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Stock Charts to Depth Charts with Jake Rosenberg · Rosters to Rings Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Rosters to Rings. I am fad Levine. We're
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: ecstatic to bring back storied Major League Baseball executive and
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: dear friend John Daniels as our co host Today. Fitting
• 0:15
  Speaker 1: with the most compelling sports stories of the day, we
• 0:17
  Speaker 1: have an exceptional football focused show for you. In segment one,
• 0:21
  Speaker 1: we will dive into the competitive business side of college sports.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: In segment two, we will turn our focus to a
• 0:28
  Speaker 1: breakdown of the musical chairs of coaches and gms at
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: the NFL level and to elevate this conversation, jd we
• 0:35
  Speaker 1: are tapping into a bona fide expert uniquely positioned to
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: take us behind the scenes in college and professional football.
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: A graduate of the University of Pennsylvania, Jake Rosenberg spent
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: over a decade working in the high stakes world of
• 0:48
  Speaker 1: Wall Street as a bond and commodities trader before pursuing
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: his true passion of professional football. For twelve years, Jake
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: worked for the Philadelphia Eagles, ultimately serving as their vice president.
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: A football administration, Jake served as Howie Roseman's right hand man,
• 1:04
  Speaker 1: his primary strategist for salary and cap management and contract negotiations.
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: Jake is the cap architect who helped the Eagles become
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: a perennial contender and a Super Bowl fifty two champion.
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  Speaker 1: Jake's now the founder of the Athlete Group, where he's
• 1:19
  Speaker 1: taking his pro level championship blueprint to the college ranks. Jake,
• 1:24
  Speaker 1: Welcome to Rosters to Rings.
• 1:25
  Speaker 2: Thanks for having me. It's nice intro. Thank you.
• 1:29
  Speaker 1: I'm available for weddings if you're renoing your valves at
• 1:32
  Speaker 1: any point, Jake. As a kind of tradition on Rosters
• 1:36
  Speaker 1: to Rings, we like to share with the listeners all
• 1:39
  Speaker 1: of our illustrious guests passion story, like how did you
• 1:43
  Speaker 1: get into sports?
• 1:44
  Speaker 2: How'd you fall in.
• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Love with professional sports?
• 1:47
  Speaker 2: Oh? Man, I mean sports was always my true passion.
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: I was a obsessive fan growing up to the point
• 1:56
  Speaker 2: where I remember I was a Giants fan in football
• 2:01
  Speaker 2: growing up, which is always, you know, an interesting transition
• 2:04
  Speaker 2: going from Giants to Eagles. We actually had Giants PSLs
• 2:10
  Speaker 2: as I got hired with the Eagles that my dad
• 2:12
  Speaker 2: had to unload. So interesting little tidbit there. I my
• 2:17
  Speaker 2: origin to I just from the time I was I
• 2:20
  Speaker 2: couldn't even remember when I first started watching sports, but
• 2:23
  Speaker 2: I was very, very passionate about it. I played rotisserie
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  Speaker 2: baseball when you know, I was ten eleven years old,
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  Speaker 2: which is way before fantasy football existed and all that.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: And I used to get sent to other rooms when
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: I was watching games with my parents because I was
• 2:40
  Speaker 2: insufferable throwing things around the room. So I have always
• 2:44
  Speaker 2: had the passion.
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: That was back when you were doing the stats by hand, right,
• 2:49
  Speaker 3: No doubt.
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  Speaker 2: No, we would literally add up stats by hand. I
• 2:53
  Speaker 2: would try to incorporate spreadsheets on a little apple to
• 2:58
  Speaker 2: E or two C I think I had at the time.
• 3:00
  Speaker 1: So, oh yeah, we had to wait till these things
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  Speaker 1: called newspapers came out the next day to read the
• 3:06
  Speaker 1: box scores to make sure we had all the stats
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  Speaker 1: lined up exactly right.
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: Jake, I've heard you described the gap between the NFL
• 3:13
  Speaker 3: and college in terms of the business efficiencies being an
• 3:18
  Speaker 3: ocean apart. Can you describe a little bit how you
• 3:20
  Speaker 3: see the biggest of those differences.
• 3:23
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think that college has been an area where
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: recruiting was really the only way to build a team,
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: and so the advantages were limited to the same teams
• 3:37
  Speaker 2: over and over again, and you would basically just try
• 3:39
  Speaker 2: to recruit the best players there wasn't a whole lot
• 3:43
  Speaker 2: of strategy to roster building. You didn't have to worry
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: about discerning between players. The outside scouting agencies that put
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: stars on players wound up for all intents and purposes
• 3:56
  Speaker 2: being you, you know, your simple scouting function, and and
• 4:02
  Speaker 2: what you have now is a world where there is
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: so much gray. You know, there is not just this
• 4:08
  Speaker 2: binary decision on a player, and you have staffed that
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  Speaker 2: just don't have skill sets. The organizational structure, there's there's
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  Speaker 2: none of the pieces in place really that exist in
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  Speaker 2: a professional environment, and so there are just so many
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  Speaker 2: weak points or opportunities I guess to be smarter and
• 4:33
  Speaker 2: more strategic and think through things in a different way.
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  Speaker 2: And I think it's it's really timely with what's gone
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  Speaker 2: on in Indiana this year when you look at they
• 4:45
  Speaker 2: don't have five stars, they have a roster with I
• 4:48
  Speaker 2: don't think they have a single five star and they have,
• 4:52
  Speaker 2: you know, heading into playoffs, one of, if not the
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  Speaker 2: best team in the country. And I think it really
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: does speak to the place for strategy and outthinking, knowing
• 5:03
  Speaker 2: players better, roster construction, all the things that you guys
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  Speaker 2: know and sort of take for granted, and I think
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  Speaker 2: in the NFL, certainly you think about all these distinct
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  Speaker 2: parts that contribute to putting a good team together. It's
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  Speaker 2: not simply about just amassing, you know, the best group
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  Speaker 2: of four or five stars and hoping they'll come together
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  Speaker 2: as a team.
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  Speaker 1: Jake, I'm sure this is somewhat subjective, but I read
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  Speaker 1: that one account is that the Indiana actually had the
• 5:30
  Speaker 1: seventy second most talented roster entering this season, according to
• 5:34
  Speaker 1: some pundit out there said that. But I think that
• 5:37
  Speaker 1: supports a little bit of your commentary about that they
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  Speaker 1: aren't really laden with five star recruits and they've been
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: more of a team. It sounds like what you're talking
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: about is the genesis of the athlete group. But can
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: you talk to us a little bit more about the
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  Speaker 1: services you are providing colleges and how are you closing
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: that gap using the athlete group as a vehicle to
• 5:58
  Speaker 1: achieve that?
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  Speaker 2: Sure, I would just say when someone, some pundit puts
• 6:02
  Speaker 2: out that a certain roster is the seventy second most
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  Speaker 2: talented roster, you know, my instinct is to say, well,
• 6:10
  Speaker 2: does that person have any idea what talent looks like?
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  Speaker 2: You know, I don't know who that is. But talent
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  Speaker 2: evaluation is a pretty nuanced field. Just because someone watches
• 6:21
  Speaker 2: tape or puts out rankings or that doesn't necessarily mean
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  Speaker 2: a whole lot. And I think that's a little bit
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  Speaker 2: of the crux to the problem in general, is that
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  Speaker 2: you have external agencies who put stars. You know, coaches
• 6:36
  Speaker 2: to have been judged based on how well they recruit
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  Speaker 2: based on not the actual talent or how well a
• 6:43
  Speaker 2: player fits in their scheme, but how many stars they
• 6:46
  Speaker 2: have accumulated in their recruiting class. And so all of
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  Speaker 2: that hinges on one assumption that the stars do translate
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  Speaker 2: to talent, and I think that's where that's flawed. You know, honestly,
• 7:00
  Speaker 2: the way that we help programs is taking a very
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  Speaker 2: objective view at the way that they're operating, non judgmentally.
• 7:10
  Speaker 2: I think one of the things that is really my
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: friend is about a year and a half ago or
• 7:16
  Speaker 2: a little bit more, when I came into college sports,
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  Speaker 2: I had no knowledge of how these college programs operated,
• 7:24
  Speaker 2: you know, I had very intimate knowledge about how we
• 7:26
  Speaker 2: operated at the Philadelphia Eagles, how most teams were set
• 7:30
  Speaker 2: up and functioning in the NFL. I am significantly passionate
• 7:37
  Speaker 2: about the other professional sports too. I've always been a
• 7:40
  Speaker 2: diehard baseball fan, and that probably was has been my
• 7:44
  Speaker 2: true passion from just purely a sports standpoint, you know,
• 7:48
  Speaker 2: the salary cap aspect of the NFL always made it
• 7:51
  Speaker 2: more interesting and appealing from a potential career. But so
• 7:56
  Speaker 2: I think when when I look at the opportunity, it's
• 8:02
  Speaker 2: going into a sport or an industry where it's been
• 8:07
  Speaker 2: static for so long and now all these changes have
• 8:10
  Speaker 2: been thrust on them. Whether it's a true salary cap
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  Speaker 2: or not, it isn't. Each school has different types of resources,
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  Speaker 2: but they still are allocating. They still are in a
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  Speaker 2: position where they can't just go out and recruit the
• 8:25
  Speaker 2: eighty five best players in the country, and so a
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  Speaker 2: lot of the decisions that they need to make are
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  Speaker 2: more similar to professional organizations. And so some of the
• 8:38
  Speaker 2: things we do is as a third party, objective source,
• 8:43
  Speaker 2: spend a couple of days, spend however long they're willing
• 8:45
  Speaker 2: to give us interview. People really document from top to bottom,
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  Speaker 2: how they make decisions, how they compile talent, how they
• 8:53
  Speaker 2: put a roster on the field, what skill sets they have,
• 8:58
  Speaker 2: what skill sets they might be missing. What simple recommendations
• 9:03
  Speaker 2: are for how to get more efficient. I truly believe
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  Speaker 2: that whatever the budget is at a particular program, being smarter,
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  Speaker 2: more strategic, more out in front from a strategy standpoint
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  Speaker 2: generally is going to allow them to stretch that budget
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  Speaker 2: and put a team together. You know, you may have
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  Speaker 2: fifteen million dollars, and if you do things really well,
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  Speaker 2: it may be a roster street value might be twenty
• 9:30
  Speaker 2: million dollars. And then you have other programs who may
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  Speaker 2: spend thirty million dollars to put a twenty million dollar
• 9:35
  Speaker 2: roster together. I think there's so many different ways to
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  Speaker 2: do this. That's the exciting part is you have a
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  Speaker 2: program that can know themselves better, know their style scheme,
• 9:48
  Speaker 2: know the way the coaches want to use them, know
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  Speaker 2: how they can develop players better, and all of those
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  Speaker 2: those can manifest themselves and putting a better team together.
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  Speaker 2: And really, you know, kind of the mirror initially, at
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  Speaker 2: least in terms of this is how we see it.
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  Speaker 2: I know you've been so embedded in it, you're probably
• 10:07
  Speaker 2: a little biased to how you operate. Well, this is
• 10:10
  Speaker 2: the way we see it. Are we going to get
• 10:13
  Speaker 2: every single thing correct? Maybe not, but it's a combination
• 10:17
  Speaker 2: of downloading all that information, taking our experience in dealing
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  Speaker 2: with We've worked with I think eight programs to this
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  Speaker 2: point and met with probably thirty others, so a pretty
• 10:30
  Speaker 2: good insight into how a lot of the market is operating,
• 10:35
  Speaker 2: and provide feedback objectively, constructively in terms of how to
• 10:41
  Speaker 2: get more from their resources, how to put a better
• 10:43
  Speaker 2: team together, and honestly, to some degree, how to improve
• 10:48
  Speaker 2: their lives because this has become a twenty four to seven,
• 10:52
  Speaker 2: three sixty five just grind. You know, the coaches are overworked, overwhelmed,
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  Speaker 2: doing a lot of things that they're not enjoying, that
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: they're not good at, that have just been thrust on
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  Speaker 2: their plate. And I think when you get into more
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  Speaker 2: efficient operation, more specialization, you wind up freeing people up
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  Speaker 2: to do the things that they enjoy and hopefully getting
• 11:17
  Speaker 2: back to some degree of normalcy.
• 11:20
  Speaker 1: Jake, I think you're talking about college sports here, but
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  Speaker 1: I think your service could be rendered across all professional
• 11:27
  Speaker 1: sports as well. You know, I love Jad's take on
• 11:30
  Speaker 1: this as well. It's like when you're building a front
• 11:32
  Speaker 1: office and you aspire to be successful over a time horizon,
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  Speaker 1: I think there's forever the balance of continuity and consistency
• 11:40
  Speaker 1: juxtaposed against getting stale and little stagnant. And I think
• 11:45
  Speaker 1: even the best of us, who aspire to bring in
• 11:48
  Speaker 1: new voices, new looks, new objective opinions, we always fallow
• 11:52
  Speaker 1: a little bit short of that in terms of, you know,
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: pulling it off. And I think when you are with
• 11:58
  Speaker 1: a group for a long period of time, there's a
• 11:59
  Speaker 1: lot of inherent benefits to that. There's a lot of
• 12:02
  Speaker 1: you heighten the level of comfort zone, you know how
• 12:04
  Speaker 1: to read each other, you're a lot more efficient. But
• 12:07
  Speaker 1: there is that risk where you don't have that new
• 12:09
  Speaker 1: perspective coming and you lose a little bit of your
• 12:12
  Speaker 1: perspective as you get a little bit too close to things.
• 12:15
  Speaker 1: So one of the fundamental services you're providing. I think
• 12:18
  Speaker 1: sports should be embracing across all platforms. There's a myriad
• 12:22
  Speaker 1: of reasons why we don't. Sometimes there's a cost associated
• 12:25
  Speaker 1: with it. Sometimes it's an ego thing where you don't
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: necessarily want to reveal to the owner that we really
• 12:31
  Speaker 1: do need an external audit to come in to make
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: us more efficient. But for a variety of reasons, sports
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: don't seem to embrace us as much as Fortune five
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  Speaker 1: hundred companies do, and it's an area where I think
• 12:43
  Speaker 1: we could all benefit from this type of review.
• 12:46
  Speaker 2: If it's not on an annial.
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: Basis, it surely should be at least every two to
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: three years to us for us to be as objective
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: as we aspire to be.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I agree with you, I'm a little biased on the
• 12:56
  Speaker 2: topic because I can see how much we could offer
• 13:02
  Speaker 2: when programs are actually vulnerable, open, and you know, willing
• 13:07
  Speaker 2: to take the feedback For me, I don't necessarily I'll
• 13:12
  Speaker 2: do a job in terms of hey, can you do
• 13:14
  Speaker 2: this assessment? And then here we turn it over and
• 13:18
  Speaker 2: now they're going to do a bunch of work to evolve.
• 13:21
  Speaker 2: The most rewarding things that we've done so far are
• 13:24
  Speaker 2: really where we're partnering because I feel like I have
• 13:27
  Speaker 2: skin in the game. My motivation is to help them
• 13:30
  Speaker 2: get better see you know, the results on the field.
• 13:34
  Speaker 2: But I've thought about this. In fact, I had a
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: conversation last night with a friend who works in the NHL.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: Do you think that this could work in the NHL?
• 13:42
  Speaker 2: I definitely do, And I think that the concepts towards
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: team building or allocating being efficient strategic, like those aren't
• 13:53
  Speaker 2: really sports specific. You don't have an opportunity to get
• 13:57
  Speaker 2: somebody who isn't trying to judge you, or isn't going
• 14:00
  Speaker 2: to the owner and telling you know that you're not
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: doing a good job. But I think that's really helpful.
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: I you know, I say this all the time with
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: no hesitation, that I work for the best general manager
• 14:12
  Speaker 2: in the NFL. One thing I can say about how
• 14:15
  Speaker 2: he that astounds me, honestly is his ability to pivot
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: from year to year, and a season would end always
• 14:25
  Speaker 2: extremely emotional, sometimes positive, but more often than not negative,
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: you know, and you're you're kicking rocks and you're just
• 14:33
  Speaker 2: so pissed it would happen. But how he'll go away
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: for a few days and I don't know what he
• 14:40
  Speaker 2: does exactly when he goes away, but you know, he
• 14:43
  Speaker 2: comes back and he's sort of turned the page. But
• 14:46
  Speaker 2: he's also figured out how to take an objective look
• 14:50
  Speaker 2: and say, you know what, I think that we need
• 14:52
  Speaker 2: to look at this or we need And from year
• 14:55
  Speaker 2: to year there were a lot of things that changed
• 14:58
  Speaker 2: drastically in terms of mistakes we had made about certain
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: pools of players, maybe that we had undervalued or not
• 15:07
  Speaker 2: looked at or the way we're allocating, or mistakes we
• 15:12
  Speaker 2: made in free agency. But I think that is so
• 15:16
  Speaker 2: crucial and rare to find. Usually people dig in and
• 15:21
  Speaker 2: they feel like, this is my formula, and I'm going
• 15:25
  Speaker 2: to keep doing this formula because it got me to
• 15:27
  Speaker 2: where I am. And so the ability to adapt. And
• 15:33
  Speaker 2: that's talking about you know, football, baseball, you know where
• 15:37
  Speaker 2: those are pretty consistent at this point. Right you're looking
• 15:40
  Speaker 2: for tiny edges. College football is the opposite of that.
• 15:44
  Speaker 2: Right now, it's incredibly inefficient. It's changing so much that
• 15:49
  Speaker 2: if you're willing to be open and say, I know
• 15:52
  Speaker 2: what I'm really good at, you know, I know what
• 15:54
  Speaker 2: my people are really good at. There's so many things
• 15:57
  Speaker 2: that are going on we've never been exposed to. Right
• 15:59
  Speaker 2: in college. I think it's typical people work in college
• 16:04
  Speaker 2: or they work in pro. It's not all that typical.
• 16:07
  Speaker 2: You find people in college who have significant pro experience.
• 16:11
  Speaker 2: It's becoming more common now. But I feel like my
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: advantage is that when a school wants to hire us,
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: we are partners. My goal is to help them, and
• 16:25
  Speaker 2: so I bring the experience of having seen this done
• 16:27
  Speaker 2: at a higher level. In terms of the NFL and
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: process and a lot of the things that they're evolving to,
• 16:35
  Speaker 2: but also just helping them figure that out. There are
• 16:39
  Speaker 2: certain skill sets they are going to need to add
• 16:41
  Speaker 2: and that people have just people take on because that's
• 16:46
  Speaker 2: what they know how to do. Hey, where the solution
• 16:47
  Speaker 2: to the problem is I'll just do it, no problem.
• 16:51
  Speaker 2: But that's not necessarily helping, and it takes them away
• 16:54
  Speaker 2: from the things they're good at. And so I think
• 16:57
  Speaker 2: there's a tremendous opportunity in other sports, there's no question,
• 17:02
  Speaker 2: but right now in college it is everybody can use help.
• 17:07
  Speaker 2: That's that's the truth.
• 17:08
  Speaker 3: You guys both kind of touched on this a little bit,
• 17:10
  Speaker 3: but the just how organizations can become very insular very quickly,
• 17:15
  Speaker 3: and you know, victim of your own success to say that,
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: I think you know, we experienced this a little bit
• 17:21
  Speaker 3: in Texas right where you know, you pause just slightly
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: and the next thing you know, somebody is racing by you.
• 17:27
  Speaker 3: And I'm curious, as you know some of those changes
• 17:32
  Speaker 3: we've you know, organizations have their own staffing departments now
• 17:35
  Speaker 3: and to look for the best hires and look, you
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: know people uh positions specifically focused on efficiencies and process
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: and all that incubator programs and all that sort of thing. Jacob,
• 17:46
  Speaker 3: I'm curious that you're taking it to the college level
• 17:49
  Speaker 3: where they're at the kind of the front end of
• 17:51
  Speaker 3: all this change. How much are you looking at it,
• 17:54
  Speaker 3: and you know, you can make big gains in short
• 17:56
  Speaker 3: period of time because it's just at the start of it.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: How much you looking at to like improve efficiency now
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: the next few years, take advantage versus you know, also,
• 18:06
  Speaker 3: how do we future proof this a little bit and
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: you know, make sure that that that kind of insolarity,
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: the complacency doesn't set in in two years.
• 18:15
  Speaker 2: Well, complacency is definitely not on anyone's radar right this second,
• 18:19
  Speaker 2: in terms of you know, people are just trying to
• 18:21
  Speaker 2: meet the challenge of the moment. It goes against like
• 18:24
  Speaker 2: people's nature to want to change. You know, coaches have
• 18:28
  Speaker 2: gotten to where they are in college football. Coaches have
• 18:31
  Speaker 2: been the most powerful person on campus, typically the most
• 18:35
  Speaker 2: a lot in a lot of cases, the highest paid
• 18:37
  Speaker 2: person in the entire state. And they've gotten there because
• 18:42
  Speaker 2: of their ability to take things on, you know, put
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: things on their plate, be a leader, and so it's
• 18:48
  Speaker 2: not always comfortable to bring in a partner, you know,
• 18:51
  Speaker 2: and defer or off lay some of this work. But
• 18:58
  Speaker 2: I think it's it's so crucial and what I believe
• 19:02
  Speaker 2: this to be true. And I would say two examples,
• 19:05
  Speaker 2: you know, varying degrees. Indiana is advancing through the college
• 19:09
  Speaker 2: football playoffs, maybe the best team in the country at
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: a Heisman Trophy winner, not a historical powerhouse, but clearly
• 19:17
  Speaker 2: the head coach is doing things a completely different way
• 19:19
  Speaker 2: and strategically. But then I would say a school I've
• 19:23
  Speaker 2: worked with for a year and a half at Oklahoma,
• 19:25
  Speaker 2: made significant changes in operation, spent a couple of years
• 19:30
  Speaker 2: not having the types of seasons that they're comfortable with
• 19:32
  Speaker 2: or used to, went to the college football playoffs this
• 19:36
  Speaker 2: year and definitely a bounce back season, but a season
• 19:41
  Speaker 2: that was probably too soon to truly show the full
• 19:45
  Speaker 2: benefit of the restructure that they did. But I think
• 19:50
  Speaker 2: when you're dealing in baseball or you're dealing in football,
• 19:55
  Speaker 2: the margins are very very tiny that you're trying to
• 19:59
  Speaker 2: find these tiny efficients. I think it just shows that
• 20:02
  Speaker 2: if you make we're willing to make significant changes, the
• 20:07
  Speaker 2: benefit is as large as it'll ever be, and it
• 20:09
  Speaker 2: could be very quick, you know, the portal allows teams
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: to completely rebuild in a short period of time. You
• 20:17
  Speaker 2: could effectively turn over a significant part of your roster,
• 20:23
  Speaker 2: and so for the foreseeable future, I think there are
• 20:28
  Speaker 2: still huge inefficiencies and benefits to doing this in the
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: short term, and I think the schools that are open
• 20:35
  Speaker 2: to that and continue to evolve from year to year
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: will we'll get ahead. I could see it happening already
• 20:43
  Speaker 2: we're at I think this is going to be the
• 20:45
  Speaker 2: third year in a row where there's no SEC team
• 20:48
  Speaker 2: in the National Championship, which speaks to strategy, It speaks
• 20:54
  Speaker 2: to a diversification of talent pools. And so the schools
• 20:59
  Speaker 2: that are there digging in and just doubling down and
• 21:02
  Speaker 2: working hard and doing the same thing that they've done,
• 21:05
  Speaker 2: I think they're in the process of getting lot to
• 21:07
  Speaker 2: some degree, you know, they are or put a different way.
• 21:11
  Speaker 2: Resources Right now, there's a huge disparity in resources. I
• 21:15
  Speaker 2: think what we might be talking about is the price
• 21:19
  Speaker 2: to maintain their status might become, you know, more and
• 21:23
  Speaker 2: more disproportionate to what others are spending. You know, can
• 21:26
  Speaker 2: it a twenty million dollars roster compete with a thirty
• 21:29
  Speaker 2: five million dollar roster or be the thirty five million
• 21:31
  Speaker 2: dollars roster. I think that that's probably more akin to
• 21:36
  Speaker 2: where we're getting if the thirty five million dollars roster
• 21:39
  Speaker 2: is big, dumb and stupid.
• 21:41
  Speaker 1: Jake, I did look up the source on the seventy
• 21:44
  Speaker 1: second talented pool and it was a roll tide ride
• 21:49
  Speaker 1: or die three one seven was the expert, So that.
• 21:52
  Speaker 2: That person is a really, really good evalue.
• 21:56
  Speaker 1: Jaki, you just talked about the fact that the SEC
• 21:59
  Speaker 1: is not represented for a couple of years running now,
• 22:02
  Speaker 1: but let's just talk about the level set as to
• 22:04
  Speaker 1: the environment you're talking about. So and this is maybe
• 22:07
  Speaker 1: a slightly more credible sources, and you'll tell us according
• 22:12
  Speaker 1: to two four to seven sports, four percent of the
• 22:15
  Speaker 1: top college recruits are landing in the Big ten or
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: the SEC, which I'm guessing is no tremendous surprise. And
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: since the inception of the BCS in nineteen ninety eight,
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: there have been twenty seven national champions but only fifteen
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: distinct teams have won those championships. By definition, fifty four
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: teams have played in a national championship, but only twenty
• 22:35
  Speaker 1: one schools have been represented there. So you know, roughly speaking,
• 22:40
  Speaker 1: eighty five percent of the entries are coming from those
• 22:43
  Speaker 1: kind of power power for schools, but really in the
• 22:46
  Speaker 1: Power four, it's it's really you know, consolidated in the
• 22:49
  Speaker 1: SEC Big ten and ACC represent twenty three of the
• 22:53
  Speaker 1: national championship since two thousand. So that's that's where we've been.
• 22:58
  Speaker 1: But I think it's intriguing to see where we are
• 23:00
  Speaker 1: right now relative to some of the comments you just made,
• 23:03
  Speaker 1: which is to say Miami has already punched their ticket.
• 23:05
  Speaker 1: We're recording this here today on January ninth. They punched
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: their ticket last night in an epic win. They haven't
• 23:13
  Speaker 1: won a national championship since two thousand and one, haven't
• 23:15
  Speaker 1: been in since two thousand and three. They represent the
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: ACC now, and they were in the Big East I
• 23:21
  Speaker 1: think the last time they made it maybe, and the
• 23:24
  Speaker 1: Big East hasn't won since twenty eighteen. So there's a
• 23:26
  Speaker 1: little bit of a changing of the guard. And as
• 23:28
  Speaker 1: we know, Oregon and Indiana will meet tonight and play.
• 23:32
  Speaker 1: Neither of them has ever won a national championship, so
• 23:34
  Speaker 1: we are going to see some turnover. And so I
• 23:37
  Speaker 1: guess my question to you is with the House settlement
• 23:40
  Speaker 1: and now schools having this twenty and a half million
• 23:42
  Speaker 1: dollars to spend, Are we seeing some leveling of the
• 23:46
  Speaker 1: playing field? And you just reference some of these competitive
• 23:50
  Speaker 1: advantage that people are forming, but maybe you could take
• 23:52
  Speaker 1: us behind the scenes. How are colleges now really looking
• 23:57
  Speaker 1: at talent acquisition and talent evaluation and how does that
• 24:00
  Speaker 1: compare to your experience in the NFL.
• 24:03
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that what's happening is there. The settlement
• 24:07
  Speaker 2: was anticipated, and I think most people in the industry
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: was hoping that the settlement would bring some stability and
• 24:16
  Speaker 2: bring something akin to a salary cap in place where
• 24:21
  Speaker 2: there would be a more defined set of resources and
• 24:26
  Speaker 2: put everyone on more of a level playing field. That
• 24:29
  Speaker 2: has not come to pass hardly in IOTA, I think
• 24:33
  Speaker 2: there is continuing to be in arms or resource race,
• 24:38
  Speaker 2: and there is an enormous disparity in the cost to
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: put together a roster. But with that being said, I
• 24:49
  Speaker 2: think that there is still huge opportunity because most programs,
• 24:55
  Speaker 2: even though they're paying players so they have these extra
• 24:58
  Speaker 2: functions that need to be taken care of, are not
• 25:02
  Speaker 2: applying a whole lot of originality or strategy to that.
• 25:07
  Speaker 2: And I say, like there's different buckets probably where you
• 25:11
  Speaker 2: could be more strategic in terms of I think you
• 25:14
  Speaker 2: could do it structurally, in terms of how you allocate responsibilities,
• 25:19
  Speaker 2: types of skill sets you bring in. I think you
• 25:23
  Speaker 2: could do it through data and analysis. Very very few
• 25:27
  Speaker 2: schools meaningfully use data, collect data, or are willing to
• 25:35
  Speaker 2: take action on what they see behind the numbers. You know,
• 25:40
  Speaker 2: I know Indiana has, and they have some formula in
• 25:44
  Speaker 2: terms of well data being a certain type of player
• 25:50
  Speaker 2: that works better. I know physically, they have some traits
• 25:53
  Speaker 2: and dimensions that they look for from a movement and
• 25:55
  Speaker 2: performance standpoint. So those are ways where they are using
• 26:00
  Speaker 2: their own experience and intellect to try to outthink the problem.
• 26:04
  Speaker 2: I think there are a lot of schools who continue.
• 26:06
  Speaker 2: Part of the inherent issue in college football is coaches
• 26:11
  Speaker 2: have typically been judged on quality of recruiting class. Right,
• 26:15
  Speaker 2: And so it's almost the equivalent to judging on your
• 26:19
  Speaker 2: recruiting class. Is if in some way your compensation as
• 26:23
  Speaker 2: a Major League Baseball general manager was based on the
• 26:27
  Speaker 2: draft grade that someone gave you the day after the
• 26:30
  Speaker 2: Major League Baseball draft concluded. Right, We know that those
• 26:33
  Speaker 2: draft grades are highly speculative or largely based on how
• 26:38
  Speaker 2: many brand name players you acquire, or you know, how
• 26:41
  Speaker 2: many players you picked in a spot that was better
• 26:44
  Speaker 2: than where they were mocked right, And there's tons of
• 26:47
  Speaker 2: information that general managers have at their disposal that might
• 26:52
  Speaker 2: lead them to believe that a player's value is not
• 26:54
  Speaker 2: the same as where they are in mocks. You know,
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: So real life doesn't correspond to draft grades typically, but
• 27:01
  Speaker 2: these recruiting grades matter for coaches and perception and the
• 27:06
  Speaker 2: fan base. Public perception matters to universities far more than
• 27:11
  Speaker 2: it does in a professional sport because philanthropy development, this
• 27:15
  Speaker 2: is a twelve month a year battle for them to
• 27:19
  Speaker 2: get funds in the door, and when people don't feel
• 27:22
  Speaker 2: good about the product or the way they're putting together
• 27:24
  Speaker 2: a roster, those types of things suffer. So whereas in
• 27:29
  Speaker 2: the NFL Phillies it very tough market, beat writers are
• 27:35
  Speaker 2: very competitive for stories and typically like to skew negative.
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: I think they get more clicks on the negative. But
• 27:43
  Speaker 2: there's an element of it where you can just put
• 27:45
  Speaker 2: your fingers in your ear and be like, it doesn't matter,
• 27:48
  Speaker 2: you know, we'll do what we need to do, and
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: they have no bearing on anything Kyle's doesn't necessarily have
• 27:54
  Speaker 2: that same care free attitude, I guess. But the recruiting
• 28:01
  Speaker 2: rankings all matter, and so when you get to a
• 28:03
  Speaker 2: more strategic approach, you may be purposefully passing up a
• 28:07
  Speaker 2: four star to take a three star who you think
• 28:09
  Speaker 2: fits better or is a better player, and in doing so,
• 28:15
  Speaker 2: you're making a bet that this player will help us
• 28:17
  Speaker 2: win more games at the expense of that particular coaches
• 28:20
  Speaker 2: recruiting ranking or your own recruiting class is great, right
• 28:24
  Speaker 2: A head coach wants to have a top ten recruiting
• 28:27
  Speaker 2: class or clap five recruiting class, but that is pretty useless.
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: Right in three years from now, looking back, you'll know
• 28:35
  Speaker 2: whether that was truly a great recruiting class or not
• 28:37
  Speaker 2: based on how they play, not how twenty four to
• 28:41
  Speaker 2: seven or rivals or whomever has assessed these high school players.
• 28:47
  Speaker 2: And I've first hand seen when you go and watch
• 28:51
  Speaker 2: the tape on some of the high school players, they
• 28:54
  Speaker 2: may have four stars, five stars. That's not scheme specific,
• 28:58
  Speaker 2: that's not all ways a function of how good a
• 29:02
  Speaker 2: player even they are. You know, there's a lot of
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: different factors involved, and so the correlation between all that
• 29:11
  Speaker 2: to value to how they wind up playing may not
• 29:14
  Speaker 2: be nearly as high as it should be. And I
• 29:16
  Speaker 2: think if you come up with your own formula as
• 29:20
  Speaker 2: types of players you can develop and get the most
• 29:22
  Speaker 2: out of, that's the way you're going to find value.
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: In finding players off the radar and an environment where
• 29:28
  Speaker 2: you need to pay them is a huge benefit, right,
• 29:32
  Speaker 2: because that's ultimately how you are going to a mass
• 29:35
  Speaker 2: or roster far more talented and better than the resources
• 29:38
  Speaker 2: you put in see.
• 29:39
  Speaker 3: I see a lot of parallels the way you just
• 29:42
  Speaker 3: described it between college football and baseball in terms of,
• 29:46
  Speaker 3: you know, the salary cap, the goals to close the
• 29:50
  Speaker 3: gap and create some level of competitive balance, the same
• 29:52
  Speaker 3: as baseball with competitive balance tax. And yet at the
• 29:55
  Speaker 3: same time we've got it both. You got the discrepancy
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: has never been bigger right between the the top of market,
• 30:01
  Speaker 3: and so you touched on some of the practices that
• 30:05
  Speaker 3: that programs can put in place, the alignment between you know,
• 30:09
  Speaker 3: player evaluation and player development, touched on the data analytics
• 30:13
  Speaker 3: side that we're kind of borrowing from the pro so sout.
• 30:16
  Speaker 3: I'm curious now as you've seen you know, you said
• 30:19
  Speaker 3: you work with eight programs, met with thirty. Are there
• 30:23
  Speaker 3: things that you're seeing that the colleges are doing better
• 30:26
  Speaker 3: than the pros are? Do you see any trends that
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: we should expect to go the other direction?
• 30:31
  Speaker 2: I mean, the trends going the other direction have been
• 30:33
  Speaker 2: on field trends in terms of scheme. I think a
• 30:36
  Speaker 2: lot of that has gone from college to pro. I mean,
• 30:39
  Speaker 2: I'm trying to think of a single a single thing
• 30:41
  Speaker 2: that I would say a pro team would really benefit
• 30:44
  Speaker 2: by taking from anything I've seen in college, you know,
• 30:47
  Speaker 2: and I don't. I don't know that that's necessarily the case.
• 30:52
  Speaker 2: It really is a for so long, they've been entirely
• 30:55
  Speaker 2: different models, and I think we're still at the point
• 30:57
  Speaker 2: where college is borrowing some of this stuff or integrating
• 31:01
  Speaker 2: some of the pro aspects and trying to emulate them.
• 31:06
  Speaker 2: But the recruiting side of college sports is just such
• 31:10
  Speaker 2: a distinguisher between that and the pro and that really
• 31:15
  Speaker 2: is what will probably never allow a pro very strict
• 31:22
  Speaker 2: pro model in college, Like it really requires a different
• 31:26
  Speaker 2: sensibility to almost everything you do that there is no
• 31:30
  Speaker 2: there's no equivalent of an NFL draft in college. And
• 31:35
  Speaker 2: so the fact that in every situation a player needs
• 31:38
  Speaker 2: to pick your school, your program, your coaches, you're building,
• 31:45
  Speaker 2: just adds this totally different component to it, to every
• 31:49
  Speaker 2: aspect of it. You know that you think about professional
• 31:53
  Speaker 2: sports building a team, like the draft is just such
• 31:56
  Speaker 2: a crucial part of it where you get you know,
• 31:59
  Speaker 2: call controlled, contracted young influx of talent that you pick right.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: And maybe in baseball the fact that you have, you know,
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: you're drafting high schoolers who do have a choice and
• 32:15
  Speaker 2: could go back to school or go to school or
• 32:19
  Speaker 2: come play professionally is maybe there's elements of it that
• 32:22
  Speaker 2: are similar there, but but otherwise, yeah, not not a
• 32:28
  Speaker 2: ton and that's actually it. This is probably I don't
• 32:31
  Speaker 2: want to digress, but that is a thought in terms
• 32:34
  Speaker 2: of whether at some point, you know, the baseball model
• 32:39
  Speaker 2: becomes more like the hockey model, where baseball teams do
• 32:45
  Speaker 2: allow players that they've drafted and maintained rights to go
• 32:50
  Speaker 2: play in college before they come back and play in
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: an organization. I think you could probably say that there
• 32:57
  Speaker 2: it makes some sense. You know, you watch a college
• 32:59
  Speaker 2: high game, there's any shale logos all over the roster,
• 33:05
  Speaker 2: and you know, are these college environments now that they're
• 33:07
  Speaker 2: actually paying players, does it have to be either or binary.
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: You know, Jake, you referenced the power and authority that
• 33:15
  Speaker 1: head coaches historically have had, and you know, it seemed
• 33:19
  Speaker 1: as if from the outside that they were effectively the
• 33:21
  Speaker 1: head coach, they were the general manager, maybe they were
• 33:24
  Speaker 1: the scouting director at some point. Now you're all sudden
• 33:28
  Speaker 1: separating all those roles out, which I'm sure is their
• 33:30
  Speaker 1: dramatic shift, and sometimes egos get in the way in that.
• 33:34
  Speaker 1: But I just be curious your thoughts as they're you know,
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: as we're shifting in college to more of a front
• 33:41
  Speaker 1: office model, you know, between athletic directors and in their
• 33:45
  Speaker 1: previous roles, head coaches in their previous roles. If you
• 33:48
  Speaker 1: were recommending the first two or three roles to hire,
• 33:53
  Speaker 1: what would they be for your college? Who's trying to
• 33:56
  Speaker 1: do this the right way?
• 33:57
  Speaker 2: Or you're talking from athletic department down, what's the most
• 34:00
  Speaker 2: crucial role? I mean, I believe right now athletic director
• 34:04
  Speaker 2: is the most crucial role because there is so much
• 34:08
  Speaker 2: of like the future of college sports as a whole
• 34:15
  Speaker 2: as an entity is evolving in the exact same way
• 34:21
  Speaker 2: that college football is. And so just because the school
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: is in a certain conference right now and has had
• 34:28
  Speaker 2: a certain prestige or like that doesn't guarantee that they'll
• 34:32
  Speaker 2: be in that same position three or five years from now.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: In these athletic programs, not only from a revenue standpoint,
• 34:41
  Speaker 2: but as a generator of interest in the school applications,
• 34:48
  Speaker 2: you know, out of state tuitions. All of those types
• 34:50
  Speaker 2: of things are crucial. And so I think that the
• 34:54
  Speaker 2: role of the athletic director every bit as much as
• 34:58
  Speaker 2: evolving as the role of a hea coach and so
• 35:02
  Speaker 2: as the CEO of the athletic program, they've turned into
• 35:09
  Speaker 2: a primary strategic like visionary for where's the revenue coming from,
• 35:14
  Speaker 2: how do we continue to evolve our facilities, are we
• 35:18
  Speaker 2: going to take in outside capital, how much are we
• 35:22
  Speaker 2: allocating to build rosters at different sports, continuing to develop
• 35:28
  Speaker 2: through philanthropy and talking to donors. It's like such a
• 35:32
  Speaker 2: crucial role, and there are aspects of that role that
• 35:35
  Speaker 2: have not necessarily been part of their skill set either,
• 35:39
  Speaker 2: and so I think that that's crucial. And then they
• 35:41
  Speaker 2: are responsible typically for hiring the coaches, and so not
• 35:47
  Speaker 2: only are you hiring coaches, but you're supervising and managing
• 35:50
  Speaker 2: the coaches, and that requires a different set of skills
• 35:55
  Speaker 2: now because there's so many more aspects they're spending university funds.
• 36:00
  Speaker 2: So that's where I probably start, is just making sure
• 36:04
  Speaker 2: that your athletic director has the executive level function and
• 36:08
  Speaker 2: capability to do that, and then you know that they're
• 36:13
  Speaker 2: able to manage these super complicated organizations that are developing
• 36:18
  Speaker 2: beneath them. Jake, it's a.
• 36:20
  Speaker 1: Great take on the college sports. It feels like we
• 36:23
  Speaker 1: could talk for hours about this, but we're going to
• 36:25
  Speaker 1: take a break now. We're going to come back on
• 36:27
  Speaker 1: the other side. We're going to shift the conversation to
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: the NFL. We're going to dive into your time with
• 36:31
  Speaker 1: the Philadelphia Eagles and equally important, your assessment of some
• 36:35
  Speaker 1: of these openings right now and how they're being filled
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: and by whom. Stay with us on Rosters to Rings.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings.
• 36:53
  Speaker 1: Alongside John Daniels, we are peppering Jake Rosenberg here with
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: some questions about his time in the NFL and how
• 37:00
  Speaker 1: he's applied those skills to the college space. But Jake,
• 37:03
  Speaker 1: take us back, what inspired the shift in your career
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: from being a bonding commodities trader to working for the
• 37:10
  Speaker 1: Philadelphia Eagles.
• 37:11
  Speaker 2: Yeah, a pattern of some significant shifts. I went from
• 37:15
  Speaker 2: management consulting to trading, trading to the NFL, NFL to
• 37:19
  Speaker 2: starting this business in college. Maybe short attention span and ADHD.
• 37:23
  Speaker 2: I'm not really sure. So yeah. I always, as we said,
• 37:28
  Speaker 2: I was always super passionate about sports. I wanted to
• 37:30
  Speaker 2: work in sports, but quite frankly, I didn't really even
• 37:35
  Speaker 2: know that that was a thing or that there was
• 37:37
  Speaker 2: a pathway to do that. I got out of college
• 37:42
  Speaker 2: and I took a job trying to make money from Penn.
• 37:46
  Speaker 2: Most of my friends were either going to Wall Street,
• 37:48
  Speaker 2: They're going to consulting. I took a job in consulting
• 37:52
  Speaker 2: and which I really enjoyed, honestly, and I wound up
• 37:55
  Speaker 2: in Chicago on a long term project. I wound up
• 37:59
  Speaker 2: visiting a trade floor on lunch one day and was
• 38:03
  Speaker 2: blown away by that people. Actually that was people's lives,
• 38:07
  Speaker 2: and they were sitting there in short sleeved golf shirts
• 38:10
  Speaker 2: and khakis making millions of dollars. They were, you know,
• 38:14
  Speaker 2: working from like nine to twelve, nine to one in
• 38:16
  Speaker 2: the afternoon, They're going to play golf. It felt like
• 38:19
  Speaker 2: a casino. So much energy, so I was really taken
• 38:24
  Speaker 2: with that. I did like to gamble. I grew up
• 38:26
  Speaker 2: about an hour and twenty five minutes from Landing City,
• 38:30
  Speaker 2: and so I love that. And it felt very like
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: competitive scorecard every day, super objective, you know, you made money,
• 38:38
  Speaker 2: didn't make money. It was like playing a sport. But
• 38:43
  Speaker 2: over time my trading career, I don't know if it
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: evolved or devolved, but I had instantaneous success. I was
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: able to parlay that success pretty well for a while.
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: And then I think getting back to some of the
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: issues with teams and lack of evolution or continuing to progress.
• 39:07
  Speaker 2: I had a certain way I did things. The market
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: like it does evolved, you know, people continue to pour
• 39:12
  Speaker 2: technology and data towards it, and I was just sort
• 39:19
  Speaker 2: of like a I don't know, very dumb approach. I
• 39:22
  Speaker 2: guess that got phased out, efficiencies got taken out of,
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: you know, got added to the market. And so I
• 39:31
  Speaker 2: had tried or thought about how to work in sports
• 39:35
  Speaker 2: at a bunch of different points. I started a technology
• 39:38
  Speaker 2: business with a friend who had spent time in the
• 39:41
  Speaker 2: NFL as a scout and was an agent, and he
• 39:45
  Speaker 2: had an idea for a scouting related technology business. That
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: we decided I would, in my spare time sort of
• 39:51
  Speaker 2: try to get this thing off the ground. Made a
• 39:53
  Speaker 2: lot of contacts in the NFL. I think most people
• 39:57
  Speaker 2: know at this point. I knew How for a very
• 39:59
  Speaker 2: long time time really, since we were kids. How he
• 40:03
  Speaker 2: had was very close to becoming a general manager. He
• 40:08
  Speaker 2: had started in the cap side of things. We had
• 40:10
  Speaker 2: talked about that, you know, over time, and then once
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: he became a general manager, it was important to find
• 40:18
  Speaker 2: people who were sort of like minded and there was trust.
• 40:21
  Speaker 2: And so my trading career was going well. He had said,
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: do you ever think you'd want to do this? And
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: I was like, I can't imagine giving this up and
• 40:30
  Speaker 2: working like a maniac like you worked every day, you know,
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: making money. This is but it became easier to understand
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: why I would consider doing that. My wife and I
• 40:40
  Speaker 2: moved east my western Midwest. We moved back east to
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: be closer to family, and I was still trading, and
• 40:49
  Speaker 2: I continue we continued to talk about it periodically, and
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: then my trading career was not going super well, and
• 40:56
  Speaker 2: at some point there was an opportunity to do a
• 40:58
  Speaker 2: project for and Joe Banner, which I did, and I
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: guess I did well. Joe was impressed. They offered me
• 41:06
  Speaker 2: an internship. I lived eighty five miles from No Overcare
• 41:12
  Speaker 2: complex in North Jersey. Took the internship thankfully. My wife
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: was very very supportive and encouraging and knew that was
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: my dream. And I commuted for eleven months, that eight
• 41:26
  Speaker 2: five miles each way back and forth every day. But
• 41:30
  Speaker 2: about I was only an intern for like three and
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: a half months, and then they offered me a full
• 41:35
  Speaker 2: time job and that was the that was the changeover.
• 41:39
  Speaker 3: Can I ask question just about nature your relationship with
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: Howie and and had that plate because you see, yeah,
• 41:48
  Speaker 3: A J. Preller and I had had something similar. We
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: knew each other in college and he that actually developed me,
• 41:54
  Speaker 3: trained me when I was with the Rockies and then
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: and I felt like those guys had the ability to
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: kind of when I was doing something stupid, to pull
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: me aside and you know, smack me in the head,
• 42:03
  Speaker 3: sometimes in front of the group, sometimes not. But you
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: see it with Vandy right the ad and Clark Lee
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: of the long term relationship, Like in your mind, how
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: did that help the organization hurt the organ I don't know,
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: how did it effect to I?
• 42:18
  Speaker 2: Don't know that I've really like articulated it necessarily in
• 42:21
  Speaker 2: any setting. But I think that what I gave, I
• 42:25
  Speaker 2: think I was able to bring to Howie. I'd hope competence,
• 42:30
  Speaker 2: and you know, I provided an intelligent input. But I
• 42:34
  Speaker 2: also and you guys can say, when you get to
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: that seat and you're responsible for making all these decisions,
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: and it's hard for people to tell you exactly what
• 42:44
  Speaker 2: they think, or tell you when you're doing something maybe
• 42:47
  Speaker 2: they disagree with, or there's something that's happening that you're
• 42:51
  Speaker 2: unaware of. And I think, you know, beneath our relationship,
• 42:55
  Speaker 2: we had trust and you know, I love I guess
• 42:59
  Speaker 2: we know each other for a really long time, and
• 43:01
  Speaker 2: so I was able to tell him things that came
• 43:05
  Speaker 2: to my mind or that I saw that maybe others
• 43:08
  Speaker 2: wouldn't necessarily say. And so I think that that was
• 43:15
  Speaker 2: helpful to him in that sense. He always had like
• 43:18
  Speaker 2: if there was something important or he needed to just vent,
• 43:22
  Speaker 2: even that we were past the point of being judgmental.
• 43:27
  Speaker 2: But I'd also say, from my standpoint, there were times
• 43:30
  Speaker 2: where I felt like he was harder on me in
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: a lot of ways and made an example of me
• 43:36
  Speaker 2: because he knew that there was not. The consequence was
• 43:40
  Speaker 2: not that I was going to be like go screw
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: and you know, we were gonna be good and talk
• 43:48
  Speaker 2: and it was helpful otherwise. But I don't know, I
• 43:52
  Speaker 2: think that that would I think I would like to
• 43:54
  Speaker 2: think I was good at my job and ultimately I
• 43:56
  Speaker 2: got there because of our relationship, and I stayed because
• 43:59
  Speaker 2: I was good and added added value. But there's certainly
• 44:05
  Speaker 2: certain there's aspects to it that you know, your work
• 44:09
  Speaker 2: relationships versus a lifelong friendship. You know, it's if you
• 44:15
  Speaker 2: can make it work. I think there's a lot of
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: benefit to it.
• 44:17
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I agree, Sorry, just a quick quick follow. I
• 44:20
  Speaker 3: think sometimes people view that familiarity, you know, from the
• 44:23
  Speaker 3: outside as you know, you know, is he a yes
• 44:26
  Speaker 3: man or this, that and the other. And I think
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: a lot it's quite the opposite. I think it's the
• 44:30
  Speaker 3: ability to like that relationship allows you to deliver some
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: hard truths that other people might not be comfortable enough
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: to do.
• 44:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I think you see in sports there's there's nepotism,
• 44:43
  Speaker 2: and you know, there are a lot of circumstances where
• 44:47
  Speaker 2: people get things that they haven't necessarily worked for or
• 44:51
  Speaker 2: earned right through a relationship or a familial situation. I
• 44:57
  Speaker 2: was definitely afraid of that in that being a perception
• 45:01
  Speaker 2: as I started, and so I don't think for a
• 45:04
  Speaker 2: very long time, like I would like to think, for
• 45:06
  Speaker 2: a long while, people didn't necessarily know we had a
• 45:10
  Speaker 2: pre existing relationship. And I think people worked with me
• 45:12
  Speaker 2: for the entirety of my twelve and a half years
• 45:15
  Speaker 2: there and probably still had no idea that HOWI and
• 45:18
  Speaker 2: I had a personal relationship that proceeded us working together.
• 45:22
  Speaker 2: And I think that that is I think that's a positive,
• 45:28
  Speaker 2: you know. I think that ultimately, if I wasn't doing
• 45:31
  Speaker 2: my job or I was getting preferential treatment, it would
• 45:35
  Speaker 2: have been obvious or they would been like, why is
• 45:37
  Speaker 2: this stooge you know doing whatever? You know, I think
• 45:41
  Speaker 2: there's two ways it can go. I would like to
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: think that I was both competent but also added some
• 45:46
  Speaker 2: other dimensions to it through our pre existing relationship.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: To add one additional thought to this conversation, I always
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: felt like a mark of a leader was someone who
• 45:57
  Speaker 1: surrounded themselves with people who are capable of ultimately taking
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: their job. And there are a lot of people who
• 46:03
  Speaker 1: are sent to these leadership roles who intentionally don't do
• 46:06
  Speaker 1: that because they don't want to be contested threatened, And
• 46:11
  Speaker 1: I think the best ones that I've been around, JD.
• 46:13
  Speaker 1: You are first and foremost. Is it really elevates you
• 46:17
  Speaker 1: and your decision making if you have people around you
• 46:20
  Speaker 1: who are not only capable of offering insight, but sometimes
• 46:26
  Speaker 1: contradicting what you're saying and trying to shape the decision
• 46:29
  Speaker 1: towards the betterment of the organization, and when you're receptive
• 46:33
  Speaker 1: to hearing that out, I think it's an amazing gift
• 46:35
  Speaker 1: you give the people you work for. And as I
• 46:38
  Speaker 1: look at professional sports and we are all asked the
• 46:40
  Speaker 1: question constantly from people trying to get in, what would
• 46:43
  Speaker 1: your advice be? And one of my key pieces of
• 46:45
  Speaker 1: advice is just to understand who's investing in your development
• 46:49
  Speaker 1: and what type of track record they have of developing
• 46:53
  Speaker 1: other executives, and are they willing to delegate and empower you,
• 46:56
  Speaker 1: because those are the gifts where we all have been
• 46:59
  Speaker 1: given in our career and we've learned along the way,
• 47:01
  Speaker 1: sometimes from failures as well as successes. But you know,
• 47:04
  Speaker 1: when you're building these franchises, you have to be willing
• 47:07
  Speaker 1: to break a few windows. You don't want to burn
• 47:08
  Speaker 1: the house down. But if you're not breaking a few windows,
• 47:11
  Speaker 1: you're not doing it. So Jake, I guess I just
• 47:13
  Speaker 1: would ask you you were able to be more selective
• 47:16
  Speaker 1: in picking your boss here than most of us get
• 47:18
  Speaker 1: a chance to. But how would what's your scouting report on?
• 47:21
  Speaker 1: How what makes him so dynamic in what appears to
• 47:24
  Speaker 1: be a surefire Hall of Famer?
• 47:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I mean this is sort of delves a little
• 47:30
  Speaker 2: bit into the way I perceive hiring in sports or
• 47:35
  Speaker 2: in the NFL, and some of the things that I
• 47:37
  Speaker 2: think are just so painfully obvious but are ignored. I
• 47:41
  Speaker 2: think how he has a very like two things can
• 47:44
  Speaker 2: be true at the same time, he has a very
• 47:47
  Speaker 2: definitive way that he sets up that the kind of
• 47:51
  Speaker 2: model or the organization is set up, and I think
• 47:55
  Speaker 2: it's extremely repeatable across departments, the information flow, and that
• 48:03
  Speaker 2: gives it a consistency of approach that I don't think
• 48:07
  Speaker 2: most organizations have. I think as a thought leader, the
• 48:13
  Speaker 2: amount of experience he has, the way he puts himself
• 48:16
  Speaker 2: into literally every conversation and is able to retain and process,
• 48:23
  Speaker 2: he gets exponentially better, probably every year because of that
• 48:27
  Speaker 2: database of situations that have come up, the recollection of
• 48:32
  Speaker 2: how they played out or what he didn't do well
• 48:35
  Speaker 2: or did well in a certain situation. The turnover of
• 48:38
  Speaker 2: gms is unbelievable in the NFL, and the track record
• 48:44
  Speaker 2: or breath of experience or resume of people that get
• 48:47
  Speaker 2: hired into these positions is woefully thin and short. And
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: when you hire people who have been in the league
• 48:55
  Speaker 2: for a very short time or have been in relatively
• 48:59
  Speaker 2: super official roles before they ascend to a GM position,
• 49:04
  Speaker 2: or their experience is really siloed and represents a small
• 49:09
  Speaker 2: part of what they're going to be asked to do
• 49:11
  Speaker 2: as a GM. Like those people have so much on
• 49:13
  Speaker 2: the job learning to do right. They are every experience.
• 49:18
  Speaker 2: You get so many people who come into the job
• 49:20
  Speaker 2: who have barely been involved in doing contracts right or
• 49:25
  Speaker 2: have barely been involved in doing roster building as a whole,
• 49:29
  Speaker 2: and there are nuances and strategies to all of those things.
• 49:32
  Speaker 2: Experience definitely matters. And now they're in the big seat
• 49:36
  Speaker 2: and they're going to need to weigh in on all
• 49:39
  Speaker 2: these and have an opinion and be strategic about it.
• 49:43
  Speaker 2: And it's gonna be the first time they've ever done it,
• 49:46
  Speaker 2: and how he has done all these things now twenty
• 49:49
  Speaker 2: plus times and not just done them, but retained. And
• 49:56
  Speaker 2: so I think that it's just something that he's getting
• 49:59
  Speaker 2: better and better, and he is so willing to adapt
• 50:03
  Speaker 2: and change an approach from year to year. He is
• 50:09
  Speaker 2: maniacal in his like desire to improve the roster, even
• 50:14
  Speaker 2: if it's the very very bottom of the roster, like
• 50:17
  Speaker 2: it is, this is so personal to him. I think
• 50:21
  Speaker 2: those are the those are you know, surefire aspects that
• 50:25
  Speaker 2: have gotten him to where he is, Like they're parts
• 50:28
  Speaker 2: of the year he will be just so obsessed with finding,
• 50:32
  Speaker 2: you know, your ninth offensive, you know, your ninth offensive
• 50:35
  Speaker 2: lineman on the roster. He may not feel like, well,
• 50:38
  Speaker 2: you know, if we lose these three guys, and inevitably
• 50:40
  Speaker 2: he's been through so many seasons where you realize like
• 50:43
  Speaker 2: depth is always tested. You know, it may feel like
• 50:46
  Speaker 2: you're good at a position, you look at your starters
• 50:48
  Speaker 2: and you're like, these are really good. But seasons never
• 50:52
  Speaker 2: go like that, or hardly go like that. And so
• 50:57
  Speaker 2: by the time you look up in it's training camp
• 50:59
  Speaker 2: and you look at the roster like pretty good roster,
• 51:01
  Speaker 2: Pretty deep, and it's very hard to accumulate talent in
• 51:04
  Speaker 2: the NFL the way that he's able to.
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: Jake, I'd love you to take us behind the scenes here.
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: There's so many head coach openings right now.
• 51:14
  Speaker 2: I don't know.
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: What's better approach here, Like for you to tell us
• 51:17
  Speaker 1: what is the right process that teams should be going
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: through versus what are the pitfalls that a lot of
• 51:22
  Speaker 1: teams do fall into as they make these crucial decisions
• 51:26
  Speaker 1: at the leadership level.
• 51:28
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that there is a process that you
• 51:34
  Speaker 2: need to go through that starts far before you fire
• 51:38
  Speaker 2: your coach, right, And I think that the amount of
• 51:42
  Speaker 2: background and candidate identification, the amount of research into what
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: it takes to succeed in your particular building, or what
• 51:51
  Speaker 2: the model is that you're trying to hire into, like
• 51:56
  Speaker 2: those make each particular position very different than what another.
• 52:00
  Speaker 2: There is no standard model, you know, whether it's just
• 52:03
  Speaker 2: the culture, or it's whether you know, how do you
• 52:05
  Speaker 2: want them to interact with the owner, or what the
• 52:08
  Speaker 2: relationship needs to be between a head coach and GM,
• 52:10
  Speaker 2: or what type of roster you're building. You know, maybe
• 52:13
  Speaker 2: it's a function to the weather. Do you play indoors, outdoors, Like,
• 52:17
  Speaker 2: those are the things that should be thought about on
• 52:19
  Speaker 2: the front end. I'm a huge proponent of job descriptions,
• 52:23
  Speaker 2: you know, and not just the like check the box,
• 52:26
  Speaker 2: formal send to HR type of thing, but like, I
• 52:31
  Speaker 2: feel that the most central or the most repeated mistake
• 52:36
  Speaker 2: in hiring in sports is just assuming you know what
• 52:41
  Speaker 2: the job does and then you know, trying to hire. Like,
• 52:44
  Speaker 2: if you don't intimately know the role, you have very
• 52:49
  Speaker 2: little chance of hiring somebody good for the role. You know,
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: there's a different pool for each role. I think there
• 52:55
  Speaker 2: is no standard across the NFL, particularly, Each GM job
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: is going to be a little bit different. And now
• 53:02
  Speaker 2: a lot of teams have gone the route of trying
• 53:04
  Speaker 2: to bifurcate GM jobs into their kind of splitting off
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: some of the more administrative or cap functions they're giving
• 53:13
  Speaker 2: you know, gms some of the roster scouting function. I
• 53:19
  Speaker 2: think that that's fine, but you have singular CEOs of
• 53:24
  Speaker 2: you know, multi multi billion dollar companies that they seem
• 53:28
  Speaker 2: to find people who can manage and lead. I don't
• 53:31
  Speaker 2: think that the answer is we can't find a single
• 53:33
  Speaker 2: person to be a true GM in the NFL. I
• 53:37
  Speaker 2: just don't think there's enough attention to assessing, there's enough
• 53:41
  Speaker 2: attention to understanding the role, and I don't think that
• 53:45
  Speaker 2: they look quite honestly, in the right pools. There are
• 53:48
  Speaker 2: people in the NFL roles that have quite a bit
• 53:52
  Speaker 2: more experience across quite a few more areas than where
• 53:55
  Speaker 2: they typically look at candidates. And you know, just going
• 53:59
  Speaker 2: back in terms of surrounding yourself with the best people
• 54:01
  Speaker 2: and people that'll challenge you, there is a lot of
• 54:05
  Speaker 2: risk aversion there. There's people who protect their jobs and
• 54:11
  Speaker 2: you know, are typically afraid probably to surround themselves with
• 54:16
  Speaker 2: people who they think might make them look not as
• 54:19
  Speaker 2: good or not as smart. And that's a that's a
• 54:21
  Speaker 2: tough approach, I would.
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: Say, Jay, I think there are currently seven head coach
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: openings in the NFL. I got that right. Most of
• 54:29
  Speaker 3: the analysis you read about is like the breakdown of
• 54:31
  Speaker 3: the roster as far as which of the most attractive
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: jobs and touched on something obviously that's going to be important,
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: but you to time something there too. With the GM,
• 54:40
  Speaker 3: the front office structure, the owners of the ownership group.
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: I'm sure those things should factor in heavily. How do
• 54:45
  Speaker 3: you if you were a head coach out there looking
• 54:48
  Speaker 3: for these job, how would you look at these jobs?
• 54:50
  Speaker 3: What are the most appealing ones out there?
• 54:52
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that more attention needs to be given
• 54:55
  Speaker 2: if you're a coach and you're looking at a situation.
• 54:58
  Speaker 2: I understand all this starts with the fact that there's
• 55:01
  Speaker 2: thirty two jobs, right, and so it's one thing to
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: say you're going to turn down a head coaching opportunity
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: in the NFL because I'll get others that may be better.
• 55:14
  Speaker 2: And then there's the reality is you just don't know
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: what's around the corner. Right. You may stick with your
• 55:19
  Speaker 2: job and have a horrible season, and you may no
• 55:22
  Speaker 2: longer be a candidate. So I say this with understanding
• 55:28
  Speaker 2: that it may not be practical right in some respects.
• 55:32
  Speaker 2: But I think when you evaluate what the best opportunities are,
• 55:36
  Speaker 2: I think the best opportunities are the ones that are
• 55:38
  Speaker 2: most clearly defined and have the best organization around you.
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: I think you truly need a partner and a general manager.
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: If you feel that the person you're being partnered with
• 55:48
  Speaker 2: is not very good at their job or is really
• 55:51
  Speaker 2: learning on the job and is going to need a
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: lot of help. That's going to take you away from
• 55:56
  Speaker 2: the ways that you can impact the team the most.
• 56:00
  Speaker 2: And you're not being hired because you're a general manager,
• 56:02
  Speaker 2: being hired because you're a head coach. And if your
• 56:05
  Speaker 2: GM is not capable of truly being a good GM,
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: it's going to take away from your ability to be successful, right,
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: and you're not going to have as good players. You
• 56:15
  Speaker 2: have to assume that everything is a function of whether
• 56:19
  Speaker 2: people are good. And then I think organizationally, when you
• 56:23
  Speaker 2: don't trust the organization, coaches instincts are to extend themselves
• 56:27
  Speaker 2: further and further. And all of those are reasons why
• 56:33
  Speaker 2: I think it's harder to succeed in some buildings. The
• 56:36
  Speaker 2: NFL is very clearly there are haves and have nots, right,
• 56:42
  Speaker 2: There are some in the middle type spots, but you
• 56:47
  Speaker 2: see very clear track records of success, and you see
• 56:50
  Speaker 2: very clear track records of failure. And I think those
• 56:53
  Speaker 2: organizations it's not coincidence they keep repeating the same mistakes
• 56:58
  Speaker 2: over and over. It might be ownership driven, but I
• 57:02
  Speaker 2: think you know not to be not to make this
• 57:05
  Speaker 2: an advertisement for what I do, and it doesn't have
• 57:08
  Speaker 2: to be me. But I think there are hiring firms
• 57:11
  Speaker 2: that are have been part of the machine for a
• 57:13
  Speaker 2: very long time. And this happens in college, this happens
• 57:16
  Speaker 2: in pro and to some degree, they kind of generate
• 57:21
  Speaker 2: lists and they administrate these processes. I think if the
• 57:27
  Speaker 2: group that you're hiring or working with isn't capable of
• 57:30
  Speaker 2: walking you through the strategy side and why candidates some
• 57:34
  Speaker 2: candidates might be better than others, or what the fit is,
• 57:37
  Speaker 2: or advising you or helping the candidate be successful, then
• 57:43
  Speaker 2: you're really getting only a part of the service, and
• 57:46
  Speaker 2: you're probably not actually getting any help. You know. Like
• 57:49
  Speaker 2: I don't know if generating lists is all that important.
• 57:53
  Speaker 2: I think understanding putting all this time in on the
• 57:56
  Speaker 2: front end to be able to discern, like I say,
• 57:58
  Speaker 2: with the Eagles, not necessarily just head coaches, but if
• 58:03
  Speaker 2: you could foresee a position coach or a coordinator opening
• 58:06
  Speaker 2: coming it later in the season for whatever reason, you know,
• 58:10
  Speaker 2: it would be just a constant discussion of names. As
• 58:14
  Speaker 2: an article gets written about a certain college program or
• 58:16
  Speaker 2: NFL program, you know, put this one in the database,
• 58:19
  Speaker 2: Put this one a database, and we would do I
• 58:22
  Speaker 2: would do bios and backgrounds. I probably got a database
• 58:27
  Speaker 2: of thousand plus coaches over time, head coach, search coordinator
• 58:32
  Speaker 2: search position, you know, position coach searches, and then months
• 58:38
  Speaker 2: leading into it, you know, you're collecting names, you're you're
• 58:41
  Speaker 2: looking at these and you're sort of tearing them and
• 58:44
  Speaker 2: doing a lot of the work on the front end.
• 58:46
  Speaker 2: And so your search shouldn't be just like throwing hand
• 58:49
  Speaker 2: grenades and like tossing names into a pool. Like that's
• 58:53
  Speaker 2: not a process that you're not going to have good
• 58:55
  Speaker 2: results when you're trying to make these important decisions with
• 58:59
  Speaker 2: information you just on a candidate you just heard of
• 59:02
  Speaker 2: yesterday or you know, something like that. It is great.
• 59:05
  Speaker 2: It's just wild. And you see teams that will elevate
• 59:08
  Speaker 2: somebody who's been there through you know, periods of no
• 59:13
  Speaker 2: success whatsoever, Like if you've never been around success or
• 59:18
  Speaker 2: seen or worked with successful people. We're seeing this job
• 59:21
  Speaker 2: done at a high level. I'm highly skeptical that you're
• 59:26
  Speaker 2: all of a sudden going to emerge as like this
• 59:28
  Speaker 2: incredible performer without you know, sufficient help, And it's just
• 59:33
  Speaker 2: a it's wild. I don't know, I just it's hard
• 59:35
  Speaker 2: for me from the outside to understand. You know, ownership
• 59:38
  Speaker 2: certainly has a role, like some ownership is more involved
• 59:41
  Speaker 2: than others, and so they wind up having to trust
• 59:43
  Speaker 2: certain people, and very often the people who are around
• 59:47
  Speaker 2: the owners also don't have great insight to provide well.
• 59:51
  Speaker 1: Jake, and we also talked about it on the other
• 59:53
  Speaker 1: side of this, just the assumption that you've been affiliated
• 59:55
  Speaker 1: with a successful franchise doesn't mean you you can bring
• 59:59
  Speaker 1: that success to another other franchise. You really have to
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 1: delve deep and understand what type of role and responsibility
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 1: and what scope you were impacting your previous organization. And
• 1:00:08
  Speaker 1: a lot of that stems from, you know, if you're
• 1:00:10
  Speaker 1: a coordinator on a team where the head coach really
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 1: doesn't delegate everything and is micromanaging everything, you're probably less
• 1:00:17
  Speaker 1: equipped to go somewhere else and replicate that program because
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 1: you haven't really been exposed to it. So I'm going
• 1:00:23
  Speaker 1: to put you on the hot seat for a second here, Jake.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: Let's just say hypothetically, you are advising John Harbaugh and
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 1: he's on the market as what seems to be the
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: premium coaching prospect. Where would you be advising him to
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 1: focus his attention? And I guess I would say this
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 1: with two aspects of this question. I guess it doesn't
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 1: have to be just the teams that have openings, because
• 1:00:48
  Speaker 1: there's a lot of supposition that if he had his
• 1:00:50
  Speaker 1: heart set on some of these other places, maybe they
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: vacate their openings. But focusing first on the openings, what
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 1: would be the most appealing fit. If you were representing John.
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 2: I would look at you know, he's coming from an
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 2: organization with terrific ownership, with great you know, he worked
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 2: with great general managers, a great process. They knew what
• 1:01:13
  Speaker 2: they were, they know what it's like to be a
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: raven I've worked with a ton of people who came
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 2: from Baltimore, and I think there are great similarities in
• 1:01:21
  Speaker 2: the Ravens organization and the Ego Eagles organization in terms
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: of understanding how to consistently put good teams on the
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 2: field like that doesn't happen by accident. And I would
• 1:01:33
  Speaker 2: imagine that he doesn't take that for granted either, just
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: because that's the situation he's been. He came from, you know,
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: he went from Philly to Baltimore, and so what I
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 2: would say is he's I think he's sixty three years old.
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 2: He should look for as many of those saying be
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 2: super thoughtful about what were the traits about the organization
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: that gave you an opportunity to win year after year.
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: Looking at a roster is fine, but we see rosters
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 2: turnover very quickly. Right, does he want to go somewhere
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 2: where they have a great quarterback and he could win
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 2: this year. I'm sure he does. But the issue you
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 2: have if you go somewhere and you're sort of short
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 2: circuiting the process. We have a great roster, cool, Maybe
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 2: it works, maybe it doesn't, Maybe someone gets hurt. And
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 2: now it's year two, and now you realize that the
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 2: person you're partnered with isn't Asie Newsom, isn't Eric Tacasta
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 2: is I don't know someone who's been promoted even though
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 2: they have no idea what the hell they're doing. And
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 2: so where's your roster coming from in years two and beyond?
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm sure he's not looking at hopscotch around
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 2: And so I would just say, like, be super thoughtful
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 2: about how you were successful and why you were successful,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 2: and where is the place you have a chance to
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 2: be the most sustainable success rather than just you know,
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 2: I was was alarmed sometimes with agents and players and
• 1:03:00
  Speaker 2: it's like they're focusing on like what the depth chart
• 1:03:02
  Speaker 2: is like this particular moment in March or April, and
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 2: between April and September or like three years, you know, transpire.
• 1:03:10
  Speaker 2: You have so many opportunities to trade out players or
• 1:03:13
  Speaker 2: draft or cut or trade, and why don't you focus
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 2: on where a players are going to get developed and
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 2: be around the best people resources, coaches and just bet
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 2: on the player. And I would say the same thing now,
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 2: like some of these organizations, each organization is not the same,
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 2: and your chances of winning are not the same in
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 2: every place.
• 1:03:35
  Speaker 3: So I love that answer. I've always felt always, I
• 1:03:39
  Speaker 3: probably middle my career realized that ownership, in my opinion,
• 1:03:42
  Speaker 3: is the biggest competitive advantage or competitive disadvantage in sports.
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: It doesn't really get talked about publicly that way, but
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: it's you know, we talked offline. It's no coincidence when
• 1:03:53
  Speaker 3: a team that doesn't win for an extended period of
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: time and they have different gms, different coaches, different quarterbacks,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: different start rotations, whatever sport you want to use. I mean,
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: there is a common theme in the in those settings.
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I know, you guys aim to take people, like
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 2: you know, behind people. I don't think most fans understand
• 1:04:12
  Speaker 2: the impact that ownership has on every aspect of the team.
• 1:04:16
  Speaker 2: You know, it's not just resources, it's culture. It's like
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 2: there's so much whether the owner is the is you know,
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 2: there is absent, Like there's just so many who's around
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 2: the owner. Sometimes you get you know, posseasy, you get
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 2: people who are hangers on who aren't good. But so
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 2: I think that that's a huge, huge factor. And if
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 2: you have an owner who's been there and never won
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 2: anything over a long period time, like you got to
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 2: look a little deeper, like there is an issue. Person
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 2: may be great to eat dinner with, but it's like
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 2: they're doing something consistently wrong.
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: You can be aligned from you know, team president GM,
• 1:04:55
  Speaker 3: you know on field staff, player development, all the way
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: down through. But if you're not aligned with ownership, you've
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: got a problem.
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 2: There's no doubt.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: And I think the thing we know is that the
• 1:05:04
  Speaker 1: best indication of future actions there's past behaviors. We turn
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: a blind eye to that because we are hunting these
• 1:05:10
  Speaker 1: jobs NFL. It's one of thirty two in baseball's one
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: to thirty, and so you're enamored with the notion that
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: you can come in and change somebody, but in practice,
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: most guys don't change traumatically.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 3: And if that's how.
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: You see success as predicated on the owner doing one
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: hundred and eighty degree turn, you're probably getting yourself into
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: a situation which is tough to succeed. And I always
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: felt like we're all up for an exceptional challenge, but
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: you want to have the path forward to win. You
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 1: don't want to play a losing hand. Like we all
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: have to play losing hands from time to time, we
• 1:05:41
  Speaker 1: do it as gracefully as we can. The best of
• 1:05:42
  Speaker 1: us can win a losing hand, but you can't win
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: a losing hand over a sustained period of time.
• 1:05:48
  Speaker 2: Everyone's competitive in this business and they feel like they
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 2: can win and beat any situation. But you also want
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 2: to maximize. You know, if you're going to get better
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 2: cards consistently, you're going to play that. You know it's
• 1:06:01
  Speaker 2: not that hard.
• 1:06:03
  Speaker 1: Well, I mean, we celebrate those across all sports, but
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: the Pittsburgh Steelers in a time in which they've had
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: three head coaches, the Oakland, Los Angeles Las Vegas Raiders
• 1:06:12
  Speaker 1: have had twenty one, and that just speaks to stability
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: versus instability, and not shockingly one team has had a
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: lot more success than the other overtimeframe. I just want
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 1: to wrap up here and say, Jake, thank you so
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: much for your exceptional, thoughtful commentary about college and the NFL.
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: JD awesome having you on again on behalf of producers
• 1:06:34
  Speaker 1: Wye and Jason. Thank you guys so much for listening.
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Join us next Thursday here on rosters to rings,