Latest / Jeff Legwold ESPN Broncos Reports / Jeff Legwold joins Moser, Lombardi and Kane 2/8/24

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Jeff Legwold joins Moser, Lombardi and Kane 2/8/24 · Jeff Legwold ESPN Broncos Reports

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  Now we're talking to Jeff Legwell, what's happening. What's happening? All right?
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  So a few things here as it is Super Bowl week, Vick is
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  in Vegas right now. What do you find the most fascinating part of the
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  Super Bowl? What's the story to you heading into this game? I think,
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  actually for me, it's the two defenses. You know, we're really
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  not talking about too much about those, but they probably they probably determine it,
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  and especially on on Kansas City side. I think in the league right
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  now, there's probably more appreciation for Steve Spagnola than there's ever been as far
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  as a strategist, and a lot of the things guys who've played for him
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  have told me over the years are sort of coming to light now, you
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  know, aggressive, unpredictable, creative. You never really heard of those things,
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  you know, when he was in the head coaching area, or even
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  other times as a defensive coordinator. But I think it's really out there now,
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  and I think him specifically is a pretty big storyline in this game because
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  the Chiefs are probably a little less healthy than the forty nine ers are overall.
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  Jeff Layla and Jeffrey sitting here, I'm sorry sitting here in Vegas listening
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  to these coaches and listening to Kyle Shannhan discuss what he's facing this week.
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  He's been here now is this is third Super Bowl? First as an offensive
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  coordinator, second as a coach. Somebody asked me yesterday, it was Lindall
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  and Krickman, about is he facing more pressure than Andy Reid? And I
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  thought about that for a second. Pressure on the coaches. Obviously every coach
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  faces pressure. But let's say that he lost this game thirty to nothing.
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  He got his team here. He's a damn good coach. He's doing something
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  right. Winning here and getting here too entirely different things, aren't they always
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  that? You know, we talk about this a lot, and in Hall
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  of Fame discussions, you know, selectors, because it's you're not a You
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  can be a great player and not have a Super Bowl ring. You can
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  be a great coach and not have a Super Bowl ring. I think football
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  there are so many moving parts, and it takes so much to get that
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  bigger group with that much injury risk in the game overall. You know,
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  weeks one through eighteen, you know, it takes so much to even get
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  to the Super Bowl, to sort of critically slam a guy because he you
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  know, you couldn't get all the way and win the trophy. You know,
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  all the things didn't come together, you know. You know, Marv
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  Levy's in the Hall of Fame, and Gary Kubiak has won more Super Bowl
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  than Marv Levy, I mean, and Gary Kuback's a great coach, you
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  know. I mean, he did the best job I've ever seen the Super
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  Bowl fifty year. It's just such a football I mean, again, there's
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  so many people involved, there's so many people on the field, There's so
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  many things that can happen in the game, and the injury risk is constant.
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  Yeah, I think it's always wrong to, bottom line, say a
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  guy doesn't deserve accolades or praise because he didn't win the game. That's sad.
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  You know, we know the world we live in. If the forty
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  nine ers don't win, I think Kyle is suddenly in that group of coaches
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  where people look at him and say, okay, will he get it done?
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  And he's gonna have to listen to that for probably a long time.
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  So, Jeff, if that is the case, if you're going to overcome
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  the behemoth that is Kansas City with Reid and Mahomes and Kelsey in a much
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  improved defense, kicking so much. But when you look at the forty nine
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  ers and you look at the game plan that Kyle Shanahan has to come up
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  with, what does it look like to you in order to beat Kansas City
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  and get over the hump? Put all that stuff aside. You know you
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  finally won. He pretty got it done. It's mister irrelevant. You know
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  you got Christian all this kind of stuff. How does it look to you,
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  Moja? I think it has to look opposite of what it looked like
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  when he was calling place for the Falcons in the in the big comeback.
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  The one enormous advantage the forty nine ers have is when and I've charted both
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  defenses and looked at a bunch of stuff. The Chiefs defense is one of
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  the worst in the league against zone runs. But people don't stay with it
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  because you're facing Mahomes and they freak out, or they leave it, or
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  they tried a couple times and it works great and they just bail. I
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  personally think he's got to be willing to sort of get get the game money
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  a little bit, and you know, not be run first. I'm not
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  ever saying that in today's league, but he's got to be willing to pound
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  it a little bit even if a couple don't work. You know, if
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  you get you know, two yards on first and ten, you got to
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  be willing to hang in there a couple times with it. Because I'm telling
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  you, the analytics bear it out. The Chiefs are one of the worst
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  defenses in the league. I think they're thirty first against zone runs. But
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  nobody's willing to hang in there and slam away at it because you know what
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  you're looking at on the other side. And when Mahomes gets it rolling,
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  he can score. Every time they have the ball. They haven't always shown
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  that kind of explosiveness this year. But I mean, if there's a better
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  big moment player in the game right now, I don't see him. I
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  think he is the guy that point. How much does the experience of playing
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  in a Super Bowl matter? Because the Niners were just there a couple of
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  years ago. They got a whole bunch of guys that played in this game
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  before. Now obviously not their quarterback, but when you get to the Super
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  Bowl, you've played in high pressure moments like the comebacks that the Niners have
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  had to have the two weeks prior to this against the Lines and the Packers,
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  that's like everything's on the line, they've been there. How much does
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  that matter that the Chiefs have played this game more than a lot of these
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  Niners have, really, And you know, it's not that the organization has
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  well maybe you know from the coaching side, you know, Andy Reid certainly
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  has a system now for going through a Super Bowl week. I think that
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  was always the great advantage Belichick and the Patriots had was they had just tried
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  so many things and so many trips. They had a system to get through
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  the week. And getting through the week is the biggest thing the game.
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  You're really managing adrenaline. You want to have something left for the set and
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  a half. And I've talked to many players over the years who've said,
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  it's you've got to manage that. Amazing. I'm in the Super Bowl feeling
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  because some players, most players never feel it ever, And I think sometimes
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  as fans or media, we may not always understand that fact that most players,
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  virtually all of them who suit up in the NFL, will not play
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  in a Super Bowl. And when you do, there's this enormous adrenaline pop
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  and sure do you get to that long halftime. It's managing all of that
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  to be able to play at the level you can play at, and the
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  people who do it the best win the game. And it really is almost
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  as simple as that execution matters. But in that situation, with all of
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  the expansive hype and everything that's become, it really is managing the emotion of
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  the moment. Jeff Lagwell with his ESPN dot com I wanted to follow up
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  something a little bit more local. I know that Christian Parker was seen as
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  a guy with sort of a rising star in the coaching ranks. He leaves
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  the Broncos to join the defensive staff in Philly with a big fangio, big
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  dealer, not a big deal. Oh that's a big deal for Lebronco.
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  This is a guy who's a good enough coach to be retained by two You
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  know, he's hired by VIC and then retained by the next two coaches,
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  So that tells you he's a really good coach. Players like him. He's
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  a good teacher. I've talked to Christian a lot about how he came into
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  coaching. This is a guy who worked his way up from you know,
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  just watching things on YouTube. I mean, that's that's how far he's come.
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  He is a defensive coordinator and waiting to me, and I think he's
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  got the sort of the framework to be a head coach someday in my opinion.
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  And you know, we'll see if that happens for him. But he's
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  one of the best young coaches in the league. But he's very uh.
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  He feels very close to Vic because Vic hired him into the NFL and Vic
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  was the first guy that the first prominent guy to sort of meet him at
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  the combine and talk to him about being a coach. So there's a lot
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  of history there and a lot of strong feelings. So not shocking, and
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  I'm not sure the Broncos could have kept him given all that. But it
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  is a big loss for the Broncos. And we won't talk about it as
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  much as we do the quarterback and the rest of it, but it is
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  kind of where the Broncos are right now. There's a lot of tough things
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  happening to the Broncos, with a lot more tough ones coming. No on
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  top of that leg before I let you go. I want to ask you
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  one other thing, because this was a little bit earlier this week. Mike
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  Rabel was he gotta get lost in the shuffle of this coaching cycle thing because
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  Bill Belichick wasn't hired, and so that was the big story. I'm surprised
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  that Rabel didn't get a job. But when I saw somebody didn't hire Vrabel
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  because he's big, it sounds like that is a dumpster fire of an organization.
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  If this is how you're going about hiring people, is I might be
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  intimidated when he's in the room. That sounds pretty weak, doesn't it.
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  Yeah, And I don't know all the context of it. I mean I've
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  heard I've heard many weird things over the years about why guys weren't hired.
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  You know, why an interview was the quote unquote a bad interview because he
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  he scowled at me after this one question, or he looked at his phone.
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  You know, the Broncos were mad at a candidate a couple of years
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  ago because he looked at his phone twice during the interview and they had made
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  a note of it. So, I mean, nothing shocks me anymore when
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  I hear why somebody wasn't hired, and it's usually something that has nothing to
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  do with winning football games. And I always say, you know, it's
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  an old saying. And when my dad worked in the railyard, the guys
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  used to say it all the time. Keep the main thing, the main
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  thing. And that's I think in the multi billion dollar industry the NFL has
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  become, they're awful lot of people who forget the main thing. Sometimes on
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  top of that leg you like another guy, Ben Johnson, he's been this
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  hot shot young offensive coordinator, like the kind of the epitome of what teams
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  are looking for as head coaches. So he just called the commander's mid flight
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  and was like, nah, I'm all right, I don't need this.
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  Sorry about that. Yeah, it means you know, maybe I should have
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  called you earlier. But actually I heard it was a text. That's what
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  I was told. Really, Oh my god, it's like this multi and
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  look, I'm not I'm not the ultimate Lions beat writer, but I was
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  told by multiple people it was a text. But you know, anyways,
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  you know, honestly, if you know, I also from my perspective,
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  for me, that's something the commanders you better have that nailed down before you
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  get on the plane. It's you know, the Broncos loaded a plane and
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  went to ann Arbor last year with that kind of uncertainty two and uh they
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  were told no again when they got there. So I mean, it's it
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  does happen. It's not like Ben Johnson's this awful guy now. But you
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  know, the hiring process is a weird thing because everybody's racing. Ultimately,
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  the worry is the guy won't be able to get enough assistant coaches if we
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  don't get it done, and that's always like the pressure through it. That's
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  crazy. So they went to ann Arbor just hoping, even though they got
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  to know if we show up, he'll take the meeting. Had they had
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  had a sort of yes and then got to know and then wanted to see
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  what the deal was. But they did load the plane up. You know,
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  they did the first interview with the Hardball virtually, and then they loaded
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  the plane up and went to and I we're kind of the same sort of
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  situation in some ways. But anyway, at the hiring cycle, it's always
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  nuts and it's like the wild West. Sometimes it's it's not like we think
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  it is. You know, a bunch of people sitting in a waiting room
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  with their resumes in their hands, you know, waiting to be waiting to
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  be interviewed. It's it's it's chaos sometimes. Jeff Lagwalld ESPN dot com.
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  He joins us every Thursday at eight o'clock. Always appreciate it, Leggy,
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  Thank you, buddy, Thanks Noll, Say yeah, Jeff Legwell, ESPN
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  dot com. All conversations with Leggy brought to me at bet Safe Color out
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  of the exclusive club for passionate gamers and betters across the state. VIC is
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  in Vegas on Radio Row and when we return, Jake Plumber joins the programs stag around