Latest / The Jacksonville Jaguars Official Podcast Network / O-Zone Podcast: Peter King

Transcript

O-Zone Podcast: Peter King · The Jacksonville Jaguars Official Podcast Network

0:08
Speaker 1: Welcome to the Ozone Podcast featuring Jack Wars dot Com
0:12
Speaker 1: senior writer John Osher and Jack Barres executive producer Dave
0:17
Speaker 1: the Chemist Dave, when we start here, you know, I've
0:20
Speaker 1: gotten some ozone emails with feedback about the podcast. I
0:24
Speaker 1: had a guy this week tell me, hey, John loved
0:28
Speaker 1: the podcast, which I said, well, of course you do,
0:31
Speaker 1: but I'm tired of talking about the pandemic. Can you
0:34
Speaker 1: get out of the pandemic talk? And I'm thinking, what
0:38
Speaker 1: else is there to talk about? I thought you were
0:40
Speaker 1: gonna say, hey, John loved the podcast, but get that
0:43
Speaker 1: other guy off it. I'm I'm too nice to tell
0:46
Speaker 1: you about that. But I think what people don't realize,
0:49
Speaker 1: or maybe they do if they know me, is even
0:52
Speaker 1: in a normal situation, I have very little going on.
0:57
Speaker 1: Like I go to work, I come home, I have
1:00
Speaker 1: a few beers. I I pet rat. I'm like, I'm
1:04
Speaker 1: like Myron So during the pandemic, my interests whittled down
1:10
Speaker 1: to a frightening, frightening few. I'm I'm right there with you.
1:15
Speaker 1: With two little kids, all I do all day is
1:17
Speaker 1: trying to think of games and coloring sheets and and
1:20
Speaker 1: chasing them around. Um. Yeah, the same things that I
1:23
Speaker 1: don't have kids. Yeah, coloring is fun, it's ah and
1:31
Speaker 1: I uh, we're going on what ten weeks of this now.
1:36
Speaker 1: I've probably driven except out to see my mother lives
1:39
Speaker 1: in Mandarin. I've probably driven five or six times the
1:42
Speaker 1: grocery store. I have gotten to be a better shopper.
1:47
Speaker 1: I now have a vague idea when I walk into
1:50
Speaker 1: public or Walmart of sort of where the things are,
1:56
Speaker 1: Like I can vaguely get to where the wheat finds are.
2:00
Speaker 1: I have a little bit of an idea that vegetables
2:04
Speaker 1: are in a certain aisle, that the cookies aren't always
2:09
Speaker 1: next to the crackers, which is always instinctively where I go.
2:14
Speaker 1: But beyond that, I mean, it's a bare minimum of
2:18
Speaker 1: what I've actually done, and most of it's been dealing
2:20
Speaker 1: with stuff around the house, like life stuff like my
2:23
Speaker 1: son will come home. He's twenty four and he lives
2:27
Speaker 1: out back in an apartment, not in the backyard, but
2:30
Speaker 1: he he lives in a TP in your backyard. Well,
2:33
Speaker 1: if you know the apartment, he probably live out back.
2:35
Speaker 1: But he'll kind of say, oh, I've got I've got
2:37
Speaker 1: to go do something with my car. I guess I'm
2:39
Speaker 1: like Jake, that's life stuff. Welcome to life. But the
2:43
Speaker 1: pandemic has been all life stuff. And I know you've
2:46
Speaker 1: got a laundry list. I think I've finally I've had
2:49
Speaker 1: this weird small week in the roof that I've been
2:52
Speaker 1: dealing with. I think, knock on wood, that's would. I
2:57
Speaker 1: think I finally got it figured out. It's rain last
3:00
Speaker 1: couple of days, and the last fix seems to have worked.
3:04
Speaker 1: But it's just I think when you're not doing anything else,
3:09
Speaker 1: those get magnified. Oh it just work at home, Those
3:13
Speaker 1: stresses get magnified because all you're doing all day is
3:16
Speaker 1: looking at all the stuff that's wrong with your house. Yeah,
3:19
Speaker 1: and we just moved, as you know, we moved to
3:21
Speaker 1: a Springfield a few miles from the state or about
3:24
Speaker 1: a mile from the stadium. So September, October, and November
3:30
Speaker 1: I was working during the day, coming home, just sort
3:32
Speaker 1: of dealing with that stuff you do when you get
3:33
Speaker 1: into a new house, and I kind of thought it
3:36
Speaker 1: was over. But then when the pandemic kid all of
3:39
Speaker 1: a sudden, I said, Okay, well the porch that I
3:41
Speaker 1: was gonna put off painting, maybe I'll go ahead and
3:45
Speaker 1: paint it. Won't be that hard. Maybe I'll do the
3:48
Speaker 1: upstairs porch too, because this place we've got it's kind
3:50
Speaker 1: of cool. We've got four porches upstairs, downstairs, on back
3:54
Speaker 1: and it's all wood. It's all one of these old houses.
3:57
Speaker 1: And I I did off the the porch painting thing,
4:01
Speaker 1: which is a lot of spindles and a lot of
4:03
Speaker 1: small It was not a weekend job, Dave, it was.
4:08
Speaker 1: It was more than that. But you got done to
4:10
Speaker 1: that's good. That's good. Yeah, my stuff is oh yeah,
4:15
Speaker 1: like my stuff isn't like like nice like home maintenancy
4:20
Speaker 1: kind of stuff. I'm getting. Like, so we our house,
4:24
Speaker 1: but our house three years ago, four years ago, and
4:28
Speaker 1: you know the house was built like a two thousand.
4:30
Speaker 1: So we're around that twenty year threshold where everything starts
4:33
Speaker 1: to go wrong. So literally the day of the when
4:36
Speaker 1: the pandemic or the day when our office closed down
4:38
Speaker 1: and we're gonna be home. Water here breaks new water here.
4:42
Speaker 1: Then a week later, our refrigerator breaks, have to come
4:46
Speaker 1: in get a guy into fix our refrigerator, which also
4:50
Speaker 1: refrigerator was a whole another thing with because then you
4:53
Speaker 1: got put stuff in coolers and then you gotta then
4:56
Speaker 1: you got the frost of the refrigerator for them to
4:58
Speaker 1: work on it. Then after that, oh minor thing, but
5:00
Speaker 1: still our toaster oven dies randomly. Whoever had a toaster
5:05
Speaker 1: oven that just stopped working? I don't sure. I don't know.
5:07
Speaker 1: I'm not sure a toast ving. But do you ever
5:10
Speaker 1: do the what do you have the traditional like pop
5:12
Speaker 1: up toaster? Yeah, toaster, I got you, all right? Uh?
5:16
Speaker 1: Then after the toaster oven, uh? Are so like my
5:21
Speaker 1: house has been really humid for a little while, and
5:23
Speaker 1: we have one of those deals with air conditioning company
5:25
Speaker 1: where they do like, you know, twice a year maintenance
5:28
Speaker 1: and they're like, hey, your fans like running constantly. I
5:31
Speaker 1: was like, oh, that's not good. So then they had
5:33
Speaker 1: to replace some kind of thing in the air conditioner.
5:36
Speaker 1: It's another another expense. And then our neighbors were getting
5:41
Speaker 1: a new roof, and you know how the roofers come
5:42
Speaker 1: around and say, hey, I'll expect your house stops on
5:45
Speaker 1: on there. It's like, you got a ton of storm damage.
5:47
Speaker 1: You need a new roof for hurricane seasons. Now we're
5:50
Speaker 1: dealing with the roof, so it with insurance, you're not
5:55
Speaker 1: paying yeah, but still something. Yeah, you gotta deal with it.
6:00
Speaker 1: And so that's been like my ten weeks. So enough
6:04
Speaker 1: about the grocery shopping, which I'm sure we'll get into
6:07
Speaker 1: because I don't think we're out of the wood yet
6:08
Speaker 1: in terms of a little bit of a stay at
6:09
Speaker 1: home thing. But this week's guests, I'm excited about a
6:14
Speaker 1: long time friend of mine, long term NFL writer, the
6:17
Speaker 1: guy who knows the current NFL along with the history
6:20
Speaker 1: of the NFL, maybe as well as anybody out there.
6:23
Speaker 1: People know him as Hall of Fame vote or a
6:24
Speaker 1: long time sports illustrated writer. Uh. An incredible resume, incredible knowledge,
6:30
Speaker 1: guy with football Peter King. Peter, thank you for doing that. John,
6:35
Speaker 1: my pleasure. Thanks a left for talking to me. Tell
6:38
Speaker 1: me quickly what your job has been like during this coronavirus.
6:45
Speaker 1: We're getting a little bit of what you feel about
6:47
Speaker 1: this and where it's headed. But how is your job change? Um? Well,
6:54
Speaker 1: you know, John, I've been a sports writer for forty years.
6:57
Speaker 1: Um and uh, people are gonna think this is crazy
7:02
Speaker 1: when I say it, but uh, I've really never had
7:06
Speaker 1: as much interesting material to write about and to talk
7:11
Speaker 1: about in that forty years, because I mean, you know,
7:18
Speaker 1: just to pick out two things. Um. One of the
7:23
Speaker 1: things I've done over the years, now ten or eleven times,
7:26
Speaker 1: is I've been inside a team's draft room on draft
7:30
Speaker 1: weekend or on Draft Day, and so I really wanted
7:35
Speaker 1: to do that this year with this virtual draft, and
7:38
Speaker 1: so I tried hard, but most teams I didn't want
7:41
Speaker 1: to have anything to do with me being involved because, honestly, John,
7:46
Speaker 1: this could have been a pretty big mess up, you know. So, UM,
7:50
Speaker 1: I got Jason Light of the Bucks to agree, and basically,
7:54
Speaker 1: I'm sitting on the seventh floor of an apartment building
7:57
Speaker 1: in Brooklyn, New York right now. This is where I've
8:00
Speaker 1: done my job for the last ten weeks. And Uh,
8:06
Speaker 1: I was inside the Tampa Tampa Bay Buccaneers draft, uh
8:12
Speaker 1: maneuvering's draft room, even though it was the toy room
8:16
Speaker 1: in Jason Light's children's house, you know, his his kid's
8:22
Speaker 1: toy room. But UH and and I covered it, and
8:27
Speaker 1: I and I heard it, and I saw it all
8:29
Speaker 1: the way down to one child with a blood curdling
8:32
Speaker 1: mommy scream in the middle of him trying to make
8:36
Speaker 1: a trade with Mike Mayock in the middle of the
8:38
Speaker 1: first round, you know, in Las Vegas. So I mean,
8:43
Speaker 1: that was really really different obvious, it's it's stunning, it's
8:50
Speaker 1: really stunning. And you know, and then every single week
8:56
Speaker 1: I have been able to come up with something since
8:58
Speaker 1: the middle of March, I've been able to come up
9:01
Speaker 1: with something that, in my opinion anyway, uh is just different.
9:07
Speaker 1: And and you know, I think our job as reporters
9:12
Speaker 1: is to sort of kind of mirror the society we're
9:15
Speaker 1: in at the time, mirror the place where we are.
9:19
Speaker 1: And we are in an incredible situation right now. And
9:25
Speaker 1: you know, this week in my column, I'm writing something
9:28
Speaker 1: on the Detroit Lions receiver room. Okay, receiver room. Okay,
9:35
Speaker 1: there the coach, a guy named Robert Prince. Receiver's coach
9:39
Speaker 1: is in his house in Jacksonville right now. That's where
9:43
Speaker 1: he's running his zoom meetings from. Okay, He's got receivers
9:48
Speaker 1: stretching from uh Long Island, New York, to San Diego, California,
9:54
Speaker 1: at all spots in between. He's got a Louisiana, he's
9:57
Speaker 1: got a Bradenton, Florida. He's on Austin, he's got a Dallas.
10:04
Speaker 1: And so this is how teams are working and how
10:08
Speaker 1: teams are are coaching right now, and I just find
10:13
Speaker 1: it absolutely totally fascinating, and it seems like it's only
10:18
Speaker 1: going to get more fascinating as they try to get
10:21
Speaker 1: this thing together and actually had a season. Well, you know,
10:24
Speaker 1: we'll see, um, you know, John, I mean as we
10:29
Speaker 1: record this, I just read an item on Twitter where
10:34
Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Steelers, who you know, are one of the
10:37
Speaker 1: most you have, one of the most intense fan bases
10:40
Speaker 1: in the NFL, are only putting fifty of their tickets
10:46
Speaker 1: on sale this year. Um, because because they think that
10:51
Speaker 1: that's at max that's probably the most they'll be able
10:55
Speaker 1: to fit in hyfield with social distancing. So, John, there's
10:59
Speaker 1: this story. How in the world did the Steelers figure
11:03
Speaker 1: out which fifty percent sell to and which fifty were
11:07
Speaker 1: sent to say sorry, see you next year. There's probably
11:10
Speaker 1: people who are turning down who have been doing it
11:12
Speaker 1: for thirty five years. Yeah, And and also what about
11:16
Speaker 1: the people who have been going to Steelers games for
11:19
Speaker 1: thirty years and who were this year they're told we
11:21
Speaker 1: can't go. How do they feel? Let's find a few
11:24
Speaker 1: of those. So that's what I'm talking about. These stories
11:29
Speaker 1: are incredible and and only about half of them have
11:32
Speaker 1: to do with the game on the field. It's all
11:35
Speaker 1: this other stuff. And then you add in the normal
11:38
Speaker 1: stuff with uh, you know, the normal every year stuff
11:42
Speaker 1: in the NFL. You know where they're uh you know
11:46
Speaker 1: talking now about the possibility of uh changing the on
11:50
Speaker 1: side kick to a fourth and fifteen play where they're
11:54
Speaker 1: having a monstrous amount of trouble with the Rooney rule
11:58
Speaker 1: and with minority hiring. So you add you add all
12:02
Speaker 1: the other stuff into that, and this is this is
12:07
Speaker 1: as crazy and interesting and offseason as we've had. It
12:12
Speaker 1: was now what like three weeks ago. I've been trying
12:15
Speaker 1: to get Dr Frauci, you know, and talked to him
12:18
Speaker 1: for for my column about what's ahead for football and everything.
12:23
Speaker 1: So one uh Saturday evening at five thirty, I get
12:28
Speaker 1: I got about a half hour notice, Hey, Dr Frauci
12:32
Speaker 1: is gonna call you. So all of a sudden, my
12:34
Speaker 1: column gets ripped up and you're leading with Foucci. So
12:37
Speaker 1: it's just that's the kind of thing that it's it's been.
12:41
Speaker 1: It's been so much fun and I don't hey, look,
12:44
Speaker 1: fun is a relative term because I wish none of
12:47
Speaker 1: this was happening, obviously, but it's a fascinating time. I
12:52
Speaker 1: remember talking to you. I think it was on the
12:54
Speaker 1: practice field last year here in Jacksonville, and I almost
12:58
Speaker 1: got the impression from you then and that you weren't
13:01
Speaker 1: sure how much longer you're gonna do you you've been
13:04
Speaker 1: doing this right, but hearing you're right now, I don't
13:08
Speaker 1: see you hanging it up anytime soon. I mean, you know,
13:13
Speaker 1: I I love this. I love this whole thing, John
13:17
Speaker 1: And and honestly, I don't anticipate not doing this for
13:24
Speaker 1: a while. I mean, who knows I got. I got
13:27
Speaker 1: I think three years left on my current deal with NBC,
13:30
Speaker 1: and you know, we'll see what happens. How does anybody
13:34
Speaker 1: know what happens in the future. I mean, I turned
13:37
Speaker 1: sixty three in a couple of weeks, so we'll see
13:40
Speaker 1: what I feel like doing. You don't get into this
13:43
Speaker 1: unless you have a love for it, and you've been
13:46
Speaker 1: doing it now clearly at the highest level for four decades.
13:50
Speaker 1: But there's still a passion in you about it. What
13:53
Speaker 1: do you love about this? What did what got you
13:56
Speaker 1: into it in the beginning, and what do you still
13:58
Speaker 1: love most about at the beginning. What really happened was
14:03
Speaker 1: that I was going to be a news reporter when
14:06
Speaker 1: I was at Ohio University in Athens, Ohio, graduated in
14:10
Speaker 1: seventy nine. If you know, on my first job after
14:15
Speaker 1: internships was working for the Associated Press in Columbus, Ohio,
14:20
Speaker 1: and I just covered whatever I had to cover, um,
14:24
Speaker 1: and and and I if the sports editor of the
14:28
Speaker 1: Cincinnati Enquirer had not called me and the politics editor
14:32
Speaker 1: of the Columbus Dispatch had called me instead, because I
14:36
Speaker 1: was managing editor in my school paper in Ohio, I
14:39
Speaker 1: wasn't the sports editor. I would have written news and
14:43
Speaker 1: I would have covered politics or something. I don't know
14:45
Speaker 1: what I would have done, but um, you know, at
14:48
Speaker 1: the time, you just you want a job, and you
14:50
Speaker 1: want a job that's gonna be fun. And this has
14:53
Speaker 1: been a tremendous amount of fund for me lately and
14:59
Speaker 1: for all of the forty years I've done it, and
15:02
Speaker 1: you chronicled maybe the most fascinating time. The whole NFL
15:07
Speaker 1: history is fascinating. We both, I'm sure, have followed it
15:11
Speaker 1: and read about it the time that you covered it.
15:14
Speaker 1: The growth of this sport. People forget it was not
15:18
Speaker 1: the dominant sport maybe in the eighties that it is
15:21
Speaker 1: now not at all. In fact, it wasn't even the
15:24
Speaker 1: biggest sport. You know, remember, you know, baseball was still
15:30
Speaker 1: king when I, you know, in the early eighties when
15:33
Speaker 1: I started doing this. But I think I and I
15:37
Speaker 1: love baseball, and I still do love baseball. But I
15:40
Speaker 1: think the thing I really wanted to do was I
15:44
Speaker 1: wanted to be able to have a family life also,
15:46
Speaker 1: And I think it's easy and when we cover football
15:49
Speaker 1: to have a family life. The the four previous people
15:52
Speaker 1: on the beat at the Cincinnati Enquirer covering bit covering baseball,
15:57
Speaker 1: um all were divorced men. Life of a baseball beat guys.
16:01
Speaker 1: Rough Yeah, well in those days too, especially because there
16:06
Speaker 1: was almost it was almost a cal Ripken type the job.
16:10
Speaker 1: You know, it was you. It was frowned upon for
16:13
Speaker 1: you to take days off. And so even though I
16:18
Speaker 1: did cover some baseball and I had a good time,
16:20
Speaker 1: that was right at the end of the big Red
16:21
Speaker 1: machine in Cincinnati. UM. So there were some great characters
16:26
Speaker 1: and it was fun. But I I never saw myself
16:30
Speaker 1: doing that for a living because I just think it's
16:33
Speaker 1: I just think it's really too hard on your family outside.
16:37
Speaker 1: You know, I can talk to you about the career forever.
16:39
Speaker 1: But in terms of the NFL, you probably a better
16:43
Speaker 1: gauge over the big picture of where the league is,
16:47
Speaker 1: where it's headed outside of COVID, which is obviously a
16:50
Speaker 1: different deal. What are the biggest issues you see facing it?
16:55
Speaker 1: And if it's not your general question, where is it headed?
17:00
Speaker 1: If the dominant sport, they've got to hang onto that.
17:02
Speaker 1: But you know, again, what are some of those issues
17:06
Speaker 1: that you're fascinated with how this league is gonna handle.
17:08
Speaker 1: You know, the NFL has to make sure that it
17:11
Speaker 1: is um, that it is consistently and absolutely on top
17:17
Speaker 1: of UM head trauma. That's the biggest issue. There are
17:23
Speaker 1: other simmering issues, you know, the Rooney rule and things
17:26
Speaker 1: like that. But you know the dumb pass interference rule
17:30
Speaker 1: they put in last year that you also done what
17:32
Speaker 1: they put in, but it was dumb. If you're gonna
17:35
Speaker 1: put in a rule, you got officiated correctly, and they
17:38
Speaker 1: never did. UM. But I think, I think, I think
17:42
Speaker 1: those things are important. UM. I think the overwriting thing
17:48
Speaker 1: is the health of players and the health of the game. UM.
17:52
Speaker 1: I think that they've been incredibly fortunate. Think about it.
17:58
Speaker 1: They they have a labor agreement now that stretches basically
18:04
Speaker 1: for the next eleven years. It's unbelievable in modern sports
18:09
Speaker 1: that you can get that done with your union. And
18:13
Speaker 1: so I think it will continue to be I think
18:16
Speaker 1: it will continue to be the dominant sport in America.
18:19
Speaker 1: But I think you have to make absolutely sure that
18:23
Speaker 1: you're still gonna have great pools of talent to choose from.
18:28
Speaker 1: And you don't want to get every you know, Uh,
18:33
Speaker 1: you want to have every sector of society to draw from,
18:37
Speaker 1: you know, when you want to get your players. And
18:39
Speaker 1: that's the thing I would be most concerned about if
18:42
Speaker 1: I was the NFL. You've been again doing it probably
18:46
Speaker 1: for as long as I've been a fan. Uh is
18:51
Speaker 1: it a better game now or just different? Or I
18:55
Speaker 1: guess what's the biggest change you've seen in forty years
18:58
Speaker 1: that there's a way to define that. Well, I think
19:01
Speaker 1: the owners in the NFL have basically been forced two. Uh,
19:06
Speaker 1: they've been forced to treat the players a lot better
19:09
Speaker 1: than they did when I first started covering the game.
19:14
Speaker 1: And look, I I covered the game when half the
19:17
Speaker 1: teams were playing on essentially they're playing on concrete with
19:22
Speaker 1: a rogue on it. And uh, now, um, no team
19:27
Speaker 1: does that, and so that that I think is a
19:30
Speaker 1: really good thing. I think the other thing that has
19:32
Speaker 1: been really good, and the NFL had to basically be
19:36
Speaker 1: drag kicking and screaming to do it, is too not
19:40
Speaker 1: only to care a lot more about health and safety,
19:44
Speaker 1: but to also care about sort of the mental well
19:48
Speaker 1: being of players. And that includes making sure that in
19:52
Speaker 1: the off season. You know, I remember after two thousand
19:55
Speaker 1: eleven when the NFL basically gave uh, you know, pushed
20:00
Speaker 1: back the offseason programs to like the middle of April.
20:05
Speaker 1: I'll never forget. There's a linebacker. At the time, I
20:08
Speaker 1: think he was playing with Cleveland. He played for several
20:11
Speaker 1: teams to Quell Jackson, and di Quell Jackson was telling
20:14
Speaker 1: me that what he really wanted was excited about with
20:18
Speaker 1: this new labor agreement is he now could finish his
20:22
Speaker 1: degree on campus at Maryland. He was all excited about
20:27
Speaker 1: that in the in the in the winter spring term
20:32
Speaker 1: of two thousand twelve, he was going to be able
20:35
Speaker 1: to enroll go to college in College Park, Maryland, and
20:41
Speaker 1: and stay there for the whole term and actually be
20:44
Speaker 1: a student, be a real student, rather than you know,
20:48
Speaker 1: maybe go to a few weeks of classes and then
20:51
Speaker 1: you know, have the professor work out some deal so
20:54
Speaker 1: that you know, you could monitor the classes online or
20:57
Speaker 1: something like that. And I think things like that, even
21:01
Speaker 1: though NFL teams and coaches probably still chafe at that,
21:05
Speaker 1: that's been wonderful. Players get to be real people for
21:09
Speaker 1: a lot longer than in the off season than they
21:12
Speaker 1: used to. Let me ask you three quick questions, and
21:16
Speaker 1: I just kind of give me your first impression of
21:17
Speaker 1: my ask best interview stories you've had in forty years?
21:23
Speaker 1: Who's who's the guy you look forward most to covering
21:25
Speaker 1: during that time. I'd say it was probably Brett Farve
21:30
Speaker 1: because I had the kind of relationship with him for
21:34
Speaker 1: six or eight years where, uh, you know when I
21:38
Speaker 1: when I would go into Green Bay to cover a game.
21:40
Speaker 1: This was in the days of long game stories for
21:44
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated. So I'd go in on Friday to Green
21:49
Speaker 1: Bay and I would ignore him during the day working
21:52
Speaker 1: with the packers, and then that evening, I'd like go
21:56
Speaker 1: over to his house and then we go out to
21:57
Speaker 1: dinner with his family somewhere. And you know, whenever I
22:02
Speaker 1: told him, Hey, I need to ask you these questions,
22:05
Speaker 1: that's when it would be on the record other than
22:06
Speaker 1: that we're just talking and so. And he was the
22:09
Speaker 1: best character. He was the most fun. I did a
22:14
Speaker 1: week in the Life of the Packers in when he
22:17
Speaker 1: was just emerging, and you know, to to sit in
22:22
Speaker 1: the Green Bay quarterback room with at that time it
22:27
Speaker 1: was Steve Maryuchi is the quarterback coach, Brett farve Ty,
22:32
Speaker 1: Dett Murray and t J. Rubili and have Far fall
22:36
Speaker 1: asleep and wake himself up with one of his own farts.
22:40
Speaker 1: Was just like, you know that, and he didn't care.
22:45
Speaker 1: He just didn't care. And then at the end of
22:47
Speaker 1: the week they'd take a test and Far kill everybody
22:51
Speaker 1: on the test because he just knew it, you know.
22:54
Speaker 1: And I I really enjoyed covering him and being around him.
23:00
Speaker 1: Is there a super boy? I know you guys were
23:03
Speaker 1: covering the Super Bowl or covering a game. It was
23:06
Speaker 1: an event the way you covered it, meaning you would
23:09
Speaker 1: go in, you'd research it all weeks. It was a
23:11
Speaker 1: different sort of journalism that I could do. Was a
23:13
Speaker 1: was it a daily newspaper? Was there an event like that?
23:17
Speaker 1: Outside the far stories you just talked about, they kind
23:19
Speaker 1: of stood out where you researched it. You knew you
23:22
Speaker 1: had a great story, because did it. You have to
23:25
Speaker 1: really report those to keep other people from getting it.
23:27
Speaker 1: It was a different dynamic. Well in getting it is
23:30
Speaker 1: when it stands out in we Uh. We had four
23:35
Speaker 1: people on the team covering the Super Bowl that year,
23:38
Speaker 1: and Rick Tellander was going to write the game story.
23:41
Speaker 1: So our job during the week was to gather and
23:43
Speaker 1: to make sure that after the game, depending on who one,
23:46
Speaker 1: we would get something really good. And that was the
23:48
Speaker 1: Steve Young six touchdown pass game where he got the
23:52
Speaker 1: monkey off his back and beat the Chargers. So I
23:56
Speaker 1: remember I followed him around for two hours at the
24:00
Speaker 1: stadium after the game. He did every live shot there
24:03
Speaker 1: was from Chris Vermin to Sacramento, you know, and so
24:08
Speaker 1: uh and I'll never forget he was totally dehydrated. The
24:12
Speaker 1: game was in Miami, and at one point he looked
24:14
Speaker 1: to me and he said, Peter, can you find me
24:16
Speaker 1: anything to eat or drink? I'm I'm dying here. So
24:19
Speaker 1: I went and found him three large gatorades, some cookies
24:24
Speaker 1: and an apple. And those three large gatorades, I'm guessing
24:29
Speaker 1: they were thirty two ounces apiece. Uh. He drank those
24:34
Speaker 1: in five minutes. He drank nineties six ounces of gatorade
24:37
Speaker 1: in five minutes, and then he just went on. And
24:40
Speaker 1: so we were leaving the stadium and we get into
24:43
Speaker 1: the back of a car at LEAs Steinberg's agent is there,
24:46
Speaker 1: and I'm sitting in the back seat and young is
24:49
Speaker 1: not looking very good. I'm going to his hotel, you know,
24:53
Speaker 1: to see what goes on with his family celebration. And
24:56
Speaker 1: we're in the back seat of his car, and all
24:58
Speaker 1: of a sudden, an absolute torrent of bright red vomit
25:02
Speaker 1: comes out of his mouth and it goes lands all
25:06
Speaker 1: over Lee Steinberg's pants and shoes, and uh he what
25:12
Speaker 1: else could he say? Said? Well, I guess I'll never
25:14
Speaker 1: wash the shoes again. And so you know what, those
25:18
Speaker 1: those were the kind of stories when you don't have
25:20
Speaker 1: to be consumed, as you said, was sitting there and
25:23
Speaker 1: banging out a game story right after the game. You
25:26
Speaker 1: could actually make sure you hang out with somebody until
25:29
Speaker 1: two o'clock in the morning and then go, you know,
25:32
Speaker 1: write your file to Rick talland er get it to
25:35
Speaker 1: him by like four thirty in the morning so that
25:38
Speaker 1: he can have his game story in by nine o'clock Eastern.
25:41
Speaker 1: So those were those are fun days. They were frustrating
25:45
Speaker 1: days because you would always think you'd always think, man,
25:48
Speaker 1: more of my stuff should have gotten in. But everybody
25:50
Speaker 1: thought that. And this is a very inside baseball question,
25:54
Speaker 1: but I always been fascinated by Were there ever a
25:57
Speaker 1: time I know you guys would right all night because
26:01
Speaker 1: it was a different sort of deadline. You have to
26:03
Speaker 1: cover a game Sunday, and I think your deadline was
26:05
Speaker 1: early Monday morning, like six am. Did you ever come
26:10
Speaker 1: close to missing it? Were you ever panicking on it?
26:13
Speaker 1: Was that every week? You know what I'm getting at
26:14
Speaker 1: because I'd be stressing at eleven thirty at night, but
26:18
Speaker 1: you guys are doing at five thirty in the morning
26:20
Speaker 1: after a week's worth of work. Is there a story
26:23
Speaker 1: where you just thought this is gonna be awful? I'm
26:25
Speaker 1: not getting it at Um. You know, I have a
26:28
Speaker 1: vivid memory of the first story I ever wrote for
26:33
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated was about Boomers Sias and coming off an
26:37
Speaker 1: arm injury. I got to the magazine, Uh, first week
26:41
Speaker 1: of June, and um, so you go through all the
26:47
Speaker 1: indoctrination and everything like that, and uh, and so Boomer
26:53
Speaker 1: they were gonna have me right a training camp story,
26:58
Speaker 1: but the lead was gonna be on boomers yas and
27:00
Speaker 1: he was coming off an m v P year uh
27:03
Speaker 1: and losing the Super Bowl, and and they wanted to
27:06
Speaker 1: know what was going on with Boomers. So I went
27:10
Speaker 1: and hung out with him and his wife for a
27:12
Speaker 1: couple of days in July before they went to training camp.
27:16
Speaker 1: And um. I flew home on a on a on
27:20
Speaker 1: a Northwest Airlines plane to New Jersey and I was
27:24
Speaker 1: in the terminal and I realized, holy crap, I just
27:29
Speaker 1: left my notebook on the plane. I had not I
27:32
Speaker 1: had not taped it, and I left the notebook on
27:34
Speaker 1: the plane. And it was Saturday, late afternoon. My story
27:38
Speaker 1: was due the next morning, my first story for s I,
27:41
Speaker 1: and I was gonna go home and write it like
27:44
Speaker 1: all night and so uh. I spent about three hours
27:49
Speaker 1: at the airport, having six heart attacks and realizing that
27:53
Speaker 1: the airport had just the airplane had turned around and left.
27:57
Speaker 1: It went out. It must have got stuck between the seats,
27:59
Speaker 1: who knows, but nobody ever found it. So I got
28:03
Speaker 1: home maybe about ten o'clock that night, and I have
28:06
Speaker 1: to pick up the phone and call Boomer and tell
28:08
Speaker 1: him what happened. So at the time, Boomer is on
28:12
Speaker 1: one phone and his wife Cheryl is on the other phone,
28:15
Speaker 1: and there wherever they are, I don't remember. And we
28:18
Speaker 1: recreated about two days worth of conversation in an hour
28:23
Speaker 1: or so. And I sat down and over seven hours
28:27
Speaker 1: just wrote the story, and that I have vivid memories
28:31
Speaker 1: of because I know that that the story I'm positive of.
28:35
Speaker 1: The story would have been better had I had all
28:37
Speaker 1: of my original notes. But what are you gonna do?
28:40
Speaker 1: Cry about it? You can't call up and say, oh,
28:42
Speaker 1: by the way, my dog ate my homework. You know,
28:45
Speaker 1: you just got to kind of move on and and
28:47
Speaker 1: try to recreate it the best way you can. That's fantastic.
28:51
Speaker 1: Very quickly, we've talked about everything else, accepted, Jags. Your
28:55
Speaker 1: final thoughts leave me with something in terms of how
28:58
Speaker 1: you feel about this team going forward. I mean, you
29:02
Speaker 1: know they've put an incredible amount of pressure on Gardner
29:04
Speaker 1: Minshew and uh. I think that particularly because you've got
29:12
Speaker 1: two picks in the top twenty you get rid of Marquisley,
29:17
Speaker 1: you don't use either of those on an on an
29:19
Speaker 1: offensive player, and so there is tremendous pressure on him
29:28
Speaker 1: to come in and to be the guy who they
29:30
Speaker 1: believe that he should be and he and he can be.
29:36
Speaker 1: And I did an event with him at the Super
29:38
Speaker 1: Bowl this year. I did not I didn't know Gardner Minshew,
29:42
Speaker 1: and as everyone is, I was charmed by him. How
29:45
Speaker 1: are you not charmed by Gardner Minshew? How do you
29:48
Speaker 1: not root for Gardner Minshew? He's just this average guy
29:51
Speaker 1: who is so grateful for where he is, and he
29:54
Speaker 1: works hard, and you know, he understands he's got He
29:57
Speaker 1: has an appreciation for the if he has and I
30:01
Speaker 1: have great I've got great appreciation for people who are
30:04
Speaker 1: like that. But you know, it's got to he has
30:09
Speaker 1: to know that he has the fate of a coach,
30:13
Speaker 1: the fate of a general manager, the fate of maybe
30:17
Speaker 1: the long term future. He's going to be one of
30:20
Speaker 1: the people who decide whatever the long term future the
30:24
Speaker 1: Jags are wherever they are. It's it's uh, you know,
30:28
Speaker 1: I I really hope that deep down he has the
30:32
Speaker 1: ability to be that don't worry, be happy guy that
30:36
Speaker 1: he sure looks like he is on the outside. And
30:40
Speaker 1: I don't pull for a lot of people, but I'll
30:42
Speaker 1: be pulling for him. And and look, you know, there's
30:45
Speaker 1: so many good people in that organization. Um, and it's
30:50
Speaker 1: it's tough because right now to me, as I look
30:53
Speaker 1: at the division, they're in their number four entering the season,
30:58
Speaker 1: and if Annuary one their number four, there's gonna be
31:02
Speaker 1: an earthquake in that organization. Everybody knows that. So there's
31:07
Speaker 1: a lot of pressure to be good from day one.
31:10
Speaker 1: Plus you've got to be good from day one in
31:12
Speaker 1: this totally, absolutely bizarre year. So I don't envy Doug
31:17
Speaker 1: Moron and Dave called well and the cons uh and
31:21
Speaker 1: men shoot quite honestly, because there's no there's no excuses,
31:26
Speaker 1: there's no there's no well, you know we had a
31:28
Speaker 1: tough year. You know, there's no more we had a
31:31
Speaker 1: tough year. You just gotta get it done. And now
31:35
Speaker 1: the ozone five with Peter King here your last binge.
31:44
Speaker 1: Watched The Crown on Netflix. Jordan or Lebron, Lebron, But
31:52
Speaker 1: for many reasons, I like my superstars to have a
31:56
Speaker 1: conscience and to be great, but also to care a
32:02
Speaker 1: little bit about life. That's why I'd take Lebron. Last
32:06
Speaker 1: song you listened to in your car or last station
32:08
Speaker 1: in your car probably w F A N in New York,
32:12
Speaker 1: even though I have not been in a car for
32:16
Speaker 1: quite a while because I don't own a car, and
32:19
Speaker 1: whenever I have to drive, um, I rent a car
32:24
Speaker 1: and I haven't read it one in a while. So
32:27
Speaker 1: I'm talking to somebody from a different culture. I like that. Yeah,
32:31
Speaker 1: last Shore down around your house. Every morning, I do
32:36
Speaker 1: the breakfast dishes at our house, and every evening I
32:42
Speaker 1: do the dinner dishes at our house. So because we're
32:46
Speaker 1: recording this in mid afternoon, I would have to say
32:49
Speaker 1: the last Shore happily was doing the breakfast dishes. I
32:54
Speaker 1: love the sense of the little tiny sense of accomplishment
32:58
Speaker 1: you get from doing dishes. I like it. And your
33:02
Speaker 1: go to take out, which will be different for somebody
33:05
Speaker 1: in Jacksonville, but your go to take out when you
33:07
Speaker 1: guys do take out, it would be pizza at a
33:10
Speaker 1: place called Oleostro's in Brooklyn, New York. That would be
33:16
Speaker 1: I change a lot with my takeout. I might get
33:20
Speaker 1: into different kinds of takeout at times, but man, I'm
33:25
Speaker 1: Jones and for an Oleostros pizza right now, Peter, I
33:29
Speaker 1: could talk to you all day. I know you have
33:30
Speaker 1: to go, and uh, I can't thank you enough for
33:33
Speaker 1: doing this and I look forward when we can do
33:34
Speaker 1: it again. Hey, thanks a lot, John, it was a
33:37
Speaker 1: lot of fun. I'd like first to thank Peter for
33:40
Speaker 1: giving it some time. And that's never taken for granted
33:42
Speaker 1: because people are busy and even to hop on for
33:46
Speaker 1: forty five minutes or an hour, it's a lot, even
33:49
Speaker 1: during this time. And I I always liked talking the
33:53
Speaker 1: Peter I'll be honest. Day when I was first got
33:55
Speaker 1: it in business, Peter King was already a big, big name,
33:59
Speaker 1: maybe not quite as big as he is now, but
34:01
Speaker 1: he was with Sports Illustrated. He would come into town
34:04
Speaker 1: and I'm, you know, wet behind the years, twenty eight
34:07
Speaker 1: year old like Florida for a couple of years, but
34:10
Speaker 1: I didn't know people within the league. And the thing
34:14
Speaker 1: that I think people or or the people like when
34:17
Speaker 1: they listen to Peter is he really is a good
34:21
Speaker 1: guy and very Uh what I'm looking forward, I would
34:29
Speaker 1: think if a fan who's never met him walks up
34:33
Speaker 1: and wants to talk about the NFL, Peter is going
34:37
Speaker 1: to give that person the same amount of time as
34:39
Speaker 1: he with the commissioner, so to speak. And that probably exaggeration.
34:42
Speaker 1: He's gonna give you that a lot of time, but
34:44
Speaker 1: the point being, he truly loves his job. I think
34:48
Speaker 1: most people who are listening to us, they have probably
34:50
Speaker 1: read the Monday Morning Quarterback over the years, if you're
34:52
Speaker 1: an NFL fan. That's even in these days where not
34:56
Speaker 1: everything that must read anymore, that is and I think
35:00
Speaker 1: what comes across in the m MQB and it's not
35:04
Speaker 1: that anymore. But what he does for NBC now is
35:08
Speaker 1: he likes taking you behind the scenes. He likes the
35:12
Speaker 1: reporting process. He doesn't try to put it on a pedestal,
35:16
Speaker 1: and he really takes people inside, and he likes sharing
35:20
Speaker 1: his life with people. And I think it comes across
35:22
Speaker 1: in the column. Yeah, the money Money Quarterback is it's
35:25
Speaker 1: kind of appointment reading. I think if you're into the NFL,
35:29
Speaker 1: or if you work in the NFL, or even if
35:31
Speaker 1: you know you're you're a big fan. And now whatever
35:33
Speaker 1: the new iteration of it is with NBC Sports, I
35:37
Speaker 1: still at least scanned it every week. It feels when
35:40
Speaker 1: you read it like he's just talking to you and
35:43
Speaker 1: he just happens to Hey. I talked to the head
35:47
Speaker 1: coaches of the Bills after his win last night, and
35:51
Speaker 1: I talked to the commissioner last week and I talked
35:52
Speaker 1: to this fan, talked to this fan, and there's never
35:55
Speaker 1: very much effort into reading it. It feels like it's
36:00
Speaker 1: something that he just kind of threw together on a
36:01
Speaker 1: Sunday night after Watchington football. Well, let me tell you
36:05
Speaker 1: that's hard. He rarely misses on what the best story
36:10
Speaker 1: to write that week is and that's, Uh, that ain't easy.
36:13
Speaker 1: You can speak your background of TV the same deal,
36:17
Speaker 1: knowing what's important that day, and Peter has a great
36:21
Speaker 1: job at that. Yeah, he's almost turned into the Uh
36:24
Speaker 1: there's probably some a better way to say this, but
36:27
Speaker 1: the he's the go to guy on the reporting of news,
36:31
Speaker 1: and we have the perspective because he's talked to Roger Goodell,
36:35
Speaker 1: He's talked to the key players around the league enough
36:39
Speaker 1: that he can kind of speak to what they're probably thinking.
36:41
Speaker 1: And also is much much influence he has on the
36:44
Speaker 1: Hall of Fame and what he says and and how
36:46
Speaker 1: he how he lifts up the Hall of Fame and
36:49
Speaker 1: how he's pretty open about how the process works. I
36:52
Speaker 1: think that's really cool. And I think two is every
36:55
Speaker 1: time he's come to Jacksonville. You know, I've been in
36:59
Speaker 1: around him a little bit, been in groups and have
37:01
Speaker 1: helped him shoot some stuff back when he was with
37:04
Speaker 1: Sports Illustrated. It was always very nice, very cordial, um
37:08
Speaker 1: talk to you, we'll talk to you, and I appreciate that.
37:11
Speaker 1: Probably the TV and radio, the movies over the years
37:14
Speaker 1: have created this image of the grizzled reporter who's a
37:19
Speaker 1: great reporter because he's kind of a jerk. My experiences,
37:24
Speaker 1: most great reporters aren't jerks because most people don't like
37:29
Speaker 1: to talk to jerks. And I can remember way back
37:33
Speaker 1: he would come into town s I and always asked
37:36
Speaker 1: the reporters who were there closest to the team what
37:38
Speaker 1: was going on with the team, because he knew they
37:40
Speaker 1: knew it better than he did. H But always a
37:45
Speaker 1: feeling of caring about getting the story right, and Uh,
37:51
Speaker 1: you can be as good a reporter as you want,
37:54
Speaker 1: but if you're not taking the information that you receive
37:58
Speaker 1: and striving to be as accurate it was possible with
38:00
Speaker 1: that information, and not all of them do, then you're
38:03
Speaker 1: not doing your job. And he does a great job
38:05
Speaker 1: with it, so it's a It was great to have
38:07
Speaker 1: him on and it was great as always to have
38:11
Speaker 1: the Ozone Podcast We appreciate Davey Channis, we appreciate the
38:15
Speaker 1: job producer Joe Fortunato. We will be back again next
38:18
Speaker 1: week and we will try not to stop