, that's out there.
• 28:47
  Speaker 6: There's going to be a lot of discussion, what are
• 28:49
  Speaker 6: the motives behind that?
• 28:50
  Speaker 5: I mean, as you.
• 28:51
  Speaker 6: Know, sometimes things get a little bit jaded or shifted
• 28:55
  Speaker 6: a certain way and you try to pain or create
• 28:57
  Speaker 6: a narrative. So we just have to make sure that
• 29:00
  Speaker 6: we maintain our discipline and just do what we think
• 29:03
  Speaker 6: is in the best interests of the organization. And frankly,
• 29:06
  Speaker 6: and I've said this publicly multiple times, I mean, the
• 29:09
  Speaker 6: draft's a fifty to fifty proposition.
• 29:11
  Speaker 5: So there's going to.
• 29:11
  Speaker 6: Be players that you think it's going to go one
• 29:14
  Speaker 6: way and it works out the way you hope. There's
• 29:16
  Speaker 6: going to be other players for whatever the reason that
• 29:18
  Speaker 6: doesn't go the way that you would have hoped it would.
• 29:20
  Speaker 6: So there's no experts in what we do. There's no
• 29:23
  Speaker 6: experts in our field. There's no experts in our building.
• 29:25
  Speaker 6: I think we have a lot of people with a
• 29:27
  Speaker 6: lot of pride that care about their work and are
• 29:30
  Speaker 6: invested fully in the process. And we have to trust
• 29:33
  Speaker 6: each other, and we have to trust ourselves, and we
• 29:35
  Speaker 6: have to trust the work that we put into it.
• 29:38
  Speaker 6: So I'd say, really the draft is a culmination of
• 29:41
  Speaker 6: the effort of so many people. And then really the draft,
• 29:45
  Speaker 6: to a certain extent, you're prepared, but you have to
• 29:47
  Speaker 6: be able to adjust and adapt and kind of bob
• 29:49
  Speaker 6: and weave as you go because you have to be
• 29:51
  Speaker 6: prepared for a marriag to different scenarios. So I think,
• 29:55
  Speaker 6: more than anything, it's just a credit to the people
• 29:56
  Speaker 6: in the building. And the reality is at some point
• 30:00
  Speaker 6: the information is going to get caught off and there's
• 30:02
  Speaker 6: going to be certain people that have access to the information.
• 30:04
  Speaker 6: I mean, that's just part of running just a company
• 30:07
  Speaker 6: or a good business.
• 30:07
  Speaker 2: Yeah, and everyone needs to know all the details.
• 30:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah, And going going back to what Demko says, I
• 30:12
  Speaker 6: would say consistently is protect the team. So in the end,
• 30:15
  Speaker 6: we're about protecting the team and doing what's right for
• 30:18
  Speaker 6: the organization.
• 30:19
  Speaker 1: You take CJ Stroud at too, and there's a couple
• 30:22
  Speaker 1: of oohs and odds, and then didn'ting the Texans are
• 30:26
  Speaker 1: back on the clock? Could you take us through those
• 30:27
  Speaker 1: six minutes of you negotiating with money asen for it
• 30:30
  Speaker 1: the first year GM, who is a former colleague of yours.
• 30:33
  Speaker 1: Who is the Arizona Cardinals GM, and how you guys
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: decided to make them move up to number three.
• 30:37
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I mean, I'd say relationships are a huge part
• 30:40
  Speaker 6: of this business. Have a tremendous respect and admiration for Moni,
• 30:44
  Speaker 6: both personally and professionally. And we had added some constructive
• 30:47
  Speaker 6: dialogues probably a week or two about probably about a
• 30:51
  Speaker 6: week out.
• 30:51
  Speaker 5: From the draft just going back and forth.
• 30:55
  Speaker 6: You know, he was certainly weighing some things on his end,
• 30:58
  Speaker 6: and then we're able to kind of get some i
• 31:00
  Speaker 6: would say general parameters sort of in place if if
• 31:04
  Speaker 6: this happened, here's what potential it would entail. Not knowing
• 31:08
  Speaker 6: that whether or not it would come to fruition or not,
• 31:11
  Speaker 6: so we didn't know. We went back and forth, so
• 31:14
  Speaker 6: there was a gap there where quite frankly, you know,
• 31:16
  Speaker 6: we didn't really know what was going to happen. And
• 31:19
  Speaker 6: it happened quickly because there's what is it, ten minutes
• 31:22
  Speaker 6: in the first round, So we make the pick and
• 31:25
  Speaker 6: then okay, Arizona's on the clock, all right, so a
• 31:28
  Speaker 6: minute or two go off, So then you're at five
• 31:29
  Speaker 6: to six minutes and you don't have a trade. And
• 31:31
  Speaker 6: then there's a lot of logistics that are involved, from
• 31:34
  Speaker 6: agreeing to the compensation, agreeing to the trade, getting that
• 31:36
  Speaker 6: information to the league, make sure the league confirms that
• 31:42
  Speaker 6: you actually have the trade, and then you're on the clock,
• 31:45
  Speaker 6: and then have to get a hold of the player
• 31:46
  Speaker 6: and make sure the pick gets turned in via Microsoft
• 31:50
  Speaker 6: teams or whatever technology is available. So there's a lot
• 31:54
  Speaker 6: of that can happen so I think you just kind
• 31:56
  Speaker 6: of have to maintain, you know, you have to take
• 31:58
  Speaker 6: the emotion out of it. But when the trade was
• 32:01
  Speaker 6: actually consummated, maybe the pick, you know, we were all
• 32:04
  Speaker 6: excited an emotion because we felt I would say convicted.
• 32:09
  Speaker 6: You're really about both players. So yeah, so it was exciting.
• 32:13
  Speaker 6: It was an exciting time for the people that are involved.
• 32:15
  Speaker 6: It's an exciting time for the organization, for ownership, and
• 32:18
  Speaker 6: they're certainly supportive of what we're trying to do. So yeah,
• 32:22
  Speaker 6: so you know, it was a cool moment just for
• 32:24
  Speaker 6: everybody involved. And then you kind of take a deep
• 32:26
  Speaker 6: breath and realize, all right, you're not picking until round
• 32:29
  Speaker 6: because you don't have a second round pick.
• 32:31
  Speaker 5: But I mean that's the way it goes.
• 32:32
  Speaker 2: Stroud gets there Anderson gets there. It's a pretty cool deal.
• 32:35
  Speaker 1: You've got now your cornerstone at quarterback, your defensive end
• 32:38
  Speaker 1: for the future. Now, was there a moment this summer
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: where you saw CJ. Stroud do something and say, oh boy, okay,
• 32:45
  Speaker 1: we got something here.
• 32:47
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you're just looking from the time they
• 32:49
  Speaker 6: walk in the building for improvement, because the reality is
• 32:53
  Speaker 6: whoever you pick, whenever you pick them regardless of how
• 32:55
  Speaker 6: talented or how productive they've been, they're really they're starting
• 32:58
  Speaker 6: from scratch. So they're just kind of putting the foundation
• 33:01
  Speaker 6: in place, learning the building, learning the people, learning, learning
• 33:05
  Speaker 6: the terminology, learning how to prectice, going out there making mistakes,
• 33:09
  Speaker 6: and then going back correcting do you not make the
• 33:11
  Speaker 6: same mistakes a second time? So the bottom line is
• 33:15
  Speaker 6: you're just looking for improvement from the time you start
• 33:17
  Speaker 6: until an endpoint. So you really have called six weeks
• 33:20
  Speaker 6: where you can evaluate. So you get into OTAs and
• 33:23
  Speaker 6: then you get into mini camps. After four or five weeks,
• 33:25
  Speaker 6: you say, all right, take inventory of where we are.
• 33:27
  Speaker 6: All right, there's some things out have gone well, here's
• 33:29
  Speaker 6: some things that we could certainly fix or improve. And
• 33:32
  Speaker 6: I think CJ earned the job and earned the opportunity
• 33:36
  Speaker 6: with his performance. And I think that started from the beginning.
• 33:40
  Speaker 6: What the expectation was, like, nobody's going to be handing
• 33:43
  Speaker 6: anything when they walk in our building. You have to
• 33:45
  Speaker 6: earn it on a day to day basis with your attitude,
• 33:47
  Speaker 6: with your behavior, and your performance. And the players that
• 33:50
  Speaker 6: do those things, those are the players that we're gonna
• 33:52
  Speaker 6: be able to rely on. That we're gonna be able
• 33:54
  Speaker 6: to trust and then we're gonna we're gonna want to
• 33:56
  Speaker 6: put on the field. So we came back from from
• 33:59
  Speaker 6: the summer, I had a little bit of break there,
• 34:00
  Speaker 6: came back in training camp. I would say, there was
• 34:02
  Speaker 6: some good plays and kind of incrementally it got better,
• 34:05
  Speaker 6: and I'd say after a week or two, you start
• 34:07
  Speaker 6: to see some things and then try to give him
• 34:09
  Speaker 6: a little bit more, see what he can absorb, see
• 34:11
  Speaker 6: what we can handle. And then by the time when
• 34:14
  Speaker 6: you know, I think we you know, got there to
• 34:15
  Speaker 6: the end. I think we kind of knew the direction
• 34:17
  Speaker 6: that we were going to go. And then you kind
• 34:19
  Speaker 6: of hit the reset button once a training camp is over,
• 34:22
  Speaker 6: and once the preseason is over, hit the reset button
• 34:25
  Speaker 6: and you're really kind of going back to square one's
• 34:28
  Speaker 6: Week one in Baltimore, which I would say not surprisingly.
• 34:32
  Speaker 6: I mean, they're one of the best teams in the league.
• 34:34
  Speaker 6: I think we knew it was going to be a
• 34:35
  Speaker 6: pretty significant challenge going into Baltimore, playing on a road,
• 34:38
  Speaker 6: playing against a really good team, and there were some
• 34:40
  Speaker 6: things that I think we learned about our team, and
• 34:42
  Speaker 6: not only CJ, but we've learned about our team. I
• 34:44
  Speaker 6: mean you know, it was a one score game, seven
• 34:46
  Speaker 6: to six at half time. The second half kind of
• 34:48
  Speaker 6: got away from us, but you know, there were some
• 34:50
  Speaker 6: things that we had to get corrected, corrected and fixed.
• 34:52
  Speaker 6: And you know then we turn around the next week
• 34:54
  Speaker 6: and we lose at home in the row and two.
• 34:56
  Speaker 6: But I think the team stayed invested. The attitude was great,
• 35:00
  Speaker 6: that morale was great, and it really it starts with
• 35:01
  Speaker 6: Demko and his leadership at the top.
• 35:04
  Speaker 1: Let's go to that higher because you guys had been
• 35:07
  Speaker 1: through two different coaches who lasted one year, and it's
• 35:09
  Speaker 1: kind of like, we got to get this one right.
• 35:11
  Speaker 1: You guys brought in other people and you hired Demiko,
• 35:14
  Speaker 1: Ryan's former player, who was a very well respected defensive
• 35:17
  Speaker 1: coach and then coordinator for the Sanftisco forty nine ers.
• 35:20
  Speaker 1: Did you have the history of Demiko at all? I
• 35:21
  Speaker 1: know he was with the Texans and the Eagles for
• 35:23
  Speaker 1: a little bit. Did you ever were you ever in
• 35:25
  Speaker 1: front office where he was one of the players.
• 35:26
  Speaker 5: Yeah, no, we never overlapped.
• 35:28
  Speaker 6: We played against the Texans multiple times when I was
• 35:31
  Speaker 6: in New England, but when Demiko was a player here
• 35:33
  Speaker 6: as as a matter of fact, we played against Philadelphia
• 35:36
  Speaker 6: when he played for I want to think he was
• 35:38
  Speaker 6: playing for Chip. Yeah, we played them during the regular
• 35:40
  Speaker 6: season there at one point. But as far as that,
• 35:43
  Speaker 6: I mean, we didn't have any of it. Say, we
• 35:45
  Speaker 6: knew of each other.
• 35:46
  Speaker 2: Sure, but there wasn't some long relationship with twenty years.
• 35:48
  Speaker 6: No, No, we didn't know each other. I'd say on
• 35:50
  Speaker 6: a personal level. It was just more of kind of
• 35:53
  Speaker 6: from afar and you respect. You know what a coach
• 35:57
  Speaker 6: does when you watch their team play. You know, we
• 36:00
  Speaker 6: played against San Francisco in twenty he was it twenty
• 36:04
  Speaker 6: one when we played against them in my first year here,
• 36:07
  Speaker 6: went out there and played against them. So then you
• 36:10
  Speaker 6: just start to accumulate information. You know, we made the change.
• 36:14
  Speaker 6: You know, we put a lot of say, thought and
• 36:16
  Speaker 6: effort into it, and you know there are a number
• 36:18
  Speaker 6: of people that are involved in that process, and you
• 36:21
  Speaker 6: know we went through that process.
• 36:22
  Speaker 5: And you know there was he was.
• 36:24
  Speaker 6: He stood out amongst the would say a pretty good
• 36:26
  Speaker 6: group of candidates for a myriad of reasons. I think
• 36:28
  Speaker 6: the big thing and that there's a lot of people
• 36:30
  Speaker 6: in this building that were around him as a player.
• 36:33
  Speaker 6: I would say, who he is is you know, he's.
• 36:36
  Speaker 5: True to who he is.
• 36:38
  Speaker 6: He has a great mindset, he has a great personality.
• 36:40
  Speaker 6: He's genuine, he's very competitive, he cares about people.
• 36:44
  Speaker 5: He's good at his job. He was a good player.
• 36:47
  Speaker 6: He's invested in the city of Houston, and he had
• 36:50
  Speaker 6: success and he was a part of winning programs. I
• 36:52
  Speaker 6: mean what John and Kyle have done out there in
• 36:54
  Speaker 6: San Francisco. I mean, there's not too many programs that
• 36:57
  Speaker 6: have had his much success. So you know, when to
• 36:59
  Speaker 6: put all those factors together, you know, we made a
• 37:03
  Speaker 6: decision that we did. There's a lot of excitement, and
• 37:06
  Speaker 6: you know he deserves, you know, every amount. He deserves
• 37:10
  Speaker 6: as much credit is anybody because he's put his imprint
• 37:14
  Speaker 6: on this team with his message and his just consistency
• 37:17
  Speaker 6: day to day, and the players respond. They want to
• 37:20
  Speaker 6: play for him, they want to be here. He holds
• 37:22
  Speaker 6: him to a high standard, he holds him accountable. He
• 37:24
  Speaker 6: cares a lot about them, regardless win or lose. It's
• 37:28
  Speaker 6: the standard of performance has been established, the mindset has
• 37:31
  Speaker 6: been established. We know we're not going to win every game,
• 37:34
  Speaker 6: but are we doing the things on a week to week,
• 37:36
  Speaker 6: day to day basis that put ourselves into position and
• 37:38
  Speaker 6: if we.
• 37:38
  Speaker 5: Don't, then here's the reason why. Here's the things that
• 37:41
  Speaker 5: we need to get fixed.
• 37:42
  Speaker 6: So, I mean, I can't say enough great things about
• 37:46
  Speaker 6: who he is not as a coach, but as a
• 37:48
  Speaker 6: human being as a person, and those things certainly matter
• 37:51
  Speaker 6: when you're running a football team, when you're around each
• 37:53
  Speaker 6: other essentially on a day to day basis for multiple
• 37:55
  Speaker 6: months out of the year.
• 37:57
  Speaker 1: Yeah, and then he brings in Bobby Slowick as the
• 37:59
  Speaker 1: offensive coordinator, and you think about that forty nine ers tree.
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: You know, we've already seen.
• 38:04
  Speaker 1: Kyle have all the success here, but like now you've
• 38:06
  Speaker 1: got Mike Lafleur has already been elsewhere as in OC twice.
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: You've got Mike McDaniel now flourishing. And then here's this
• 38:12
  Speaker 2: Bobby slow who.
• 38:13
  Speaker 1: I got to be honest, I wasn't aware of what
• 38:16
  Speaker 1: his offense would look like because he never was necessarily
• 38:18
  Speaker 1: calling the plays in San Francisco. And then now he
• 38:20
  Speaker 1: comes in. You've got to be overjoyed with the connection
• 38:23
  Speaker 1: he's had with Stroud and these young receivers.
• 38:25
  Speaker 6: Yeah, it's interesting. I mean, I think there's a propensity
• 38:28
  Speaker 6: to kind of attach trees and well, this is going
• 38:31
  Speaker 6: to happen. And I think the reality is when you're
• 38:33
  Speaker 6: running a program, when you're starting a program, when you're
• 38:35
  Speaker 6: bringing somebody in, you sort of have to make it
• 38:38
  Speaker 6: your own.
• 38:38
  Speaker 5: So I think all of us have a foundation.
• 38:41
  Speaker 6: I'd say that we were raised on or who we
• 38:44
  Speaker 6: worked under, or who we learned under philosophies how that
• 38:48
  Speaker 6: was built. But the reality is when you go into
• 38:51
  Speaker 6: a building and start a program and bring people in,
• 38:54
  Speaker 6: is you're trying to put your own spin on whatever
• 38:56
  Speaker 6: that is. And it's usually a function of the players
• 38:59
  Speaker 6: that you have in the building and the things that
• 39:01
  Speaker 6: they do well. So your ability to adjust to adapt.
• 39:04
  Speaker 6: You have a core foundation the principles that are important,
• 39:08
  Speaker 6: but the reality is you're probably going to have to
• 39:10
  Speaker 6: bob and weave a little bit and you know, make
• 39:12
  Speaker 6: some adjustments as you go as reading something you know,
• 39:14
  Speaker 6: in fact, we're playing you know, Cincinnati this week with
• 39:16
  Speaker 6: Zach and Zach has made a comment how sometimes how
• 39:19
  Speaker 6: the offense starts at the beginning of the year looks
• 39:21
  Speaker 6: a lot different when you get midway, and really that's
• 39:24
  Speaker 6: sort of emblematic of what this league is about. You
• 39:26
  Speaker 6: really have to be able to adjust and make some modifications.
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: And adjustments to your personnel, or.
• 39:30
  Speaker 6: If something's not going well all right, maybe figure out
• 39:34
  Speaker 6: a different way to do it or come up with
• 39:35
  Speaker 6: another solution. So Bobby's a very smart person, works very hard.
• 39:40
  Speaker 6: He has an interesting perspective because he was on the
• 39:43
  Speaker 6: defensive side of the ball, and sometimes I would say,
• 39:47
  Speaker 6: you know, I would speak from experience. When you work
• 39:49
  Speaker 6: on the opposite side of the ball, it gives you
• 39:51
  Speaker 6: a better understanding of what goes on on you know,
• 39:55
  Speaker 6: their respective side side of the coin.
• 39:57
  Speaker 5: There.
• 39:57
  Speaker 6: So in Bobby's case, he kind of had a background
• 40:00
  Speaker 6: in defense. Of course, his dad has been a very
• 40:03
  Speaker 6: successful defensive coach. His brother's down here in Miami coaching
• 40:07
  Speaker 6: on defense. So Bobby has a really unique background.
• 40:10
  Speaker 5: Very smart.
• 40:10
  Speaker 6: I mean, anybody goes to Michigan Tech, like you got
• 40:13
  Speaker 6: to be pretty smart.
• 40:14
  Speaker 1: So I think he also works for a pro football
• 40:16
  Speaker 1: focus for a while, I'm not mistaken, Like he was
• 40:18
  Speaker 1: on the analytics side doing research.
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: That's different.
• 40:20
  Speaker 6: So you learn a lot and then when you go
• 40:22
  Speaker 6: anytime you go into a situation, you're trying to figure out,
• 40:25
  Speaker 6: all right, these are things that are important. We want
• 40:27
  Speaker 6: to start here are who are the players? What are
• 40:30
  Speaker 6: we going to do and then you know, we're eight
• 40:32
  Speaker 6: games into the season. Now I think we have a
• 40:34
  Speaker 6: decent idea of some of the things that you know,
• 40:36
  Speaker 6: maybe either quarterback does well or certain players do well. Understanding,
• 40:40
  Speaker 6: we still have nine games out of us and there's
• 40:42
  Speaker 6: a lot of good coaches out there, so you know,
• 40:45
  Speaker 6: we've put together Dimico's put together a great staff.
• 40:47
  Speaker 5: They work well together.
• 40:48
  Speaker 6: It's a good combination of youth and experience and really,
• 40:51
  Speaker 6: whatever your background is, that's kind of your your starting point.
• 40:55
  Speaker 6: But the reality is you're trying to create your own
• 40:57
  Speaker 6: image of what you wanted to look like.
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: All right, Now, let's talk about you a little bit here. Okay.
• 41:01
  Speaker 1: You're born in lind Hurst, Ohio. All right, you're going
• 41:04
  Speaker 1: to have to lindn Hurst, Ohio. Okay, and you're from
• 41:07
  Speaker 1: what I call the John Cairol Mafia. You go to
• 41:10
  Speaker 1: John Carroll where all of you guys, I feel like
• 41:13
  Speaker 1: ninety eight percent of the gms and coaches in the
• 41:15
  Speaker 1: league quietly went to John Carroll. You know, John, But
• 41:20
  Speaker 1: it's not a straight shot to New England. You start
• 41:23
  Speaker 1: off at Saginaw Valley State as a grad assistant. You
• 41:26
  Speaker 1: end up going to Central Michigan and then you end
• 41:30
  Speaker 1: up with the Patriots as a coach and you're coaching
• 41:32
  Speaker 1: them for a while before making the move to moving
• 41:37
  Speaker 1: over to the director of pro personnel. So take us
• 41:39
  Speaker 1: through your path a little bit. Let's go from from
• 41:42
  Speaker 1: graduating college and what you wanted to do for a
• 41:44
  Speaker 1: living and how you got there.
• 41:46
  Speaker 6: Yeah, so when I got to college, you know, I
• 41:49
  Speaker 6: thought I was going to major in political science, go
• 41:52
  Speaker 6: to law school, kind of take that route and switch
• 41:54
  Speaker 6: my majors a few times. I think I went from
• 41:56
  Speaker 6: marketing to finance. I enjoyed finance, even going all the
• 42:00
  Speaker 6: way back to when I was in my senior year
• 42:04
  Speaker 6: of high school. University school, we had to do kind
• 42:06
  Speaker 6: of a one month internship and I did an internship
• 42:09
  Speaker 6: at Kidder Peabody, which is not defunct. And then eventually
• 42:12
  Speaker 6: Smith Barney worked for a guy with the name of
• 42:16
  Speaker 6: Jeff Rotsky. Jeff actually has been a really successful high
• 42:18
  Speaker 6: school coach. So Jeff kind of had the balance of
• 42:21
  Speaker 6: football business, you know, where he was basically a stockbroker
• 42:24
  Speaker 6: by day, and then he ended up coaching multiple high
• 42:27
  Speaker 6: schools in the city at Cleveland. So anyways, so as
• 42:31
  Speaker 6: a finance major, So I finished football December nineteen ninety
• 42:37
  Speaker 6: eight and then started working at Merrill Lynch.
• 42:39
  Speaker 5: I was working for. Jeff was working in finance. We
• 42:43
  Speaker 5: had a is that right?
• 42:43
  Speaker 2: What were you doing? Were you like a press off?
• 42:45
  Speaker 6: And he's doing research and we had a fee base
• 42:48
  Speaker 6: product that we were pitching at the time, so I
• 42:50
  Speaker 6: was kind of responsible for that. You know, where you
• 42:52
  Speaker 6: match up certain money managers. Here's a product we offer,
• 42:55
  Speaker 6: here's the uh, here's the fund, here's some of the
• 42:57
  Speaker 6: holdings within the fund. Essentially try to pitch that to clients.
• 43:01
  Speaker 6: So started doing that. In January, my best friend John
• 43:04
  Speaker 6: Priestep and I started working together. So John and I
• 43:07
  Speaker 6: are working together, living together. John played receiver for US
• 43:11
  Speaker 6: at John Carroll. He and I established an unbelievable friendship
• 43:16
  Speaker 6: from the time that he arrived on camp. So John
• 43:17
  Speaker 6: and I were working together, so we kind of had
• 43:19
  Speaker 6: a professional life making decent money.
• 43:21
  Speaker 1: Had the picture in subway ads and billboards like here
• 43:25
  Speaker 1: we are, this is the two guys, the two young
• 43:27
  Speaker 1: bros selling stock tips and yeah exactly.
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 43:30
  Speaker 6: So while we started working, you know, I think I
• 43:34
  Speaker 6: had an itch for football and sport, and I'd say
• 43:37
  Speaker 6: that my the root of that is, you know, my
• 43:40
  Speaker 6: high school coach, my high school head coach and office coordinator,
• 43:43
  Speaker 6: John Carroll Operella got rest his soul, had a tremendous impact,
• 43:46
  Speaker 6: I'd say on my life. He helped me as a player.
• 43:49
  Speaker 6: He helped me via calm the player that I developed into.
• 43:52
  Speaker 6: I mean, I wasn't very good, but he got the
• 43:54
  Speaker 6: most out of me. I'd like to think that I
• 43:57
  Speaker 6: worked pretty hard at football and cared a lot about football,
• 44:00
  Speaker 6: and I love being around the sport and being around
• 44:03
  Speaker 6: the game. So at the time I was single, I
• 44:06
  Speaker 6: didn't have any sort of connections to anybody or anything.
• 44:10
  Speaker 6: So I went on the football scoop or whatever. They
• 44:16
  Speaker 6: a graduate assistant job. So I literally I drove to
• 44:20
  Speaker 6: Concordy University, which is outside of Chicago. They interviewed there,
• 44:25
  Speaker 6: and then I took another day trip up to Saginaw Valley.
• 44:27
  Speaker 6: Literally didn't know a coach, didn't know anybody on staff.
• 44:31
  Speaker 6: Just wanted to be in football. So I drove to
• 44:33
  Speaker 6: Saganaw Valley, met with coach or Randy Ori, I was
• 44:36
  Speaker 6: a head coach at the time. I went over there
• 44:38
  Speaker 6: over the summer, said coach, look, I just just want
• 44:40
  Speaker 6: to be in football. I just want to be involved.
• 44:42
  Speaker 6: I'll take whatever job you have available. They had posted
• 44:44
  Speaker 6: a position. It was an offensive grad assistant position or
• 44:47
  Speaker 6: whatever it was. And then by the and along with that,
• 44:51
  Speaker 6: I was able to pursue an NBA you know, so
• 44:54
  Speaker 6: I could coach. I could still work on some schooling.
• 44:57
  Speaker 6: So it was kind of two for one. I'd say,
• 45:00
  Speaker 6: two areas that I was fairly passionate about. So started
• 45:03
  Speaker 6: Saganaw Valley.
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: Let me just put this in the perspective. So, you're
• 45:06
  Speaker 1: making real money living in a city, right, You're living
• 45:08
  Speaker 1: in Cleveland.
• 45:09
  Speaker 2: We're living Yeah.
• 45:10
  Speaker 6: I was making a decent amount of money at the time. Yeah,
• 45:12
  Speaker 6: and then I took a graduate assistant position. I think
• 45:14
  Speaker 6: it was making I don't know, twenty five hundred dollars
• 45:16
  Speaker 6: a year, so.
• 45:17
  Speaker 2: Twenty five hundred a year. But think about this you had.
• 45:19
  Speaker 1: It's very easy though, for you to say, you know what,
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: I've got a job, I've got a nice apartment paying
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: my rent.
• 45:25
  Speaker 2: I mean, Cleveland's cool city with my best friend. But
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: the football which was so great that you gave it
• 45:30
  Speaker 2: all up and drove with no connection to Saginaw Valley
• 45:34
  Speaker 2: State to work for next to nothing, just to get
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: your foot in the door.
• 45:38
  Speaker 6: Yeah, and I think a lot of us have been
• 45:39
  Speaker 6: in the same situation. But I'd say going back to John,
• 45:42
  Speaker 6: I'd say his family was a huge impact. They essentially,
• 45:46
  Speaker 6: you know, helped me over a two year period. And
• 45:50
  Speaker 6: John is from outside of Detroit, so he had family there.
• 45:53
  Speaker 6: So that was the only people that I really knew.
• 45:56
  Speaker 6: And you know, John was supported. Here's my best friend
• 45:58
  Speaker 6: working together. He was supporting as anybody. So I went
• 46:02
  Speaker 6: up to Saginaw Valley. We actually had a pretty good
• 46:03
  Speaker 6: team my second year, so working on offense, kind of
• 46:07
  Speaker 6: working with the running backs, handling some of the special teams,
• 46:10
  Speaker 6: and then I was also going to class at night,
• 46:13
  Speaker 6: and I loved it. I mean, I was in football,
• 46:14
  Speaker 6: I was going to school. I think I'm a pretty
• 46:16
  Speaker 6: curious individual in nature like learning. So two seasons at
• 46:20
  Speaker 6: Saginaw Valley and then in January of twenty it would
• 46:24
  Speaker 6: have been twenty excuse me, two thousand and one, there
• 46:29
  Speaker 6: was a grad assistant position available at Central Michigan. And
• 46:32
  Speaker 6: the reason I came across that was typically when you're
• 46:36
  Speaker 6: a grad assistant and you're a college coach, you work
• 46:38
  Speaker 6: summer camps that's your way to make a few. So
• 46:41
  Speaker 6: worked a football camp at Central Michigan University when Mike
• 46:44
  Speaker 6: the Board was a coach there, and then Butch Jones
• 46:47
  Speaker 6: was a running backs coach at Central Michigan. So Butch
• 46:51
  Speaker 6: and I had kind of maintained contact.
• 46:52
  Speaker 5: So he was at Central Michigan.
• 46:54
  Speaker 6: So through communication, through dialogue and discussion, he had mentioned
• 46:58
  Speaker 6: that there was potentially a GA position that was available.
• 47:01
  Speaker 6: So from January oh one till June so I was
• 47:06
  Speaker 6: a great I had assistant at Central Michigan. I started
• 47:08
  Speaker 6: working on a defensive side of the ball with the
• 47:09
  Speaker 6: outside linebackers and John Mulligan was a defensive coordinator at
• 47:12
  Speaker 6: the time. We actually had a really good stat John
• 47:14
  Speaker 6: Mulligan was a defensive coordinator. Scott Leffler was the head
• 47:16
  Speaker 6: coach a Bowling Green it was kind of quarterbacks coach coach.
• 47:20
  Speaker 6: Butch Jones was he, you know, was the running backs coach,
• 47:23
  Speaker 6: and Mike the Board who coach had you know, he's
• 47:25
  Speaker 6: been an office coordinator and the SEC's been a head coach.
• 47:28
  Speaker 5: So so started.
• 47:29
  Speaker 6: So during the day I would I would go up
• 47:32
  Speaker 6: there and do football, and then in the evening I
• 47:35
  Speaker 6: would drive from Mount Pleasant to Saginaw and take my
• 47:37
  Speaker 6: classes two or three times a week.
• 47:39
  Speaker 1: So you stayed in Saginaw, but you were coaching at
• 47:42
  Speaker 1: Central Michigan.
• 47:42
  Speaker 7: How long?
• 47:43
  Speaker 2: How far is that?
• 47:44
  Speaker 6: It was about a forty five minute to sixty minute drive,
• 47:47
  Speaker 6: so I didn't go back and forth.
• 47:49
  Speaker 5: So it was in my apartment in Mount Pleasant.
• 47:51
  Speaker 6: So I worked during the day and then if I
• 47:53
  Speaker 6: had class, I think it was like two or three
• 47:54
  Speaker 6: times a week, I'd go take class and then I
• 47:56
  Speaker 6: come back. And that was kind of my routine for
• 48:00
  Speaker 6: six months in the spring.
• 48:02
  Speaker 5: It's because I wanted to finish Miami.
• 48:04
  Speaker 1: He's going to say, why did you? Why did you
• 48:06
  Speaker 1: through that NBA so aggressive? Was there always in the
• 48:08
  Speaker 1: back of your head, like, well, if this doesn't work out,
• 48:10
  Speaker 1: or is it just you always wanted it?
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 48:12
  Speaker 6: I would say I was interested in finance as interested
• 48:15
  Speaker 6: in business, and I kind of started down that path.
• 48:17
  Speaker 6: And my you know, my mom and dad always taught me,
• 48:20
  Speaker 6: once you start something, you need to finish.
• 48:22
  Speaker 5: So I did you know, I can very easily could have.
• 48:24
  Speaker 6: Walked away, but I invested eighteen months of my time,
• 48:26
  Speaker 6: so you know, I was, you know, this semester out,
• 48:29
  Speaker 6: so I said there's no way I'm not going to
• 48:32
  Speaker 6: do this. So and coach the board was great. He
• 48:34
  Speaker 6: understood kind of my predicament that I was in. So,
• 48:38
  Speaker 6: you know, education, I would say, is a big part
• 48:40
  Speaker 6: of my life, but a lot of time, you know,
• 48:42
  Speaker 6: and be able to message that to my daughters certainly
• 48:45
  Speaker 6: be important.
• 48:45
  Speaker 5: So I was able to finish my MBA.
• 48:48
  Speaker 6: Like I said, I'm interested in finance, I'm interested in investments.
• 48:51
  Speaker 5: I was at the time. I still am to this day.
• 48:55
  Speaker 6: So finished off that kind of January until June, and
• 48:58
  Speaker 6: then in February of one. At the time, Josh had
• 49:01
  Speaker 6: been hired by New England to be kind of QC
• 49:04
  Speaker 6: quality control. So obviously our relationship goes back to our
• 49:09
  Speaker 6: time together at you know, John Carroll, so that he
• 49:12
  Speaker 6: had mentioned that, hey, there might be an opportunity in
• 49:14
  Speaker 6: New England as a scouting assistant. Would you be interested
• 49:17
  Speaker 6: in kind of play a personnel And at the time
• 49:19
  Speaker 6: I had no idea what player personnel in the NFL
• 49:21
  Speaker 6: was like zero, Like no idea.
• 49:23
  Speaker 2: Did you even?
• 49:23
  Speaker 1: I mean, so, so Josh McDaniels is working there already
• 49:26
  Speaker 1: and you get this call and you're thinking, was it
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: was the NFL even a thought.
• 49:30
  Speaker 5: No, Peter, not at all.
• 49:32
  Speaker 6: I mean I was certainly happy enjoying what I was
• 49:34
  Speaker 6: doing in college. I thought, Okay, my next opportunity, maybe
• 49:37
  Speaker 6: I can get a full time position in college football somewhere,
• 49:39
  Speaker 6: maybe be a position coach or strict at earnings or
• 49:42
  Speaker 6: whatever the natural progression was.
• 49:44
  Speaker 5: So so I was.
• 49:46
  Speaker 6: Working through Central Central and then you know, the middle
• 49:49
  Speaker 6: of it was like June, June. We were just about
• 49:51
  Speaker 6: to finish up, you know, and Josh said, hey, look,
• 49:53
  Speaker 6: you know there's a position. Would you be interested? And
• 49:55
  Speaker 6: I said, sure, I'll come up in interview, so I'll
• 49:57
  Speaker 6: never forget. I got the call Nancy Meyer, who's one
• 50:01
  Speaker 6: of to this day one of my best friends, who
• 50:03
  Speaker 6: i'd say has the biggest influence in my life as anybody.
• 50:07
  Speaker 6: So she connected me. Scott at the time was overseeing
• 50:09
  Speaker 6: personnel and New Yeah. So Nancy said, hey, can you
• 50:13
  Speaker 6: get on a flight in Detroit at whatever time it was?
• 50:16
  Speaker 6: I said, yeah, no problem, this is probably midday, so
• 50:19
  Speaker 6: and Detroit was probably two to two and a half hour.
• 50:22
  Speaker 6: I mean, give her to I can't exactly, but it's
• 50:24
  Speaker 6: a decent drive for Mount Pleasant to Detroit.
• 50:26
  Speaker 5: And I said yeah, no problem, I'll I'll figure it out.
• 50:29
  Speaker 5: So it was like a late evening flight, late afternoon flight.
• 50:32
  Speaker 6: Grabbed my suit and went to the UH went to
• 50:36
  Speaker 6: the airport, changed into my suit in a stall in
• 50:38
  Speaker 6: the men's mentathroom, and then got on the plane. Got
• 50:42
  Speaker 6: there that night, and then interviewed the next day. It
• 50:45
  Speaker 6: was in scouting. It was a player of personnel assistant,
• 50:47
  Speaker 6: so all the things that go along with that. I
• 50:49
  Speaker 6: would say responsibility, scouting assistant, personnel assistant.
• 50:53
  Speaker 5: Whenever you want to terament. So went up there and interviewed.
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: You know, did you meet Belichick on that first interview?
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: You don't even get to the Belichick level.
• 51:00
  Speaker 6: It might have been a quick like hey, great to
• 51:02
  Speaker 6: meet you, kind of a jove. And we were in
• 51:05
  Speaker 6: the old Foxboro State at the time, so the offices
• 51:08
  Speaker 6: were kind of up on a second floor. They were
• 51:10
  Speaker 6: kind of hidden, so it was kind of a dilapidated
• 51:13
  Speaker 6: rush for staying this but a little bit of a
• 51:15
  Speaker 6: dilapidated setup. So anyways, so I went and interviewed, went
• 51:19
  Speaker 6: back to UH Central and they called and they said,
• 51:23
  Speaker 6: you know, would you be interested in this position?
• 51:25
  Speaker 5: And I said, you know, absolutely, So went talked to
• 51:27
  Speaker 5: coach to board.
• 51:29
  Speaker 6: He was gracious enough to let me out and then
• 51:31
  Speaker 6: so I was hired in the middle of June kind
• 51:33
  Speaker 6: of two thousand and one in New England, went up
• 51:35
  Speaker 6: there for a week or two, kind of got situated
• 51:37
  Speaker 6: at organized, and then that fall of two thousand, training
• 51:41
  Speaker 6: camp two thousand and one started. I'd say, really kind
• 51:44
  Speaker 6: of got off to an inauspicious start if you were,
• 51:48
  Speaker 6: you know, with coach Ravine passed away in literally a
• 51:52
  Speaker 6: week of training camp, so there was sort of a
• 51:55
  Speaker 6: recalibration and reallocation of responsibilities. So and at the time
• 52:00
  Speaker 6: it was just whatever I'm asked to do, I'm going
• 52:01
  Speaker 6: to do it. So they literally handed me a playbook
• 52:04
  Speaker 6: and at the time we were literally hand right and
• 52:06
  Speaker 6: breaking down the film. I think coach Dable Brian went
• 52:09
  Speaker 6: through this, Josh went through it, where you literally you
• 52:12
  Speaker 6: diagram each play all twenty two players, the play the alignments,
• 52:16
  Speaker 6: the technique, the term. So one game took you literally
• 52:21
  Speaker 6: six to eight hours to break down. This isn't you know,
• 52:23
  Speaker 6: jump on a computer and input the information and evaluate
• 52:26
  Speaker 6: the data. So and I didn't have any background in
• 52:29
  Speaker 6: the system. I literally just got on campus. So they
• 52:33
  Speaker 6: literally handed me a playbook and said, you're going to
• 52:35
  Speaker 6: break the film down for the offensive staff. That's going
• 52:37
  Speaker 6: to be your job during the year. So part of
• 52:38
  Speaker 6: my job that was to stay a week ahead, so
• 52:42
  Speaker 6: I would do three or four games and the opponent,
• 52:45
  Speaker 6: and then by Friday before the Sunday game, I had
• 52:48
  Speaker 6: to hand that to Charlie White, who was the offensive
• 52:49
  Speaker 6: coording at the time, so that he could kind of
• 52:51
  Speaker 6: start his preparation. So I was sort of the sort
• 52:54
  Speaker 6: of the first introduction to the opponent. So did that
• 52:58
  Speaker 6: responsibility all year in addition to my personnel kind of
• 53:03
  Speaker 6: scouting assistant assignments. So that was my first year in
• 53:06
  Speaker 6: the NFL, and you know, it just kind of kept
• 53:10
  Speaker 6: I would say, snowballing from there. And then I would say,
• 53:13
  Speaker 6: I don't want to say each year the job kind
• 53:14
  Speaker 6: of changed or my role kind of changed, but I
• 53:17
  Speaker 6: mean the thought process was trying to show up, try
• 53:19
  Speaker 6: to put a good product out there, just work as
• 53:22
  Speaker 6: hard as possible I can and make them, you know,
• 53:25
  Speaker 6: want to keep me around, understanding nothing is guaranteed. I
• 53:28
  Speaker 6: mean I think I was making you know, fourteen thousand
• 53:31
  Speaker 6: dollars my first year in the NFL, and make work
• 53:33
  Speaker 6: full time in the NFL. Living in Boston, I mean
• 53:35
  Speaker 6: I get an apartment with Actually I live with Clay Barnetts.
• 53:40
  Speaker 6: So Clay Gary Barnett's sun was a successful a coach
• 53:44
  Speaker 6: at Colorado. So we literally we were in a vacated
• 53:49
  Speaker 6: two story building that got turned into apartments, like an
• 53:52
  Speaker 6: industrial building got turned into apartments where the windows there
• 53:55
  Speaker 6: was no locks, so you could open up and down
• 53:58
  Speaker 6: and you could climb like literally through the windows, like
• 54:01
  Speaker 6: if you wanted to. So matter of fact, I was
• 54:02
  Speaker 6: locked out of the apartment one day and the only
• 54:04
  Speaker 6: way get in.
• 54:04
  Speaker 5: Was climb through the windows. So we lived in Providence.
• 54:07
  Speaker 6: My first year is a thirty minute commute from Providence
• 54:09
  Speaker 6: to Foxboro Stadium.
• 54:10
  Speaker 2: He probably lived at the facility though, right, I mean
• 54:12
  Speaker 2: who we.
• 54:12
  Speaker 5: Can't exactly exactly, so you're there.
• 54:14
  Speaker 6: I mean I was twenty whatever I was at the time,
• 54:17
  Speaker 6: so I had nothing else going on.
• 54:19
  Speaker 5: So that was my first year.
• 54:20
  Speaker 1: And can I throw out some names? So like your
• 54:22
  Speaker 1: first year there, I think Brady's a backup. He's already
• 54:26
  Speaker 1: been there a year. BLEDSOE goes down, where were you
• 54:28
  Speaker 1: for that?
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: Yeah?
• 54:30
  Speaker 6: No, we were playing the Jets, so you know, we
• 54:32
  Speaker 6: had the whole nine to eleven situation that we were
• 54:34
  Speaker 6: going through. Actually, so before we get to plane the Jets.
• 54:36
  Speaker 6: So you know, part of my responsibility as a scouting
• 54:39
  Speaker 6: assistant was when we brought players in for workouts on Tuesday,
• 54:43
  Speaker 6: was to transport them back and forth from the stadium
• 54:47
  Speaker 6: to the hospital. So the Mass General Hospital is right
• 54:50
  Speaker 6: in Boston Foxboro Stadium, you know, call it thirty minutes
• 54:52
  Speaker 6: outside of Boston or so, so we had a group
• 54:55
  Speaker 6: of players in nine to eleven. So I was driving
• 54:58
  Speaker 6: to the airport and quarter to nine nine o'clock, just
• 55:01
  Speaker 6: as the plane hours, I was parking the car in
• 55:05
  Speaker 6: the garage of Mass General Hospital and we started to
• 55:09
  Speaker 6: get some information like what's going on. So we had
• 55:12
  Speaker 6: a handful of players that were in so they got
• 55:14
  Speaker 6: their physicals, then drove back to the stadium and then
• 55:17
  Speaker 6: obviously everybody has their attention turned to what was going
• 55:20
  Speaker 6: on in the television.
• 55:21
  Speaker 5: So that was that day.
• 55:22
  Speaker 6: So it was the week if we were supposed to
• 55:24
  Speaker 6: play the Jets that week, and then that game got canceled,
• 55:26
  Speaker 6: right so then we you know, shifted gears moved it
• 55:29
  Speaker 6: to the following week. So during home games, I would
• 55:32
  Speaker 6: go up in the press box and then I would
• 55:33
  Speaker 6: actually kind of for self scouting purposes, chart our game
• 55:37
  Speaker 6: so that could in put it into the system, you know,
• 55:39
  Speaker 6: the following morning. So during the game, like that's what
• 55:42
  Speaker 6: I was doing. So I was up there just charting
• 55:44
  Speaker 6: a game, going through the.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: Game, Lewis Knox Blood so what's I mean?
• 55:47
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I mean, and then.
• 55:50
  Speaker 6: Just kind of like all right, I'm just going to
• 55:52
  Speaker 6: kind of keep doing my work and kind of preparing
• 55:54
  Speaker 6: for tomorrow. And you know, Tom went in and you know,
• 55:57
  Speaker 6: we actually almost won a game there at the end.
• 55:59
  Speaker 6: And then you know, the following week we were owing two.
• 56:02
  Speaker 6: Played the Colts, Okay, who were I mean, one of
• 56:05
  Speaker 6: the best teams, one of the best offense in the
• 56:06
  Speaker 6: league at the time with Peyton and Marvins.
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: And the group that they had.
• 56:10
  Speaker 6: So that was kind of my first introduction to the
• 56:13
  Speaker 6: NFL the regular season, and then you know, fortunately I
• 56:17
  Speaker 6: was able to stay in one place for twenty some
• 56:19
  Speaker 6: odd years before I got here to Houston.
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: You couldn't have been too much older than Brady, Like
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: I would imagine you're a couple of years older than him,
• 56:25
  Speaker 2: did you, guys?
• 56:26
  Speaker 5: It's close?
• 56:27
  Speaker 1: Would you guys bes like, was that like a division
• 56:30
  Speaker 1: of labor.
• 56:31
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I wasn't hanging out with the players, so to
• 56:34
  Speaker 6: stay as far away from the players as possible to
• 56:36
  Speaker 6: try to do my job. You know, I think there's
• 56:38
  Speaker 6: a certain professionalism that you know, you respect the players
• 56:41
  Speaker 6: and their privacy and what they're there to do. And
• 56:43
  Speaker 6: my job was to work and focus on my job
• 56:45
  Speaker 6: and not worry about things that you know, quite frankly
• 56:48
  Speaker 6: don't matter. So because in the end, I think this
• 56:51
  Speaker 6: league is about work. So if you keep the focus
• 56:53
  Speaker 6: on work, keep the focus on the things that are important,
• 56:56
  Speaker 6: Like that's the most important thing.
• 56:57
  Speaker 2: All right, give me a Vrabel story.
• 57:01
  Speaker 5: Actually I might.
• 57:03
  Speaker 6: You know, so I the first year, my first year
• 57:08
  Speaker 6: with the team was when you know, Scott and Bill
• 57:09
  Speaker 6: has signed Mike in a free agency, so that I
• 57:12
  Speaker 6: think we sent it up signing I don't know, twenty three,
• 57:14
  Speaker 6: twenty four to twenty five players that year is free agents.
• 57:17
  Speaker 6: So I mean Mike came in and then Mike would
• 57:19
  Speaker 6: go through his kind of pregame warm up routine. So
• 57:22
  Speaker 6: it kind of evolved into me throwing routes to Mike
• 57:26
  Speaker 6: his I'd say warm up, you know, and he'd always
• 57:28
  Speaker 6: make the comment about Hines Ward and his hands were
• 57:31
  Speaker 6: as good as heines word hard to refute that when.
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: You go back to his history. But Mike was Mike
• 57:37
  Speaker 5: was as tough as a come. He was as smart
• 57:39
  Speaker 5: as a come. He was as tough as a come.
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: He was very instinctive.
• 57:42
  Speaker 6: He cared a lot about football, but he and he
• 57:44
  Speaker 6: had a great sense of humor, and he worked his
• 57:48
  Speaker 6: ass off in practice. I would say that team there
• 57:51
  Speaker 6: probably you know three, you know four with Rodney, Mike Willie, like,
• 57:57
  Speaker 6: Mike would go back during practice, so when the offense
• 58:00
  Speaker 6: was going against the defensive look team working on the
• 58:02
  Speaker 6: cards for the next opponent, Mike would go back there
• 58:05
  Speaker 6: at free safety just to give Brady a hard time,
• 58:08
  Speaker 6: to try to make him work, to try to simulate.
• 58:11
  Speaker 6: And he'd take a lot of pride and a lot
• 58:12
  Speaker 6: of joy out of that. So and he'd talk a
• 58:15
  Speaker 6: lot of trash during practice. But I mean, Mike cares
• 58:19
  Speaker 6: about football a ton, and I think you see the
• 58:22
  Speaker 6: way the Titans play, they kind of play to Mike's
• 58:25
  Speaker 6: personality and you saw that. And Mike was a player
• 58:28
  Speaker 6: like whatever he was asked to do, he did it.
• 58:31
  Speaker 6: He played outside linebacker in three to four. Then we
• 58:33
  Speaker 6: needed him an inside linebacker, and Bill told him, look,
• 58:36
  Speaker 6: you're going to play inside linebacker and based defense. Mike
• 58:38
  Speaker 6: had really never played inside linebacker before, but he went
• 58:41
  Speaker 6: in there and he played well because that was the
• 58:43
  Speaker 6: best thing for the team. And I think because of
• 58:45
  Speaker 6: his intelligence, because of his instinctiveness, he was able to
• 58:47
  Speaker 6: go in there and function. And then we you know,
• 58:51
  Speaker 6: Charlie and Bill, you know, and go linees. John Rump
• 58:53
  Speaker 6: in their situations put him in there a tight end.
• 58:55
  Speaker 6: So you're trying to create as much value and versatility
• 58:59
  Speaker 6: as a player, and I'd say Mike was certainly emblematic
• 59:01
  Speaker 6: of that. And I think those are the always the
• 59:04
  Speaker 6: situations that are hard. You know, Mike was there for
• 59:06
  Speaker 6: or you know, on O nine and you know then
• 59:09
  Speaker 6: the decision was made to to move on from him.
• 59:12
  Speaker 6: You know, those are always, would say, the tough decisions
• 59:14
  Speaker 6: that you have to make, and you know that the
• 59:16
  Speaker 6: organization has to go through. Mike went on have a
• 59:19
  Speaker 6: few more productive years and then he started his career
• 59:21
  Speaker 6: in coaching, and you know, Mike's one of the best
• 59:23
  Speaker 6: coaches we have in this league.
• 59:24
  Speaker 2: Sure, you know, it's amazing.
• 59:26
  Speaker 1: So you progressed in your career going on, and everyone
• 59:28
  Speaker 1: knows Belichick as the greatest coach of all time, but
• 59:31
  Speaker 1: he's got a KNIGHTE for personnel too. For the listeners,
• 59:35
  Speaker 1: Bill Belichick as the evaluator, what did you learn from him?
• 59:38
  Speaker 1: And you know how how important is he in playing
• 59:41
  Speaker 1: a role in your career as you've been guided through
• 59:43
  Speaker 1: that New England system that eventually in Houston.
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: Now, yeah, massive.
• 59:47
  Speaker 6: I think he's so invested in every aspect of the process.
• 59:52
  Speaker 5: It's it's rare.
• 59:54
  Speaker 6: I mean, it's uncommon, the level of detail, the overall understanding.
• 59:58
  Speaker 6: So I think one of the things that I learned
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 6: from him was, among many things, was just the big
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 6: picture perspective of understanding all different pieces and phases fit together,
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 6: from offense to understanding what's going on defense defense, understanding
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 6: what offenses are trying to do, how they use personnel,
• 1:00:16
  Speaker 6: what are some of the things that are important, how
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 6: to evaluate players, how to focus on their strengths, what
• 1:00:22
  Speaker 6: are some of the things that they do well? And
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 6: I think just the breath and overall understanding of players
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 6: in the league. You'd be hard pressed to find anybody
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 6: who has that type of mental acuity as Bill has.
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 5: So I mean it taught me a lot.
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 6: And I think you know the fact that he had
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 6: enough faith and confidence and trust and you know what
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 6: I brought to the table. I mean certainly speaks to
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 6: his humility and just allowing people to do their jobs.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 6: So I mean we could spend you know, one podcast
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 6: talking about the things offense Bill, but I'd say his
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 6: just level and depth understanding of every aspect of football,
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 6: from you know, coaching what the punt team should look like,
• 1:01:05
  Speaker 6: to the technique that you need to understanding you know,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 6: what should happen on this double team block or the
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 6: three technique, the backup three technique, and what are his
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 6: strengths and how the team is going to use him.
• 1:01:16
  Speaker 6: So just his overall breath and understanding of multiple aspects.
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 6: What that taught me was, Okay, you want to have
• 1:01:24
  Speaker 6: is why the scope as possible? Just understanding because any
• 1:01:27
  Speaker 6: end it's a players German league, it's very personnel driven league,
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 6: and I think everybody has their own way that they
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 6: evaluate players, or how they view the game or how
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 6: they you know, how they go through preparing for an opponent.
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 6: But I would say just team philosophy, understanding coordinators that
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 6: typically spills over into how they call a game, it
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 6: spills over into how they assemble the team. So those
• 1:01:51
  Speaker 6: are all some things I think that you know, over
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 6: the course of twenty some odd years, you saw that
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 6: and they kind of was able to develop my own
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 6: process and you know realize, okay, well this is didn't work.
• 1:02:02
  Speaker 5: Here's a reason why. Just understanding the why behind it.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 6: So you know, I can't thank billing Off for the
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 6: opportunity that he provided for not only myself but a
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 6: number of people that have been in that building through
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 6: the years.
• 1:02:14
  Speaker 1: All Right, so you're in New England for nearly twenty years,
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 1: you're a rising star, and I tak for the last
• 1:02:19
  Speaker 1: ten of those twenty your names. Your name would come
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 1: up every year for the GM candidacy at some team
• 1:02:24
  Speaker 1: and it was always all right, there's this Candidcate and
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 1: then Nick Casara, we he'll never leave New England or
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 1: is this going to be the time he finally does
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 1: leave New England. You took the Houston job, you went
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 1: for it. What was so compelling and what was so
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 1: appealing to that Houston job that you finally left the
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: Foxborough I'd say friendly confines of where you were comfortable
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 1: and where you'd raised a family and your daughter's got
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 1: to go to school in the same school, and everything
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 1: you want in a career you left.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 2: Finally you took the leap. Why Houston.
• 1:02:53
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think you know, our family has been very blessed.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 6: I mean what this league is done for us. I mean,
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 6: we certainly can't repay the people that will provide the opportunities.
• 1:03:03
  Speaker 6: And I think we all you don't want to check
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 6: challenge ourselves, and you know, sometimes you need to make
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 6: decisions that you know, quite frankly, you know, puts you
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 6: maybe out of your comfort zone. Because anytime you take
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 6: on a new situation of going to something new, there's
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 6: typically a reason that they're sort of starting over because
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 6: things aren't going all that well. But you know, there
• 1:03:26
  Speaker 6: had been some opportunities at different points. I mean, you know,
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 6: you know, Houston was a team that you know, and
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 6: mister McNair was here.
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 5: You know, they had expressed some interests.
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 6: Or some sentiments, and you know, when Billy was here
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 6: for a period of time, I mean, you know, there
• 1:03:38
  Speaker 6: was some things, some dalliances through the years, and I
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 6: think as we kind of got to the end, it
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 6: was an opportunity that.
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 5: You know, we thought might be a chance.
• 1:03:46
  Speaker 6: To build something here, you know, from the ground up
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 6: after twenty some odd years. So I think more than anything,
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 6: more but curiosity and the challenge in front of us.
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 6: And you know, i'd say the reputation ownership that they
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 6: had in terms of providing people with the opportunity, you know,
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 6: they deserve so anyway, so you know, we out here
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 6: in twenty twenty one, you know, candidly, I mean the
• 1:04:07
  Speaker 6: first couple of years probably didn't go the way that
• 1:04:10
  Speaker 6: any of us would have hoped. But I think the
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 6: one thing that you you do, you hope you just
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 6: learn along the way and you just got to make
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 6: it work. You got to figure it out. So just
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 6: take it one day at a time. Just be disciplined,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 6: just be consistent, you know, try to make good decisions.
• 1:04:24
  Speaker 6: If it's not going the way that you either wanted
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 6: to or hope to, you know, do something to get
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 6: it fixed. So, you know, it's a team that had
• 1:04:31
  Speaker 6: had some success at different points. You know, i'd say
• 1:04:34
  Speaker 6: be remiss. I mean, look, th realit. We've faced a
• 1:04:36
  Speaker 6: lot of challenges here, you know, the last couple of years.
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 6: But I think we've worked.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 1: Do you feel like there's a light now, Like it's
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 1: funny because I don't want to say it was so
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 1: dark because in the moment you don't look at it
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 1: that way. But through the Watson stuff, through the Watson trade,
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 1: through those different coaching stats, and now it's like people
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 1: are talking about the Texans in there, this fun, young,
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 1: energetic team, and of course you would have loved that
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 1: from go, but it's almost like you had to walk
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 1: through the mud to get to this point.
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 2: Does it feel that way?
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I think the reality is, Peter, things are never
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 6: as bad or good as you think they are or
• 1:05:06
  Speaker 6: people make them out to be. So I'd say everybody
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 6: has challenges that they face on a day to day basis.
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 6: Every program is going to have to deal with something.
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 6: I think what we have to do is just try
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 6: to fix problems and find solutions, and sometimes it takes
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 6: a few steps back in order to go forward. I
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 6: think there's a lot of people that invested a lot
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 6: of time into this building, through a lot of good people,
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 6: you know, and I think the players have remained committed
• 1:05:32
  Speaker 6: through sort of the ups and downs. You know, when
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 6: you bring Demico into the building with the you know,
• 1:05:37
  Speaker 6: his mindset, his attitudes infectious, and it's about the players.
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 6: So continue, hopefully, we continue to add good players into
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 6: the building with the right thought process, with the right mindset,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 6: that are committed to winning, that put the team, you know,
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 6: above themselves, because in the end, that's what it takes,
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 6: is reading a quote or you know, after you know,
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 6: the Rangers won the World Series. You know, Boach made
• 1:05:59
  Speaker 6: a comment, you know, just about like the selflessness of
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 6: his team that they don't care about like who gets
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 6: the credit. They care about each each other and it's
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 6: not about you know, who did what. And you know,
• 1:06:10
  Speaker 6: when you have multiple people and multiple players that have
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 6: that mindset and you overlay allow over they overlay that
• 1:06:18
  Speaker 6: with a competitive nature, you're going to give yourself a chance.
• 1:06:21
  Speaker 6: I mean, your reality is this league is so damn competitive.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 5: I mean, the.
• 1:06:24
  Speaker 6: Margins are very small, and it's designed for everybody to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 6: kind of be in the middle. It's kind of where
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 6: we are now, and there's some outliers on both sides.
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 6: So you just want to put yourself in a position
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 6: where you give yourself a chance. I mean, what going
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 6: into last week, was it seventy five percent or eighty
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 6: percent of the games in week seven or eight.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 5: Or one score games in the fourth quarter.
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 6: So I think that speaks to the competitive nature of
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 6: our league for the amount of i'd say good good coaches,
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 6: good players, and so you're either going to rise to
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 6: the challenge and embrace that or you're going to cower
• 1:06:57
  Speaker 6: and walk away. So again, regardless of how bad or
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 6: good people think it's going or it looks on the surface,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 6: you got to find the silver lining somewhere and you
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 6: just got to find solutions and just keep people moving
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 6: in the right direction. Understanding that you know, you can't
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 6: accomplish anything by yourself.
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 5: It's going to take a team effort.
• 1:07:16
  Speaker 6: So if you can just get as many people with
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 6: that mindset, and quite frankly, I kind of view my
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 6: role as just to kind of be a facilitator. Sure,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 6: sort of get out of the way, just sort of
• 1:07:24
  Speaker 6: get everything on the right track, empower the people that
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 6: are here that you believe in, that you trust, and
• 1:07:29
  Speaker 6: give them the opportunity to do their job. So, you know,
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 6: hopefully I've been a good steward in that respect. And
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 6: certainly we don't have everything figured out, and we have
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 6: a lot of work in front of us, but it's
• 1:07:38
  Speaker 6: always exciting when you can see the fruits of your
• 1:07:40
  Speaker 6: labor at least start to come to fruition.
• 1:07:43
  Speaker 1: My last question, and we're going to let you go.
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 1: You've already given us more than enough time. And I'm
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 1: loving this. I could do this for three hours with you.
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 1: You get to the combine and you get in an
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 1: elevator and there's a kid there with a tie on
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 1: and an ill fitting suit and he's got a resume
• 1:07:57
  Speaker 1: and a Manilla folder and he says, Hey, I what
• 1:08:00
  Speaker 1: would be your thirty seconds of advice for getting into
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 1: the league and how to position yourself best for you
• 1:08:06
  Speaker 1: needy to someday be a general manager and NFL team.
• 1:08:09
  Speaker 6: Yeah, I would say, just be yourself, be true to
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 6: who you are, be authentic, and just do the work
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 6: because in the end, it's going to be about the work,
• 1:08:17
  Speaker 6: and try to learn and maintain as much curiosity along
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 6: the way. Understanding you're going to face some challenges is
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 6: not going to be easy, and wherever you start doesn't
• 1:08:26
  Speaker 6: really matter because really all of us were given an
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 6: opportunity to start.
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: Once you're given an.
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 6: Opportunity, ultimately it's going to be about your performance, about
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 6: your mindset, about your intent on a day to day
• 1:08:40
  Speaker 6: basis so and in the end, it comes back to
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 6: the work.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: So do the work.
• 1:08:45
  Speaker 6: Remain curious and take whatever opportunity comes before you because
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 6: you never know where that's going to lead. And no
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 6: job is too small. Don't think your first step is
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 6: the most important step. So just be willing to take
• 1:08:58
  Speaker 6: it and dive right in and jump in and understanding
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 6: that you know it.
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 5: Could lead you astray, but just keep working and don't
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 5: lose hope.
• 1:09:07
  Speaker 6: And if you really believe in what you want to accomplish,
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 6: you know there's a lot of people that are going
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 6: to be there to help you along the way.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 2: So just like to you know, bring it back to
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: my industry.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 1: In the sports media, it's everyone wants to be on TV,
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 1: everyone wants to write for the New York Times, everyone
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 1: wants to be calling games. But you just said something,
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 1: No job is too small, Like the jobs that I
• 1:09:26
  Speaker 1: had in my twenties. If I don't do those, I'm
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 1: tucking blogging for websites that don't exist, and writing for
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 1: free newspapers in New York City, then we don't get
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 1: to the point we're at now where we're doing the podcast.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 2: We have a show.
• 1:09:37
  Speaker 1: And I think Nick and our worlds are similar and
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 1: parallel that like, yeah, everyone thinks they can do it,
• 1:09:42
  Speaker 1: but you gotta wait your time, and you also have
• 1:09:43
  Speaker 1: to put the work in.
• 1:09:45
  Speaker 6: You need to have patience, you need to have the
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 6: right attitude, you have to have the right mindset, and
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 6: you know, quite frankly, like you have to put the
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 6: ego aside. Just because you work in the NFL, just
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 6: because you work in the TV industry, quite frankly, it
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 6: doesn't really mean anything.
• 1:10:00
  Speaker 5: And that's why I guarantees us is the next day.
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 6: And again it's about opportunity and it goes back and look,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 6: you guys, you know, you guys have a great show
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 6: because you put the work in and it takes a
• 1:10:11
  Speaker 6: lot of work behind the scenes, and candidly, not everybody
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 6: is cut out for that, but you've put the time in,
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 6: You've put yourself in a position, and you know, it's
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 6: a credit to your mindset because again, none of us
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 6: were given anything in life, period.
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: So it's about what we do with those opportunities.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 6: And reality is there's a lot of people that are
• 1:10:30
  Speaker 6: helping us along the way, and those are the people
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 6: that we need to lean on. The most and tell
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 6: them how much we care about them and tell them
• 1:10:36
  Speaker 6: how much we love them. So a lot of respect
• 1:10:38
  Speaker 6: for you know what you've done and what you guys
• 1:10:41
  Speaker 6: have accomplished. I mean, you know, all seriousness. You've got
• 1:10:43
  Speaker 6: one of the great shows on television because of the
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 6: people and because of the work. And it's no different
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 6: than any end. It's about the people and it's about
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 6: the work, and that's the reality of it.
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 1: You know, my feelings about you as a man, and
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 1: I respect you as what you're doing in Houston. It
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 1: feels like the bedrock is there now and you guys
• 1:10:59
  Speaker 1: are building something and I'm excited to watch it. Last
• 1:11:01
  Speaker 1: night's game, yesday's game was exciting, and it's just a
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 1: I think it's just a window and what could be
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 1: the future for the Houston Texans, all those young players
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 1: and just to throw some more on it, like Dalton
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 1: Schultz making plays and Nico Collins making plays and Mark
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 1: seeing guys like Shaquille.
• 1:11:16
  Speaker 2: Griffin, like these are not just rookies.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 5: You have some.
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 1: Veteran acquisitions that are making plays too. And I love
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 1: the makeup with the team and Nick, I really appreciate
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 1: you coming on during the season.
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 2: We'll do this again in the offseason.
• 1:11:26
  Speaker 1: I feel like we're going to go through your career
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 1: more but an hour of your time after the biggest
• 1:11:31
  Speaker 1: Texans win in probably two years.
• 1:11:34
  Speaker 2: I so appreciate it.
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 6: Man, Thank you, you best for Peter, Thank you, and
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 6: keep j mack in line.
• 1:11:39
  Speaker 2: Real quick, mccordy, real quick.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 1: What was your scouting report on mccorty, because you didn't
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 1: draft him out of ten out of Rutgers, but he
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 1: did eventually sign him as a free agent.
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 6: Love j Mack, him and Devin. I mean, you're not
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 6: gonna find too better. I'll give you a quick story
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 6: on James. Actually, so he got released. I want to
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 6: say Cleveland. It was Cleveland. I think he was in Cleveland.
• 1:11:58
  Speaker 6: They released him. It was in May or whatever it was.
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 6: And before he was released, I walked into Bill's office
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 6: and said, hey, what do you think Mac? And you know,
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 6: he said, hey, all right, let's look at it's take
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 6: a look at it. So we ended up trading for
• 1:12:11
  Speaker 6: him before he was released, just to get him in
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 6: the building. And I would say everything that you all
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 6: are seeing. I mean, you're to talk about salt of
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 6: the earth and just a great human being. I mean
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 6: him and them actor like it's just you don't find
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 6: people like that. So we were excited and ecstatic to
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 6: get Jason in the building because I mean, he'd been
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 6: a good player at Tennessee. You know, in Cleveland, he
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 6: had some injuries, didn't work out, but he helped our
• 1:12:35
  Speaker 6: team immensely, and he you know, he you know, he
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 6: went through some tough times. I mean, there's another talk
• 1:12:40
  Speaker 6: about somebody that went through some tough time. Yeah, went
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 6: through some tough times at Tennessee. And then we were
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 6: fortunate to get him in New England and you know,
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 6: end up going to the super Bowl, and you know,
• 1:12:48
  Speaker 6: to have him and Devin celebrate together, you know, it
• 1:12:50
  Speaker 6: was a pretty special moment.
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: He might make the biggest play in this super bill.
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: He knocks the pass from Brandon Cooks and he darts
• 1:12:57
  Speaker 1: off his man to go make it. I've been honored
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 1: and blessed to be his teammate now for two years,
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: and I was so proud of him yesterday. Who's calling
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 1: the game. And you know, I don't search social media
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: for my own, but I just typed it his and
• 1:13:07
  Speaker 1: it was universal praise.
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 2: I was like, just like, that's my guy who he
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 2: des it was great. All right, Nick Seria, this is awesome.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 7: Man.
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: Go do your thing and you got a game against
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: the Bengals. We're on to Cincinnati. Is such a familiar refrain.
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: Good luck, my truth.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 7: Thanks guys.
• 1:13:31
  Speaker 1: It's time for delivering results presented by Uber Eats. Each
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 1: week we give out an award for who delivered results.
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go one might not be an obvious one.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: I'm gonna go with the Cleveland Browns defense. Another shutout,
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: another win, twenty seven to nothing, complete destruction of the
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 1: Arizona Cardinals, held the Cardinals under seventy yards of offense.
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 2: Are you serious?
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: Jim Schwartz is the man in front, But of course
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: you've got guys like Miles, Garrett and Emerson and Ward.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: This team is legit. They If the playoffs were to
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 1: start today, the Cleveland Browns would be in. And you
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 1: know what their defense is leading the way. That was
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: delivering results presented by Uber eats, where you get almost
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: almost anything, the official on demand delivery partner of the NFL.
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 1: Order Now, Fun Interview, Fun Podcast, Rare Monday one.
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 2: Aaron, always a pleasure with you.
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: Jason English, our friend from the iHeart Team is not here,
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: so we will have to give him crap for that.
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 1: Shout out to everybody out west and Arizona football continues
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 1: to win. That is the official team of the season
• 1:14:40
  Speaker 1: with Peter Scheger. We had Jedfish on August fourteenth. They
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: have been one of the best surprises of college football.
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: Matt Schneider, Jason Kleinman, our executives out on the LA
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 1: side of things. They are Arizona football fans and Arizona alums.
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: I know they listen to this podcast. Another win, another
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 1: victory for Jedfish. Bear down, and then for all the
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 1: folks who are listening, please subscribe.
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 2: Tell your friends really help. I really appreciate it. See
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 2: you next week.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 1: NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio,
• 1:15:31
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• 1:15:35
  Speaker 1: your podcasts.