Latest / Best of the NFL Podcast Network / The Season with Peter Schrager: The Incredible Life of Wellington Mara (with filmmaker Neil Zender)

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The Season with Peter Schrager: The Incredible Life of Wellington Mara (with filmmaker Neil Zender) · Best of the NFL Podcast Network

0:07
Speaker 1: The Season with Peter Scheger is a production of the
0:09
Speaker 1: NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, Everybody, Welcome to
0:25
Speaker 1: another episode of the Season with Peter Schrager. I'm Peter Schrager.
0:28
Speaker 1: I host Good Morning Football on the NFL Network Monday
0:31
Speaker 1: to Friday, and I am an insider on Fox on
0:35
Speaker 1: Sundays on a show called Fox NFL Kickoff that airs
0:38
Speaker 1: at eleven am Eastern every week on Sundays. Saturday night,
0:47
Speaker 1: I had a big one. Saturday night was a team
0:50
Speaker 1: dinner for Fox NFL Kickoff, and Saturday night we went
0:54
Speaker 1: to a spot called Craigs in Los Angeles, which is
0:57
Speaker 1: a Hollywood hot spot. It's one of those places where
1:01
Speaker 1: there's Papa Rotzi waiting when you enter and leave the restaurant.
1:06
Speaker 1: I put on my best T shirt and my best
1:08
Speaker 1: ratty old pair of jeans and my Vans or whatever
1:13
Speaker 1: sneakers I brought this week, and I said, Okay, cool
1:16
Speaker 1: Hollywood nightspot. I'm gonna get all gussied up because they're
1:19
Speaker 1: going to take photos of me when I walk in.
1:21
Speaker 1: They did not take photos of me when I walked in,
1:24
Speaker 1: but we get to the table and the crew is
1:27
Speaker 1: Charles Woodson, Julian Edelman, Michael Vick, Carissa Thompson, our star producer,
1:35
Speaker 1: Jeremy Manel, and then Danny Ammendola, who is currently on
1:40
Speaker 1: Dancing with the Stars and is an absolute stud and
1:43
Speaker 1: a heart throb. The table next to us. The night
1:48
Speaker 1: before they play in a crucial game six, and it
1:51
Speaker 1: was early enough we had a six o'clock reservation. Pete Alonzo,
1:55
Speaker 1: first basement from the Mets, is hanging at the table
1:57
Speaker 1: next to us. The table next to him is one
2:01
Speaker 1: of my favorite actors and comedians of all time, David Spade,
2:06
Speaker 1: who was hanging at the restaurant and then in the
2:08
Speaker 1: back with security and he walked out and signed a
2:11
Speaker 1: few autographs.
2:12
Speaker 2: To this thing.
2:13
Speaker 1: Was Nick Cannon, who was also in the spot. So
2:15
Speaker 1: all these people are on the spot, and at some point,
2:18
Speaker 1: with all the buzz in the air of this great table,
2:22
Speaker 1: we started talking about Belichick and Amondola and Edelman have
2:28
Speaker 1: their stories, but more than anything, these guys swear by
2:35
Speaker 1: the Patriots way and that this is how it's done,
2:38
Speaker 1: and this is how you win championships, and the Patriots
2:42
Speaker 1: this and the Patriots that, And if I were to
2:44
Speaker 1: get my fellow Fox colleagues Gronk and of course Tom
2:48
Speaker 1: Brady at the table. I'm sure they wouldn't even want
2:50
Speaker 1: to hear from Michael Vick or Charles Woodson, and they
2:53
Speaker 1: certainly want wouldn't want to hear from me. And as
2:56
Speaker 1: we've got all this Patriots talk and how Bill would
2:59
Speaker 1: say this, and Bill would always in the room talk about,
3:02
Speaker 1: you know, whatever we're watching on film couldn't compete with
3:04
Speaker 1: Foxborough high and laughing. They're chuckling it up. I come
3:08
Speaker 1: away from that thinking, gosh, I could have sworn like
3:11
Speaker 1: Gronk at one point said he wasn't happy and he's
3:14
Speaker 1: so excited to leave. And then I was like, was
3:16
Speaker 1: there drama with a mondola at the end? There with Bell?
3:19
Speaker 1: Doesn't matter in time, there is such a fondness for
3:23
Speaker 1: Bill Belichick. Fast forward to Sunday morning, mere hours after
3:28
Speaker 1: our electric dinner and oh, by the way, as we left,
3:31
Speaker 1: I swear to god, a guy with a camera and
3:35
Speaker 1: a video camera was videotaping Charles Woodson and said, Charles,
3:40
Speaker 1: what do you think of Brady as an owner? And
3:42
Speaker 1: Woodson said, well, the ink hasn't even dried yet. Everyone laughed,
3:45
Speaker 1: and I swear to God. Someone with a camera came
3:47
Speaker 1: up to me and yelled to me, are you famous?
3:49
Speaker 1: And I said nope. And I got an SUV with
3:53
Speaker 1: Charles Woodson and just had to let that one sit
3:55
Speaker 1: in there for a while. But Mira Howard is. After that,
3:58
Speaker 1: the Patriots go out and Drake May's got his first
4:01
Speaker 1: big start, and you know or whatever his game is,
4:04
Speaker 1: he's the starter, and they're down uh ten nothing, they're
4:08
Speaker 1: up ten to nothing, and they give the game away.
4:10
Speaker 1: And I see online, I see Bill Simmons' tweet, and
4:12
Speaker 1: I see everyone's tweeting that, like this is a poorly
4:14
Speaker 1: coach team whatever. And then Gerard Mayo, the first year
4:18
Speaker 1: coach who was appointed by Robert Kraft, had this to
4:21
Speaker 1: say about his squad.
4:23
Speaker 3: Look a disappointing game. Disappointing game. We came out, we
4:27
Speaker 3: started fast. What I would say is we're a soft
4:29
Speaker 3: football team across the board. We talk about what makes
4:31
Speaker 3: a tough football team. That's being able to run the ball,
4:34
Speaker 3: that's being able to stop the run, and that's being
4:36
Speaker 3: able to cover kicks, and we did none of those today.
4:39
Speaker 3: They controlled the ball for most of the day. You know,
4:41
Speaker 3: their run game average over four and a half yards
4:43
Speaker 3: to carry our run game. Not sure what the average was,
4:46
Speaker 3: but it wasn't good. Look back to the drawing board.
4:50
Speaker 3: I mean, we can't sit here and pout. We just
4:52
Speaker 3: we just got to put a game together.
4:56
Speaker 1: The word that was used that is a trigger in
5:00
Speaker 1: football circles was a four letter word that starts with
5:03
Speaker 1: the letter S soft. Mayo has not been a great coach.
5:10
Speaker 1: Seven weeks through the season. The team does not look prepared.
5:13
Speaker 1: There look undisciplined at points. There's penalties all over the field.
5:16
Speaker 1: And when you call a team soft, you are questioning manhood,
5:22
Speaker 1: you are questioning work ethic, and you are questioning a
5:25
Speaker 1: person's toughness. So we can leave it at that, or
5:31
Speaker 1: you can compound this by having the former head coach
5:36
Speaker 1: of the team, with six Super Bowl rings to his
5:41
Speaker 1: name and with all of the respect and history in
5:45
Speaker 1: the world, with the franchise doing a media tour. The
5:49
Speaker 1: following day, Bill Belichick goes on the Pat McAfee show,
5:53
Speaker 1: and instead of just saying hey, that's their team, best
5:56
Speaker 1: of luck will go, he was asked about Mayo's comments,
6:01
Speaker 1: and he said the following quote, it's a lot of
6:04
Speaker 1: the same players hurt for those guys because to call
6:08
Speaker 1: them soft, well, they're not soft. They were the best
6:12
Speaker 1: team in the league last year against the run. The
6:14
Speaker 1: Patriots led the league last year in rushing, defensive yards
6:17
Speaker 1: and defense per yards per carry. They were number one
6:19
Speaker 1: in the league, and this year they're way down in
6:21
Speaker 1: the twenties. It's a lot of the same guys too.
6:23
Speaker 1: They resigned Jennings, they re signed, Tavy, they re signed
6:26
Speaker 1: and obviously Dugger, Marcus Jones and Gonzalez have been healthy
6:31
Speaker 1: all year, which they were not. They were on ir
6:33
Speaker 1: last year at different points. And you got Godshaw and
6:36
Speaker 1: Keon Clark and Mapu and Gonzales. Those are three rookies
6:39
Speaker 1: from last year. So it's a lot of the same players.
6:42
Speaker 1: I feel bad for the defensive players on that one.
6:46
Speaker 1: Those guys are all tough players. End quote. Then there
6:55
Speaker 1: was a video that surfaced of Robert Kraft being discussed
7:01
Speaker 1: about his initiative off the field on anti Semitism and
7:05
Speaker 1: anti h which is a great cause, and he gets
7:08
Speaker 1: meant a question about the Patriots, and instead of saying
7:12
Speaker 1: there was a mutual parting of the ways to Charlemagne,
7:15
Speaker 1: the God and the Breakfast Club, he basically said, yeah,
7:19
Speaker 1: we had to say goodbye to Belichick, and it was
7:21
Speaker 1: because of X Y Z. And well, when it was
7:24
Speaker 1: presented back in January, it wasn't we had to say
7:29
Speaker 1: goodbye to Belichick. It was there's going to be a
7:31
Speaker 1: mutual parting of the ways. And then Kraft had an
7:33
Speaker 1: interview with Taylor Rooks before the Jets game a few
7:36
Speaker 1: weeks back, and he said that he had his eye
7:39
Speaker 1: on Mayo for years. There's a lot going on when
7:43
Speaker 1: you talk about the Belichick Craft Patriots relationship and the
7:49
Speaker 1: fact that this team didn't interview Mike Vrabel, the fact
7:52
Speaker 1: that there was no full hiring interview process and it
7:57
Speaker 1: was basically handed to Gerrod Mayo. It always struck me
8:00
Speaker 1: as curious. And now the fact that Belichick is on
8:03
Speaker 1: no less than seven different media outlets per I'm serious, seven,
8:08
Speaker 1: I can count them out. He's on McAfee, which he's
8:10
Speaker 1: great with pat and he's really loosened up and he
8:13
Speaker 1: was taking shots all over and that's what we want
8:14
Speaker 1: from him. But then he also does this podcast I
8:17
Speaker 1: See with Matt Patricia and Mike Lombardi, and he's also
8:20
Speaker 1: on Inside the NFL. And then I also saw him
8:24
Speaker 1: on a podcast with Tom Brady and Jim Gray, and
8:28
Speaker 1: then I also saw him stuff doing stuff for the
8:31
Speaker 1: thirty third Team. Then I also saw him doing stuff
8:34
Speaker 1: for Underdog Fantasy, where he's in a commercial and it's
8:37
Speaker 1: like off a cell phone camera and he's like, hi
8:40
Speaker 1: on Bill Belichick for Underdog Fantasy. I'm like, he's everywhere.
8:44
Speaker 1: So if you put Belichick everywhere, and then you add
8:47
Speaker 1: in the Manning cast for a half every single Monday
8:51
Speaker 1: night that those guys are on, it's a lot of
8:54
Speaker 1: places for Belichick to voice his opinion. And now that
8:57
Speaker 1: the Patriots have hit this rough point and it's real rough,
9:01
Speaker 1: I find it fascinating the dynamic of him. And every
9:05
Speaker 1: time he opens his mouth, well, New England want to listen,
9:07
Speaker 1: so it makes it only harder on girod Mayo. The
9:10
Speaker 1: end of the story has not yet been written, but gosh,
9:13
Speaker 1: things have not been this way in New England for many,
9:16
Speaker 1: many years. Even Bill Simmons tweeted out, and he's kind
9:18
Speaker 1: of the voice of the Patriots fan. This is as
9:20
Speaker 1: bad as the Rod rust era, which is like a
9:22
Speaker 1: dark period for Patriots fans. But as I do this monologue,
9:28
Speaker 1: the post Belichick era. It is so interesting because instead
9:31
Speaker 1: of laying low, instead of consulting with his son at
9:35
Speaker 1: the University of Washington where he's the defensive coordinator, Belichick's everywhere.
9:39
Speaker 1: And if he's gonna be critical, that's gonna carry weight.
9:42
Speaker 1: And if he's gonna be critical of the Patriots, well
9:45
Speaker 1: that goes a long long way. Those players, for as
9:50
Speaker 1: hard as he was on them, for as tough as
9:52
Speaker 1: he was on him, those players love the results, and
9:55
Speaker 1: he never called them soft publicly, and they certainly certainly
10:00
Speaker 1: respect what he has to say. Can Gerard Mayo earn
10:03
Speaker 1: that respect? Can he ever earn that faith and that
10:06
Speaker 1: respect and that trust that Belichick had. It's an uphill battle.
10:09
Speaker 1: It doesn't help when Belichick is talking on it less
10:13
Speaker 1: than twenty four hours later. That's my monologue, and we've
10:18
Speaker 1: got a lot of sports history in that build up there,
10:21
Speaker 1: because we talk about Rod Russ and Edelman and Amandola
10:24
Speaker 1: right through to Belichick. Now, it doesn't even scratch the
10:28
Speaker 1: surface for what we have coming up. Different kind of guests,
10:31
Speaker 1: and yet one of my favorite podcast conversations we've had
10:35
Speaker 1: Neil Zender, a filmmaker who just did this beautiful film
10:39
Speaker 1: on the life and career of Wellington Mara. He and
10:42
Speaker 1: I sat down. I think you're really going to enjoy this,
10:45
Speaker 1: Neil Zender. After this, I am so excited to see
10:57
Speaker 1: the film that has been put together by NFL Films
11:00
Speaker 1: that ties into the Giants one hundredth year as a franchise,
11:03
Speaker 1: but also tells the story of a true through football life.
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Speaker 1: The film itself is called The Duke The Giant Life
11:12
Speaker 1: of Wellington Mara. It premieres on the NFL Network Friday
11:16
Speaker 1: night at eight pm and it will definitely exist in
11:20
Speaker 1: other platforms thereafter. But I think Wellington Mara is one
11:23
Speaker 1: of the most interesting men in all of sports history
11:26
Speaker 1: and certainly one of the bedrocks of the NFL. And
11:30
Speaker 1: to discuss this film, which I've caught early glimpses of
11:34
Speaker 1: and seems incredible, I'm bringing on the filmmaker as a
11:36
Speaker 1: producer of NFL films. He's also incredibly incredibly talented at
11:40
Speaker 1: what he does. Mister Neil Zender, Welcome to the season
11:44
Speaker 1: with Peter Schrager.
11:45
Speaker 2: Oh great to be with you, Peter. Thanks a lot, Neil.
11:47
Speaker 1: I am a Giants fan from when I was a child.
11:51
Speaker 1: I could say that openly. My dad raised me as
11:54
Speaker 1: a Giants fan. Of course, my allegiance with teams has
11:57
Speaker 1: waned a little bit as I become a journalist and
12:00
Speaker 1: I cover all thirty two. But Wellington Mara's place in
12:04
Speaker 1: NFL history is perhaps more important than any other figure
12:10
Speaker 1: from the early days to where the NFL went. A
12:13
Speaker 1: visionary but also an incredible life lived. This project, I
12:18
Speaker 1: have to imagine, was in the works for years, but
12:21
Speaker 1: when the Giants announced they were celebrating the hundred year,
12:24
Speaker 1: there had to be some impetus to let's really tell
12:27
Speaker 1: the story of this man. Can you tell us the
12:29
Speaker 1: genesis of doing a film on Wellington Mahra, whose life
12:33
Speaker 1: will get into throughout this podcast.
12:36
Speaker 2: Well, one of the great mysteries to us is why
12:39
Speaker 2: has there never been a film made about Wellington Marhra,
12:43
Speaker 2: who was such an immensely important historical figure. You know,
12:48
Speaker 2: there's a great quote by Winston Churchill where somebody said
12:52
Speaker 2: to him at one point, how do you think history
12:54
Speaker 2: is going to treat you? And Winston Churchill said, It's
12:57
Speaker 2: going to treat me great, because I'm going to be
12:59
Speaker 2: the one who's going to write it. And he wrote
13:00
Speaker 2: book after book after book and put his own spin
13:03
Speaker 2: on history and why he was so important in that.
13:07
Speaker 2: And Wellington Mara almost unlike just about every other great
13:11
Speaker 2: historical figure in regular history of football history, never did that.
13:15
Speaker 2: He never beat his chest, he never said look at me,
13:17
Speaker 2: He never said, look at all the important things that
13:20
Speaker 2: I've done. And for that reason, nobody has ever made
13:23
Speaker 2: a film about Wellington Marrow or really told you how
13:26
Speaker 2: important he is to the NFL and the football and
13:30
Speaker 2: everything else, and everybody just sort of thought with the
13:32
Speaker 2: Giants turning one hundred, it was about time that somebody
13:36
Speaker 2: did it. And it's really amazing because when Wellington Marraw
13:41
Speaker 2: was born, the National Football League did not exist, and
13:45
Speaker 2: football was not a big thing, and over the course
13:49
Speaker 2: of his lifetime and when he died, it was the
13:51
Speaker 2: biggest cultural thing in sports in our country. And he's
13:56
Speaker 2: sort of like Forrest Gump, like you look at almost
13:58
Speaker 2: every major thing that happened that made the NFL into
14:01
Speaker 2: the thing that we all know in love and is
14:03
Speaker 2: such a big part of our lives. And the person
14:07
Speaker 2: that did it, I mean, why is the duke written
14:10
Speaker 2: on the NFL football? The Duke's written in the NFL football,
14:13
Speaker 2: Because that was his nickname. And he was the person
14:17
Speaker 2: who went and negotiated the contract with Wilson to make
14:21
Speaker 2: the footballs and was the first person did that for
14:23
Speaker 2: the league. And George Hollis said, man, Wellington's doing such
14:26
Speaker 2: a smash bang up job. Let's just let's just put
14:28
Speaker 2: his name on the ball. And that's what they did,
14:31
Speaker 2: and their story after story after story like that about
14:35
Speaker 2: just sort of the you know, formation and creation of
14:38
Speaker 2: the NFL that he was there like whatever. Lin Manuel
14:42
Speaker 2: Miranda says, he was in the room where it happened,
14:43
Speaker 2: and a lot of times he was the person in
14:45
Speaker 2: the room making it happen. But he cared more about
14:49
Speaker 2: the result than taking the credit for it. And that's why,
14:54
Speaker 2: unfortunately he has not really gotten the credit he deserves
14:57
Speaker 2: for everything that he's done for all of us.
15:00
Speaker 1: I consider myself a historian, and I think one of
15:03
Speaker 1: the great books in NFL Lare is a I don't
15:07
Speaker 1: know the title of. Michael McCambridge did the story of
15:10
Speaker 1: Lamar Hunt, and it was like, let's go deep on
15:13
Speaker 1: Lamar Hunt and what he did for the AFL, but
15:15
Speaker 1: also what Lamar Hunt did for sports as a whole.
15:17
Speaker 1: And it's this incredible gift to an individual who had
15:23
Speaker 1: never written his own book. In this case, though Wellington
15:27
Speaker 1: Mara has this incredible portion of his life and we'll
15:29
Speaker 1: get into it where he wrote letters. He wrote letters
15:33
Speaker 1: because he was at war and he was serving in
15:36
Speaker 1: World War Two. Now, look, he wasn't drafted. He didn't
15:40
Speaker 1: go there as an eighteen year old. He went when
15:44
Speaker 1: he was twenty five years old and was already a
15:46
Speaker 1: key figure of the NFL's New York Giants and decided
15:50
Speaker 1: it was his duty to go overseas, enlisted himself and
15:54
Speaker 1: then has this treasure trove of letters where he's writing
15:56
Speaker 1: letters back home about being under siege and searching for
15:59
Speaker 1: men at sea. Like the fact that you have this
16:02
Speaker 1: military portion of his life when he could have just coasted.
16:06
Speaker 1: I think that is a measure of a man. It's incredible.
16:09
Speaker 2: So so sort of what happened is everybody knew that
16:13
Speaker 2: he was in the war, in World War two, but
16:16
Speaker 2: he never talked about it. And after he died, his
16:19
Speaker 2: daughter Susan was cleaning out the attic and just found
16:23
Speaker 2: a shoe box full of letters and they were all
16:26
Speaker 2: his letters from the war to his parents and to
16:29
Speaker 2: his brother, A lot of them are you know. He
16:33
Speaker 2: was in the USS Randolph in the Pacific, and the
16:36
Speaker 2: USS Randolph was a very it was one of the
16:38
Speaker 2: first aircraft carriers. It was a very important carrier to
16:42
Speaker 2: the entire island hopping strategy that Halsey used to win
16:46
Speaker 2: the war in the Pacific in World War two. So
16:49
Speaker 2: like Wellington Marra was there at ewo Jima, Wellington Mara
16:52
Speaker 2: was there at Oaklandawa on an aircraft carry. He was
16:54
Speaker 2: a radar operator. And to understand what he did, we
16:57
Speaker 2: have Phil McConkie, you know, who was at the Naval Academy.
16:59
Speaker 2: He sort of went through some of the letters like
17:01
Speaker 2: people have seen before, the letters to do with like
17:04
Speaker 2: he'd write home about football and we just saw this
17:06
Speaker 2: playing whatever on an island, like he'd be great, Like
17:08
Speaker 2: let's get him after the war. But we focused more
17:11
Speaker 2: on the actual war, like film acconki went through for
17:13
Speaker 2: us some of the actual war combat stuff, because like
17:17
Speaker 2: a lot of people in World War Two, he didn't
17:19
Speaker 2: talk about what he went through. And he was basically
17:22
Speaker 2: what you know nowadays in the military they would call
17:25
Speaker 2: a drone ranger. He would sit there on the radar
17:28
Speaker 2: and look at the dots, and he would tell the
17:29
Speaker 2: pilots where the Japanese pilots were, and he would send
17:32
Speaker 2: them in to go shoot him down. And you can,
17:36
Speaker 2: you know tell from the letters he describes it like
17:39
Speaker 2: I directed the pilot to go to this exact spot,
17:42
Speaker 2: and they rendezvous there and they shot down a plane,
17:45
Speaker 2: and I personally feel like I killed a man, which
17:50
Speaker 2: you know, in the World War two generation, nobody sort
17:54
Speaker 2: of talked about that stuff. But it also had I
17:57
Speaker 2: think real profound implications for his relationships with other people.
18:02
Speaker 2: You know, he was a great friend all his life
18:05
Speaker 2: with Tom, and spoken or unspoken part of that bond
18:09
Speaker 2: with Tom Landry was Tom Landry was a you know,
18:12
Speaker 2: World War two Flying Fortress B seventeen pilot who saw
18:16
Speaker 2: twenty nine missions over Europe, and Wellington Mara saw all
18:19
Speaker 2: this action the Pacific, and you know, they would have
18:23
Speaker 2: dinner every night for the giants and the cowboys would
18:26
Speaker 2: play each other and act like they were all great
18:29
Speaker 2: and then try to kill each other. Yeah, you know
18:32
Speaker 2: the next day. But the relationship sort of transcended the football,
18:36
Speaker 2: which I think is you know, hard in today's NFL
18:39
Speaker 2: for people to to really do. But back you know
18:42
Speaker 2: when you're Bill Parcells calls him a patriarch, when you're
18:44
Speaker 2: a patriarch, like, the NFL is not this big, wasn't
18:48
Speaker 2: this big giant thing to Wellington Marra. It was just people.
18:51
Speaker 2: It was just people that he knew and had relationships with,
18:56
Speaker 2: and everything was personal.
18:59
Speaker 1: Yeah, it's it's there's these letters. I you know, I've
19:01
Speaker 1: done the work. I've I've listened to John Mara, who's
19:05
Speaker 1: the current owner, and of course the mayor family has
19:08
Speaker 1: read some of these letters. One of them is like,
19:10
Speaker 1: you know, dear Jack, he's writing home. He's like, dear Jack,
19:13
Speaker 1: He's like, we might not this might not be good.
19:16
Speaker 1: We might not make it tomorrow. But if you hear
19:18
Speaker 1: from me and the Japanese don't see me, we're gonna
19:21
Speaker 1: be all right. But if they do, this is a
19:24
Speaker 1: you know, this is where we're at and it will
19:26
Speaker 1: not be good for us. And I'm like, oh my gosh.
19:29
Speaker 1: They have these letters of him the night before a
19:32
Speaker 1: major attack like this is they have that, And this
19:34
Speaker 1: is a guy who then in the same letter is
19:38
Speaker 1: talking about the NFL draft because he's writing home about
19:40
Speaker 1: he's doing work on the draft and I've I've got
19:43
Speaker 1: my lists, like he was still contributing to the football team.
19:48
Speaker 2: And how many people want you to know that they
19:52
Speaker 2: were the first to do something like the draft went
19:56
Speaker 2: on for five or six years. He was the first
19:58
Speaker 2: person that said, like we all do when we play
20:00
Speaker 2: fantasy football, you know what, I'm gonna have a cheat sheet.
20:02
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have a list and he typed it out.
20:05
Speaker 2: I'm gonna have a list of the top prospects one
20:08
Speaker 2: to two hundred and fifty and he typed that whole
20:11
Speaker 2: thing out and then he went to the draft and
20:12
Speaker 2: nobody else had it in nineteen thirty nine, and he
20:15
Speaker 2: was like, golly, you know, this will be a better
20:18
Speaker 2: event if if everybody else knows what they're doing instead
20:21
Speaker 2: of just me. So we make copies and they put
20:24
Speaker 2: up and they shared. He shared his cheat sheets with everybody,
20:26
Speaker 2: and you had these, you know, other owners who know
20:28
Speaker 2: what they were doing. They were just picking off Wellington
20:29
Speaker 2: Mara's cheat sheets for years at the NFL draft because
20:33
Speaker 2: they did. They couldn't see what it could be, but
20:36
Speaker 2: he could, you know. Or he's one of the first
20:38
Speaker 2: people to shoot game film. He got a sixteen millimeter
20:42
Speaker 2: film camera for Christmas and whatever, nineteen thirty five or
20:44
Speaker 2: nineteen thirty six. He's like, you know what, I'm not
20:46
Speaker 2: just gonna make movies in my buddies, like in my family, Like,
20:50
Speaker 2: let me shoot some football games and give it to
20:52
Speaker 2: Steve On and let him let him break it down
20:53
Speaker 2: as a coach. Can that help him?
20:56
Speaker 1: The early stuff, I mean, NFL Films has incredible archives,
20:59
Speaker 1: but like, do you guys have footage of Ray Flaherty
21:02
Speaker 1: and mel Hine, Like, do you have that stuff?
21:04
Speaker 2: We don't have. I Mean, the interesting thing is we
21:06
Speaker 2: don't have a lot of that. Our stuff really starts
21:09
Speaker 2: in the you know, full on in the sixties, and
21:11
Speaker 2: then we have a decent amount of stuff in the
21:13
Speaker 2: in the forties and the fifties, but it's usually just
21:15
Speaker 2: a top camera that's far away. One of the things
21:17
Speaker 2: that we found in the course of doing the research
21:19
Speaker 2: for this was, you know, the giants were able to
21:22
Speaker 2: dig up all these film cans that in a lot
21:24
Speaker 2: of cases were filmed that Wellington Mara himself and shot.
21:28
Speaker 2: So believable, So we have ground footage that Wellington Mara
21:32
Speaker 2: shot at the Polo Grounds in the late twenties, early thirties,
21:35
Speaker 2: like on that one roll of film that he shot
21:38
Speaker 2: is more ground footage than we have from that entire
21:41
Speaker 2: era up until this time period. Like our our our
21:45
Speaker 2: shooters like looked at it and they could not believe
21:47
Speaker 2: like how rock Steady was and there wasn't any shake,
21:49
Speaker 2: and he like with the camera they was shooting on
21:51
Speaker 2: like he could have shot for NFL films, Like he's
21:53
Speaker 2: he's a very good. Any thing in this documentary is
21:56
Speaker 2: you know, we've got we've got a home movie. So
21:58
Speaker 2: there's Wellington Mara with Vince Lombardi vacationing in Hawaii. You know,
22:02
Speaker 2: there's Wellington Mara in Vince Lombardi and he's recording their
22:04
Speaker 2: golf swing so they can figure out, you know, why
22:07
Speaker 2: they're handicaps nine instead of three.
22:11
Speaker 1: And that's when Lombardy was coaching for the Giants, or
22:14
Speaker 1: after he'd already left and gone to the Packers.
22:17
Speaker 2: That's that's when he's with the Packers. But I mean,
22:19
Speaker 2: it's just it's just like if you were to ice
22:22
Speaker 2: i mean, Wellington Marror, if you were to isolate any
22:24
Speaker 2: of the one single thing that he did, like the
22:26
Speaker 2: fifty things that he'd done, just isolate one of them,
22:28
Speaker 2: you'd say that's a Hall of Fame football football life.
22:31
Speaker 2: I mean, like he's the like he went to college
22:35
Speaker 2: and was a classmate at Fordham with Vince Lombardi. And
22:39
Speaker 2: so he went to Jim Lee Howell when they hired
22:42
Speaker 2: the head coach and said, I really we're gonna hire
22:43
Speaker 2: you as the head coach, but I really really really
22:45
Speaker 2: think you should hire Vince Lambardi's your offensive coordinator, and
22:48
Speaker 2: I really really think this defensive back of ours, Tom Landry,
22:51
Speaker 2: should should be in charge of the defense. And so
22:53
Speaker 2: what's Jim Lee Howell gonna say? You know, multiple times,
22:57
Speaker 2: Vince Lombardi went to Wellington Mahra and said, like I'm
23:00
Speaker 2: fed up. I'm not going to get a head coach,
23:01
Speaker 2: like I want to quit. I'm going to go coach
23:03
Speaker 2: in college. I can be a head coach in college somewhere.
23:04
Speaker 2: And Wellington mayor said, don't don't quit. Don't quit, like
23:06
Speaker 2: don't like you talked about quitting multiple times, Vincent. One
23:10
Speaker 2: of the things that's you know, the documentary goes into
23:12
Speaker 2: great length is Vince Lombardi showed up. But he came
23:14
Speaker 2: from Army and he coached for Red Blaket Army and
23:17
Speaker 2: Army had a system where unlike anybody else, they would
23:20
Speaker 2: take polaroid photographs of the formations before the snaps. And
23:25
Speaker 2: Lombardi's like, I said, I like to do this. Can
23:27
Speaker 2: we do this with the giants? There was no opperass.
23:29
Speaker 2: I said, well, I'll just I'll do it. I'll take
23:31
Speaker 2: the pictures. So you had the owner of the team
23:33
Speaker 2: with the polaroid camera sitting up in the press box
23:36
Speaker 2: taking polaroid pictures before every snap. At the end of
23:39
Speaker 2: the series, he'd take all the photos, wrap them up
23:41
Speaker 2: into a sock, sticks in either rocks or you know,
23:44
Speaker 2: a cleat in the sock and throw it from the
23:46
Speaker 2: upper deck down onto the field and Barty pick it up.
23:48
Speaker 2: We even go through it and go show Frank Gifford
23:50
Speaker 2: and Charlie Connelly what was going on. And Wellington Mara
23:54
Speaker 2: like love to do that because he had a role
23:58
Speaker 2: and he was helping the team and he didn't need
24:00
Speaker 2: any intention for doing it or anything else. But like
24:02
Speaker 2: that's where you know you see her old coaches with
24:04
Speaker 2: the surface tablet today, That's where it started because Wellington
24:07
Speaker 2: Mara and Vince Lombardi did that because they wanted to
24:10
Speaker 2: figure out a way for the Giants to beat the
24:12
Speaker 2: Cleveland Rounds.
24:22
Speaker 1: All right, so Big Picture Dad is the owner of
24:25
Speaker 1: the Giants. He's born, he's working for the team in
24:28
Speaker 1: a bunch of different roles, ball boy, all the stuff,
24:31
Speaker 1: goes and has a big role to a team, then
24:33
Speaker 1: goes into war, then comes back eventually takes over the team.
24:37
Speaker 1: I'm watching the trailer for your film, which I cannot
24:40
Speaker 1: wait to see, and you've got contributions from Parcels, from Strahan,
24:46
Speaker 1: who calls him Forrest Gump. You've got contributions from Ernie A. Corsi,
24:50
Speaker 1: and then I see Roger Goodell as well. So if
24:52
Speaker 1: you're taking the Forrest Gump analogy, he literally touches every
24:56
Speaker 1: era of the NFL up until his death.
24:59
Speaker 2: So we sort of did instead of just being chronologically
25:02
Speaker 2: and starting at the beginning of his life and ending
25:04
Speaker 2: at the end of his life, we sort of focused
25:07
Speaker 2: on all the different things he did that made the
25:10
Speaker 2: NFL great. And there's a different giant who shows you
25:14
Speaker 2: that and shows you aside of them that they got
25:16
Speaker 2: to see. So one of the really cool things was,
25:18
Speaker 2: you know, when we started researching this, we looked at
25:21
Speaker 2: the footage from Wellington Mayra's funeral and Michael Strahan walks
25:24
Speaker 2: out and he's like species, He's like, well, I knew
25:26
Speaker 2: he was our owner, and I knew he was a
25:27
Speaker 2: great guy, like I loved him, but I didn't know
25:30
Speaker 2: all the things he did for the NFL. So we
25:31
Speaker 2: called up Michael Strand and said, you want to go
25:33
Speaker 2: talk to Rodger Goodell and he'll tell you all the stuff.
25:34
Speaker 2: That was like, yes, let's go, let's do it. You
25:37
Speaker 2: know Eli Manning, you know who Earning of course he
25:40
Speaker 2: traded for. He sort of does a deep dive into
25:44
Speaker 2: i mean the draft stuff. And like Wellington Marra was
25:46
Speaker 2: one of the pioneers of scouting the NFL. He was
25:49
Speaker 2: considered the you know, Bill Pollion of the nineteen thirties.
25:54
Speaker 2: Wellington Mayra is the person who built the fifties, the
25:57
Speaker 2: fifties giants like his scouting system, and he selected all
26:01
Speaker 2: of those all those players that Eli Manning sort of
26:03
Speaker 2: goes through all his personnel stuff and how he created
26:07
Speaker 2: how teams prepare for the draft and all that stuff.
26:10
Speaker 2: You know. We had Phil Simms who sort of took
26:12
Speaker 2: us to Wellington Marrow, by our account, went to over
26:15
Speaker 2: a thousand games in person a thousand Giants games in person,
26:18
Speaker 2: all the home games, all the road games, and so
26:21
Speaker 2: he lived so long, like he had three homes. Most
26:24
Speaker 2: of us like the stadiums the stadium for like our
26:26
Speaker 2: entire life, and then we're whatever we feel when they
26:28
Speaker 2: switched to a new stadium after like thirty years. Well, yeah,
26:30
Speaker 2: he was at the Polo Grounds, and he was at
26:32
Speaker 2: Yankee Stadium, and he was at Giants Day. He was
26:34
Speaker 2: getting ready for met life at the point when his
26:36
Speaker 2: life when he died, like she had all these different
26:38
Speaker 2: if So Phil Sims went to every one of his stadiums.
26:41
Speaker 2: Cool it sort of went and showed you what it
26:43
Speaker 2: was like when he was there. Like when they were
26:45
Speaker 2: in the Polo Grounds, it was below the water table,
26:49
Speaker 2: so that it was constantly swampy and muddy and rained
26:51
Speaker 2: all the time, like and football was starting. They didn't
26:54
Speaker 2: know what they were doing. So his dad, Tim Merrit
26:56
Speaker 2: at one point, Wellington Mary's father, he bought rain insurance
27:00
Speaker 2: so that they would get a rebate if fans didn't
27:03
Speaker 2: show up and buy tickets because there was so much rain,
27:07
Speaker 2: and like they always had, they had to start after
27:09
Speaker 2: the baseball Giant season was over, so they were always
27:11
Speaker 2: like starting their home season in like late October. And
27:16
Speaker 2: then Wellington Mara said, like they never got to What
27:19
Speaker 2: they discovered was they could never collect the insurance. Possy said,
27:21
Speaker 2: when you get an eighth of an inch of rain,
27:23
Speaker 2: they would get the rain. They still could collect the
27:27
Speaker 2: insurance company was still used a lot of it. So
27:31
Speaker 2: and then we had Tiki Barber, who was probably the
27:33
Speaker 2: coolest thing. He sort of talked about the relationships that
27:36
Speaker 2: Wellington Mara had with with all the players. It's incredible.
27:41
Speaker 2: The thing is relationship with Lawrence Taylor and the things
27:42
Speaker 2: he did for Lawrence Taylor and Taylor was like mash
27:46
Speaker 2: you could ever have. Like He's just Wellington Area is
27:48
Speaker 2: the greatest guy ever knew. Like he's he backed me
27:51
Speaker 2: up in every situation, even when he should. He was
27:53
Speaker 2: always like there for me. Phil Simms tells this incredible.
27:56
Speaker 2: You know a lot of people remember how when Phil
27:58
Speaker 2: Simms left the Giants, like that was right when the
28:01
Speaker 2: salary cap was coming in. He's one of the first
28:02
Speaker 2: salary cap caps. And you know we think of Wellington
28:06
Speaker 2: Marra as not being emotional, Well, he reacted emotionally behind
28:12
Speaker 2: the closed doors when that was a press.
28:14
Speaker 1: Conference because I was a kid. I remember that press conference.
28:17
Speaker 1: Sim's in a sweater sitting up there, and it was like,
28:20
Speaker 1: where's he gonna go. He's gonna go to the Arizona Cardinals.
28:22
Speaker 1: And if I'm not mistaken, that was it for Phil Simms.
28:24
Speaker 1: Did he'd play anywhere else?
28:25
Speaker 2: No, he basically was kind of he signed with the Browns,
28:28
Speaker 2: but then he was heard, so he just ended up
28:29
Speaker 2: not playing. But I mean, like Phil Simms is like
28:31
Speaker 2: Wellington Mara was gonna like fire everyone. He was like
28:34
Speaker 2: completely out of control upset because Phil Simms, you know,
28:40
Speaker 2: like he believed players should be giants for life, and
28:43
Speaker 2: he sort of even if they left, they were still
28:46
Speaker 2: they were still giants for life.
28:48
Speaker 1: You mentioned LT, and I mean I have heard so
28:51
Speaker 1: many stories over the years, some of them from LT.
28:54
Speaker 1: I am ced the Giants one hundred year event along
28:58
Speaker 1: with Bob Papa back in June, and LT was backstage
29:02
Speaker 1: telling stories. And I mean Wellington Mahra not only put
29:07
Speaker 1: up with a lot of LT stuff off the field,
29:09
Speaker 1: and you know, obviously we know LT lived it fast
29:12
Speaker 1: when he was a player, but also they would like
29:16
Speaker 1: golf together and they would spend holidays together, and like Wellington,
29:20
Speaker 1: Marra took lt And as more than just you know,
29:23
Speaker 1: a top pick who was one of the greatest defensive
29:26
Speaker 1: players of all time. He loved him for all his
29:28
Speaker 1: warts and bruises and played it with him in a
29:32
Speaker 1: professional but also personal way.
29:34
Speaker 2: It's incredible. And you know, Tiki Barber and you know
29:41
Speaker 2: Jeremy Shockey were incredibly close to him, and it was
29:46
Speaker 2: it's amazing for somebody who's eighty years old to be
29:49
Speaker 2: able to really connect with somebody who's twenty two years old.
29:52
Speaker 2: If that was something he was able to do. Like
29:54
Speaker 2: if you look at his life, right, he started out
29:57
Speaker 2: and he's nine years old and he's sitting on the
29:58
Speaker 2: bench in the polo grounds next to Jim Thorpe and
30:00
Speaker 2: Red Grange or whatever, and like they're like gods to
30:05
Speaker 2: him and here and then he got to the point where, hey,
30:09
Speaker 2: they're the same age as I am, and they're like
30:11
Speaker 2: peers and contemporaries. And then he got to the point
30:13
Speaker 2: where like, okay, this is the fifties giants, and I'm
30:16
Speaker 2: sort of like a father figure and elect Frank Gifford
30:18
Speaker 2: and Sam and then he's a grandfather and you know,
30:22
Speaker 2: then he's a patriarch, and he went through all these
30:24
Speaker 2: sort of different stages of life in his relationships with
30:29
Speaker 2: with the players, and it's pretty you know, I mean,
30:31
Speaker 2: I think it's amazing. Is like because the NFL was
30:35
Speaker 2: such a small and insignificant thing. You know, his dad
30:40
Speaker 2: gave him and his brother Jack operational control of the
30:43
Speaker 2: Giants in like nineteen thirty. Yeah, so like picture being
30:47
Speaker 2: you know, thirty years old, fifteen, sixteen years old and
30:50
Speaker 2: you're in charge, Like you're in charge of an NFL team.
30:53
Speaker 2: Like he got to do that. Everything that we'd all
30:55
Speaker 2: dream of doing, he like got to do that. And
30:59
Speaker 2: the amazing part is like he could handle it, Like
31:00
Speaker 2: how many people could you know, he could actually handle it.
31:04
Speaker 1: And then still says, I'm gonna enlist and go to
31:07
Speaker 1: war because that's my duty to my country. Like here's
31:10
Speaker 1: a silver spoon. I've got this amazing thing. And it's
31:12
Speaker 1: like no, no, no, no, no, Like my priorities are still intact.
31:15
Speaker 1: I'm just incredible.
31:16
Speaker 2: And that was also they tried to like, hey, we
31:18
Speaker 2: could send you, no I want to we can send you here.
31:20
Speaker 2: We say it, no, I want to go past. Yeah,
31:23
Speaker 2: which is pretty cool.
31:24
Speaker 1: I love the book, the GM and it's about a
31:28
Speaker 1: course in that year and they really do chronicle the
31:31
Speaker 1: two thousand and seven Giants, how it all comes to
31:33
Speaker 1: be and in that book. And I haven't seen your
31:35
Speaker 1: doc in full yet, I've only seen clips. The trainer,
31:38
Speaker 1: Ronnie Barnes is by Wellington's side every day in the hospital.
31:42
Speaker 1: I still tear up thinking about it. Like the team trainer,
31:45
Speaker 1: an African American man who the owner hired before that
31:49
Speaker 1: was done and is now by his bedside as he's
31:52
Speaker 1: passing away, Like do you capture any of that stuff?
31:54
Speaker 1: In the film?
31:56
Speaker 2: We talk about the end of his life. Ronnie Barnes
31:58
Speaker 2: is in the film and Rynane Barnes talks a lot
32:00
Speaker 2: about his relationships with people and how he treated people
32:02
Speaker 2: and what his philosophy you know, in life was. You know,
32:07
Speaker 2: it's also worth uh, you know, worth pointing out when
32:11
Speaker 2: you look at Willington Mara. You know, everybody says, you know,
32:16
Speaker 2: how did the NFL get integrated? You know, how does
32:18
Speaker 2: that story get told in history? Well, hey, the Los
32:24
Speaker 2: Angeles Rams did it with Kenny Washington. Would Washington? Well,
32:27
Speaker 2: the thing is the Rams did it because the Los
32:30
Speaker 2: Angeles Coliseum says as a condition for you to get
32:33
Speaker 2: a lease at the coliseum and move from Cleveland to
32:35
Speaker 2: Los Angeles, you have to integrate your team. We're not
32:37
Speaker 2: going to have to segregated team playing in our team.
32:40
Speaker 2: So like they sort of did it with a lot
32:42
Speaker 2: of pressure to do it. When Paul Brown integrated the
32:45
Speaker 2: Cleveland Browns and brought in Bill Willison, Mary Whatley, they
32:49
Speaker 2: were in the you know, Arrival League, the AFC, they
32:51
Speaker 2: were not in the NFL. You know, when Wellington Mara
32:55
Speaker 2: picks up emlind Toell, like he picked them up because
33:00
Speaker 2: I want emland to know to play for my team
33:04
Speaker 2: to help them win, like you know, like so that
33:08
Speaker 2: that that's really a milestone that doesn't get talked about enough.
33:11
Speaker 2: And Emlontonelle was you know also from the moment he
33:15
Speaker 2: was on the Giants like he was you know, he
33:17
Speaker 2: was a giantings an assistant coach, like he was a
33:19
Speaker 2: giant for life and a really really really important part
33:22
Speaker 2: of the of the franchise, you know. And that's the
33:25
Speaker 2: type of person that Willington Marrow was in a time
33:27
Speaker 2: when not everybody thought like that.
33:29
Speaker 1: Who are the other owners of that generation? Obviously that
33:33
Speaker 1: we know the families, But who are some of the
33:34
Speaker 1: lead voices and of course if you want to go
33:37
Speaker 1: to Burt Bell and whoever else in the NFL side,
33:39
Speaker 1: but like who are the who are the voices that
33:42
Speaker 1: really were of great influence during that era?
33:44
Speaker 2: So you know, really in the in the in the
33:48
Speaker 2: forties and the fifties and the early sixties. You're talking
33:50
Speaker 2: about Burt Bell, you're talking as the commissioner who used
33:52
Speaker 2: to own the Philadelphia Eagles. You're talking about George Hollis,
33:56
Speaker 2: You're talking about George Preston Marshall in Washington in Washington,
34:02
Speaker 2: and Dan Reeves in Los Angeles. Those were the people
34:05
Speaker 2: that were really you know, the larger gree Paul Brown
34:08
Speaker 2: really spoke for the Cleveland Browns even though like.
34:10
Speaker 1: He's yeah, that is that is that group. I know
34:15
Speaker 1: we always talk about what do they call the afl ones,
34:17
Speaker 1: the the fullish club, Like are the NFL owners Are
34:22
Speaker 1: they worth a closer look? As you were doing your
34:24
Speaker 1: research and putting this dock together, Like you know, we
34:26
Speaker 1: got all these different you know, look back at time,
34:29
Speaker 1: like the way that the NFL came together and those
34:32
Speaker 1: voices working together to launch this thing, is that worth
34:34
Speaker 1: another look.
34:35
Speaker 2: Well part we get into part of that. Like one
34:39
Speaker 2: of the most significant things that well, it was sort
34:42
Speaker 2: of a two step thing, but one of the most
34:44
Speaker 2: significant things that Wellington Mara did, Like he you know,
34:46
Speaker 2: you talk about the letters, he kept detailed records. He
34:49
Speaker 2: has notes from NFL league meetings. Like one of the
34:52
Speaker 2: things we saw that was really cool was he showed
34:55
Speaker 2: the profit and loss of the NFL teams in nineteen
34:57
Speaker 2: fifty six, and team with the biggest profit, Detroit, made
34:59
Speaker 2: like one hundred and twelve thousand dollars. Some teams are
35:01
Speaker 2: losing thirty thousand dollars, so nobody's making any money. In
35:04
Speaker 2: nineteen fifty six, Burt Bell the commission He's running the
35:07
Speaker 2: league out of his house in Narborth, Pennsylvania. That's where
35:10
Speaker 2: the league office was located. Was you know, he had
35:13
Speaker 2: an office in Philadelphia. He never really went there and
35:15
Speaker 2: it was a little tiny office. And when Burt Bell
35:17
Speaker 2: dies in nineteen fifty nine and they need a new commissioner,
35:22
Speaker 2: nobody can agree who on who it should be. George
35:25
Speaker 2: Preston Marshall is very adamant that the league office needs
35:28
Speaker 2: to move from Philadelphia to New York because that's where
35:31
Speaker 2: the wire services are, That's where the television networks are,
35:34
Speaker 2: That's where the advertisers are. If the NFL is going
35:36
Speaker 2: to become a league where teams make more than one
35:38
Speaker 2: hundred and twelve thousand dollars as a team an entire year,
35:41
Speaker 2: they need to be in New York. Well, all the
35:42
Speaker 2: people they want to hire they don't want to move
35:45
Speaker 2: to New York, so they have to find someone else,
35:47
Speaker 2: and they go through twenty three ballots. Allen Tamira is
35:50
Speaker 2: the person who says, I think we should pick Pete
35:52
Speaker 2: Roselle now Pete Rosell at that time, and the role
35:56
Speaker 2: was Pete Roselle was. Pete Rosell was the general manager
35:59
Speaker 2: of the Los Angeles Rams, and his claim to fame
36:02
Speaker 2: was when he'd taken over the Rams, they were a
36:04
Speaker 2: team that have played the championship game, and now they
36:05
Speaker 2: were like a were a three were in team. He
36:08
Speaker 2: had traded. He done the equivalent of what was the
36:09
Speaker 2: herschel Walker trade of his year. He traded for a
36:11
Speaker 2: running back named Allie Matts and it was incredible, but
36:13
Speaker 2: he traded nine players for him. Wow, And and the
36:16
Speaker 2: Rams were just getting worse and worse and worse, but
36:19
Speaker 2: he was a very very good marketer, you know. But
36:23
Speaker 2: Wellington Mara said, let's go with Pete rosel and pushed
36:26
Speaker 2: him through. And then something that everybody had always wanted
36:30
Speaker 2: to do but nobody had been able to get it done,
36:33
Speaker 2: was how can we have a national TV contract instead
36:35
Speaker 2: of each team making their own individual team contracts? Interesting,
36:39
Speaker 2: and Tamara said, I'll do it, and I'll help you
36:45
Speaker 2: do it, Pete rosel and I'll propose it and I'll
36:50
Speaker 2: share them running equally. Let's do revenue sharing, you know,
36:53
Speaker 2: because the whole problem contract right, green Bays making twenty
36:58
Speaker 2: thousand dollars, ten thousand dollars on a TV contract and
37:00
Speaker 2: and you know New York's making four hundred thousand. Wellington
37:04
Speaker 2: Mara said, let's just do one big contract that Pete
37:06
Speaker 2: Roselle negotiates and will spread all the money equally. And
37:09
Speaker 2: if he hadn't done that, there'd be no Green Bay
37:11
Speaker 2: and there'd be no Kansas City, and there would only
37:13
Speaker 2: you know, yeah, the NFL would be like Major League Baseball.
37:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.
37:16
Speaker 2: But because Wallington Mara and the biggest market with the
37:18
Speaker 2: most valuable team, said I'll share revenue just like he
37:22
Speaker 2: shared his cheat sheet at the draft because it was
37:24
Speaker 2: for the good of the league, you know, then everybody
37:28
Speaker 2: else sort of had to, you know, had to get
37:29
Speaker 2: in line and do it, whether they wanted to or not.
37:32
Speaker 2: And that's really economically, that's the foundation of all of
37:36
Speaker 2: the NFL's success is Wolling Tamera's willingness to do that.
37:41
Speaker 1: A couple of years ago, I'm flipping through my channels
37:45
Speaker 1: and I love documentaries, and I ended up watching like
37:48
Speaker 1: a two hour documentary on John Kazell, the actor who
37:52
Speaker 1: is only in five movies. All five movies were nominated
37:55
Speaker 1: for Best Picture or one Best Picture. And he eventually
37:59
Speaker 1: he's in The Godfather obviously he's Frado. Eventually passes away
38:02
Speaker 1: at forty two, and then you know, thirty years later
38:05
Speaker 1: they make a documentary about it, and and I came
38:07
Speaker 1: away thinking like, wow, what a gift to his family.
38:10
Speaker 1: This is how I feel about this. Wellington Marra has
38:12
Speaker 1: been dead for you know, close to twenty years now,
38:15
Speaker 1: and yet there hadn't been the love letter to Wellington
38:18
Speaker 1: Marra and what he had done put on film yet.
38:21
Speaker 1: Have you heard from John Mahra, Have you heard from
38:23
Speaker 1: the Mara family about this gift. You've just provided their
38:25
Speaker 1: family for legacies and for generations to come.
38:28
Speaker 2: I think they're I think they're happy with it. But
38:30
Speaker 2: you know, I think the thing everybody wants is for
38:34
Speaker 2: football fans to be able to sort of see all
38:37
Speaker 2: the things that he did that maybe don't realize it.
38:41
Speaker 2: And and also just I think, you know, Wellington Marra
38:45
Speaker 2: sort of put his whatever personality or identity into the Giants,
38:48
Speaker 2: and it's in so many places in the league that
38:51
Speaker 2: maybe we all don't realize. And then I was when
38:54
Speaker 2: I first moved to the East Coast. You know, I
38:57
Speaker 2: joined a fantasy football league and I'll never forget there
39:00
Speaker 2: was a there was, you know, a rabid, foaming at
39:02
Speaker 2: the mouth Eagles fan who would go berserk every week
39:06
Speaker 2: and they're playing the Cowboys. But in fantasy football, so well,
39:08
Speaker 2: I see myself as a Wellington Merrick that fantasy football
39:14
Speaker 2: I was just like, really, I was really taken by
39:16
Speaker 2: the fact that this is an easy maner Giants, but
39:21
Speaker 2: in his mind the owner was supposed to be was
39:24
Speaker 2: Wellington Mara. I love he would find people like that
39:28
Speaker 2: in every NFL city, you know, who instinctively understood that
39:35
Speaker 2: Wellington Mara you know, represented in the fact that it
39:39
Speaker 2: was always the team above himself. I think that actually
39:44
Speaker 2: meant a heck of a heck of a lot to people,
39:46
Speaker 2: even though you know, maybe everybody hasn't always said that
39:48
Speaker 2: really loudly.
39:49
Speaker 1: I have a heck of a lot of things to
39:51
Speaker 1: say about some of the current owners and some of
39:53
Speaker 1: their behavior, but I guess it's better off, considering we
39:56
Speaker 1: all work for the NFL, to just leave it at that.
39:58
Speaker 1: Wellington Mara was always a gentleman. We'll just say that
40:02
Speaker 1: you didn't see him doing a lot of media. You
40:04
Speaker 1: didn't see him out there it see the story being
40:07
Speaker 1: about him. If anything, he was in the background. And
40:09
Speaker 1: there's such a gift that you have put this together
40:11
Speaker 1: with your team at NFL Films real quick as we wrap.
40:15
Speaker 1: When can we see it now? I know you got
40:16
Speaker 1: an unlucky draw here with the Yankees playing the Dodgers
40:19
Speaker 1: Friday night. That said, as is always the case of
40:23
Speaker 1: these NFL films, films, they live on forever and you're
40:26
Speaker 1: going to discover it. But where can we see it first?
40:28
Speaker 1: And then where will it live from that point on.
40:30
Speaker 2: It's going to premiere on NFL Network at eight pm.
40:33
Speaker 2: On Friday, October twenty fifth, and then the Giants are
40:36
Speaker 2: going to be showing the heck out of it and
40:38
Speaker 2: NFL Network will be showing it quite frequently.
40:41
Speaker 1: Can't wait, Neil, what a gift you've put together. I'm
40:45
Speaker 1: so excited that this is that finally coming out. I've
40:48
Speaker 1: been hearing about it for months and this was a
40:50
Speaker 1: really cool conversation. I think our podcast we talked to
40:54
Speaker 1: a lot of coaches in gms, but a true NFL
40:57
Speaker 1: fan appreciates Wellington Mara, and a true NFL fan is
41:00
Speaker 1: going to listen to this conversation and then go watch
41:02
Speaker 1: the film. Appreciate your time, man. Congratulations, what a gift.
41:05
Speaker 2: Oh that's great, thanks a lot. Peter really appreciate it.
41:16
Speaker 1: All right. I love talking to Neil. I mean, this
41:19
Speaker 1: is that's deep cut football stuff, and it's what I
41:21
Speaker 1: want this podcast to be. And we could do a
41:24
Speaker 1: reactionary podcast to DeAndre Hopkins being traded, but two days
41:28
Speaker 1: later that dies. I think you learned something on this podcast, Aaron,
41:32
Speaker 1: did you have any idea about the Forrest Gump of football,
41:34
Speaker 1: mister Wellington Mara.
41:35
Speaker 4: Not just the Forrest Gump of football, but the Alexander
41:38
Speaker 4: Hamilton of football being in the room where it happens.
41:41
Speaker 1: Yeah, no, I love that so interesting and you know,
41:45
Speaker 1: you go look on YouTube and I don't want to
41:47
Speaker 1: seal with shine from the documentary, but it's called like
41:49
Speaker 1: the Chronicles of Wellington Mara and it's basically John Marra
41:53
Speaker 1: just reading the war letters that were being sent that
41:57
Speaker 1: he discovered in a shoe box after his father's death.
42:01
Speaker 1: I mean, can I get chills think about it? And
42:03
Speaker 1: it's like they're he's in the heart of battle here
42:06
Speaker 1: elk naw and he's in you know, ew Gimi is
42:09
Speaker 1: in all these major battles and didn't have to be
42:12
Speaker 1: enlisted himself and was like, I'm gonna go fight for
42:14
Speaker 1: our country. That stuff's the most notable stuff and of
42:17
Speaker 1: a different time.
42:19
Speaker 4: I'm gonna be in the like the deep, like the
42:23
Speaker 4: depths of the war. And also I'm going to have
42:26
Speaker 4: my draft. Guy, I'm going to be building out what
42:28
Speaker 4: the cheat sheet is. I love the story about him.
42:31
Speaker 4: He made the original cheat sheet and then just gave
42:33
Speaker 4: it to everyone.
42:34
Speaker 1: Let's be better, Yeah, yeah, let's let's share this very cool.
42:39
Speaker 1: Neil Zender is the filmmaker. It's NFL Films it comes
42:43
Speaker 1: out Friday. I referenced it in the interview. If you're
42:46
Speaker 1: a New York sports fan, you're probably watching the Yankees.
42:48
Speaker 1: But that's okay, because this thing will be all over
42:51
Speaker 1: the place. Each week we are presented by Uber Eats
42:55
Speaker 1: and I do a segment called the Season with Peter
42:59
Speaker 1: Schrigger Delivering Results presented by Uber Eats, where we give
43:02
Speaker 1: out an award for someone who delivered results, and this
43:05
Speaker 1: week I want to give it to Keon Coleman, the
43:07
Speaker 1: rookie wide receiver for the Buffalo Bills. They went and
43:10
Speaker 1: acquired Amari Cooper and everyone was wondering, Okay, what's Cooper
43:13
Speaker 1: gonna do? Well. Cooper played fine, he had a touchdown,
43:16
Speaker 1: but Keon Coleman led all wide receivers in receiving yards
43:19
Speaker 1: as a rookie. That's one hundred and twenty five receiving
43:22
Speaker 1: yards and a big win against Tennessee as they look
43:24
Speaker 1: towards a huge Week eight matchup against the Seahawks. On Fox,
43:29
Speaker 1: Keon Coleman, second round pick out of Florida State, led
43:33
Speaker 1: all receivers in football and receiving yards this week with
43:36
Speaker 1: one hundred and twenty five. He's the first rookie to
43:38
Speaker 1: do that since Jamar Chase did it in his twenty
43:41
Speaker 1: twenty one season. In Week seven and Week seventeen, Keon
43:45
Speaker 1: Coleman a great SoundBite, a great young man and a
43:48
Speaker 1: great player that was delivering results. Presented by Uber Eats,
43:51
Speaker 1: where you can get the best deals on game day
43:53
Speaker 1: food all season long. It' see official on demand delivery
43:57
Speaker 1: partner of the NFL. Go ahead and order now. We
44:01
Speaker 1: got a great slate of games, but try to find
44:03
Speaker 1: some time to watch that documentary. The Duke is what
44:07
Speaker 1: it's called, and it's the Giant Life of Wellington Mara.
44:11
Speaker 1: That is our show for this week.
44:13
Speaker 5: Some great games ahead, Enjoy them till next week on
44:17
Speaker 5: behalf of Peter Schrager on behalf of Jason English and
44:20
Speaker 5: the entire iHeart team as well as the NFL network.
44:24
Speaker 1: Folks, Thanks for listening. We'll be back next week with
44:26
Speaker 1: some great stuff. The Season with Peter Schrager is a
44:40
Speaker 1: production of the NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. For more
44:44
Speaker 1: podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, wherever
44:48
Speaker 1: you get your podcasts.