Latest / Rosters to Rings Podcast / The Cut Goes Both Ways

Transcript

The Cut Goes Both Ways · Rosters to Rings Podcast

• 0:04
  Speaker 1: Welcome back to Rosters to Rings everyone. I am Ryan McDonough,
• 0:07
  Speaker 1: joined as always by Thad Levine. Thad really enjoyed last
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: week's show. We had on Tom te LESCo, longtime NFL executive,
• 0:16
  Speaker 1: with the Raiders and Chargers and Colts and other teams.
• 0:20
  Speaker 1: Tom's finn around the block, and I'm excited because we're
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: going to have him back on today. I think Tom
• 0:24
  Speaker 1: really enjoyed last week's show as well, so we'll get
• 0:26
  Speaker 1: into Tom Telesco talk a lot of NFL. We're now
• 0:29
  Speaker 1: just a week away from the beginning of the regular
• 0:31
  Speaker 1: season in the National Football League. We know what a
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: big deal that is with games starting next Thursday night.
• 0:37
  Speaker 2: But that we'ere.
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: I want to begin the show with you, just the
• 0:39
  Speaker 1: two of us, before Tom joins is with a listener question,
• 0:42
  Speaker 1: and this one come from your backyard. This listener question
• 0:46
  Speaker 1: is from Matt in Minneapolis who and he says that
• 0:49
  Speaker 1: I saw the Thad's former team, the Minnesota Twins, is
• 0:52
  Speaker 1: playing the Philadelphia Phillies in the twenty twenty six Field
• 0:56
  Speaker 1: of Reams Game, which will take place in Dyersville, Iowa,
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: obviously based on the historic movie Field of Dreams. Fat
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: in your opinion. Matt in Minneapolis wants to know what
• 1:06
  Speaker 1: are the benefits and drawbacks of these unique, quote unquote
• 1:10
  Speaker 1: special event games that are becoming more common across professional sports.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: You know, Ryan, I really would love to hear your
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: perspective on this as well, But I got to be honest, like,
• 1:19
  Speaker 3: I see these things as really beneficial. I don't see
• 1:22
  Speaker 3: a ton of drawbacks, say, you know, I think we
• 1:24
  Speaker 3: could talk about logistics and some expenses and some disruptions
• 1:27
  Speaker 3: in the season, but I don't want to focus my
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: time there because I just don't feel that way. I
• 1:32
  Speaker 3: feel these are wonderful opportunities to expand our games, to
• 1:36
  Speaker 3: you know, reach new fan bases, and candidly just to
• 1:39
  Speaker 3: fundamentally to entertain people. So I think, as you reference it,
• 1:44
  Speaker 3: we've talked in weeks past about how the NBA has
• 1:46
  Speaker 3: really aggressively tried to globalize their game, and I'm sure
• 1:49
  Speaker 3: you're going to address that here in this segment as well. Well.
• 1:52
  Speaker 3: I think Bag League Baseball has done a really nice
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: job of investing in both growth domestically by playing some
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: of these games in markets that don't have major league
• 2:02
  Speaker 3: teams but have historical roots in the game. And also internationally.
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: So just a few examples. In addition to the games
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: in Dyersville, Iowa, You've got the Little League Classic game
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: in Williamsport, Pennsylvania. You've got games in historic rick Wood
• 2:16
  Speaker 3: Field and Birmingham, Alabama to honor the Negro Leagues. You
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: have the Bristol Motor Speedway Game that took place this
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: year in Tennessee. And then over the years we've have
• 2:24
  Speaker 3: international games, some exhibition, some regular season in Japan, South Korea,
• 2:30
  Speaker 3: Puerto Rico, Mexico, and the Dominican Republic. In preparation for
• 2:35
  Speaker 3: hearing this question from that, I wanted to offer a
• 2:38
  Speaker 3: perspective that extended beyond just my executive perspective, and so
• 2:42
  Speaker 3: I asked Scott Service, a longtime friend of mine. He's
• 2:45
  Speaker 3: been both a player and a manager. He said that
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: he felt one of the most special things he did
• 2:50
  Speaker 3: in his career was when he was a player, he
• 2:53
  Speaker 3: played in the Hall of Fame Game, and this was
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: a game that was annually held in Cooperstown, New York.
• 2:57
  Speaker 3: He said it was just an absolute thrill for him
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: to participate in that. Then fast forward to when he's
• 3:02
  Speaker 3: a manager of the Mariners and he played a series
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: in Japan to start his season, and he said that
• 3:09
  Speaker 3: was one of the five best experiences he's ever had
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: in the game, was getting to play internationally in Japan.
• 3:14
  Speaker 3: Each Yiuro Suzuki was on that team, and he said
• 3:16
  Speaker 3: it was just an utter spectacle, one of the best
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: experiences he's had in his career. Secondarily from a player's perspective,
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: a guy who joined us a couple of weeks ago,
• 3:25
  Speaker 3: Michael Young, said that he felt as if these experiences
• 3:29
  Speaker 3: were awesome. He loved new experiences, he loved the break
• 3:32
  Speaker 3: in the monotony of the regular season to get to
• 3:34
  Speaker 3: go play in new places, and he said he felt
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: he had just a responsibility to entertain the people who
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: were there. He was trying to convert people who had
• 3:43
  Speaker 3: never watched baseball into being mild fans, and he's trying
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: to convert mild fans into being fanatics. So I think
• 3:48
  Speaker 3: he took a lot of responsibility in these types of
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: situations to say, hey, it's time for us to step
• 3:53
  Speaker 3: up expose new fans to Major League Baseball caliber games.
• 3:58
  Speaker 3: And so I've always felt that way. I've always enjoyed
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: going to new places, playing new games, having new experiences.
• 4:04
  Speaker 3: These seasons are long, it's wonderful to have new experiences
• 4:07
  Speaker 3: with new fan bases. And Ryan, I'd love to get
• 4:09
  Speaker 3: your perspective both globally. I know the NBA has just
• 4:12
  Speaker 3: done such an incredible job playing international games. But also
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: I believe in twenty seventeen when you were the GM
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: of Phoenix, you guys played a game in Mexico City.
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: So give us a big picture. How is the NBA
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: tackling this and then how was the experience for you personally?
• 4:27
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I think the NBA has been at the forefront
• 4:30
  Speaker 1: that going back to the McDonald's classic games they played
• 4:32
  Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties when David Stern was trying to
• 4:35
  Speaker 1: build the league as commissioner, they played the Russia national
• 4:38
  Speaker 1: team and others on a big stage in Europe, and
• 4:41
  Speaker 1: they'd send the stars, whether it's Michael Jordan's with the
• 4:43
  Speaker 1: Chicago Bulls, other marquee teams over there.
• 4:46
  Speaker 2: That started it.
• 4:47
  Speaker 1: The guy named Boris Stankovitch was the head of FEEDBA,
• 4:49
  Speaker 1: the international governing body of basketball, and those two, David
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Stern and Boris Stankovitch, really made a commitment to grow
• 4:55
  Speaker 1: the game globally. And we know what that's turned into
• 4:58
  Speaker 1: that We've talked about it on recent show. The last
• 5:01
  Speaker 1: handful of MVPs, including Shake Gilliers Alexander who is Canadian,
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: have come from outside the United States. You look at
• 5:07
  Speaker 1: Nikola Jokic, you look at Yannis and then a Kumbo
• 5:10
  Speaker 1: and others. We'll see if Luka Dansich and Victor wimbin
• 5:13
  Speaker 1: Yama joined that group someday soon. They certainly both have
• 5:15
  Speaker 1: an opportunity to do so. But it is a global game.
• 5:18
  Speaker 1: A lot of the stars are born outside of the US,
• 5:20
  Speaker 1: so the NBA has really strategically and intentionally leaned into
• 5:24
  Speaker 1: that this preseason. There are teams going to Abu Dhabi.
• 5:28
  Speaker 1: The Middle East has been a popular hotspot for the
• 5:31
  Speaker 1: NBA teams to play in the preseason over the last
• 5:33
  Speaker 1: couple of years. In fact, just last year, the Boston
• 5:36
  Speaker 1: Celtics and Denver Nuggets played a couple games over there.
• 5:39
  Speaker 1: This year in Abu Dhabi, we had the New York
• 5:41
  Speaker 1: Knicks in Philadelphia seventy six ers and then at Macow
• 5:44
  Speaker 1: a couple games over there as well, both involving the
• 5:47
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn Nets and the Phoenix Suns. Josi, the owner of
• 5:50
  Speaker 1: the Brooklyn nets Asian American certainly strong ties to the region.
• 5:55
  Speaker 1: He was involved in ali Baba, which anybody who falls
• 5:57
  Speaker 1: a stock marker knows a little bit about e commerce
• 5:59
  Speaker 1: knows what a significant player ali Baba is, especially in Asia.
• 6:03
  Speaker 1: So you have all that kind of history that and
• 6:06
  Speaker 1: that's just the preseason, and then in the regular season.
• 6:08
  Speaker 1: There are a couple more games overseas. One in Mexico
• 6:11
  Speaker 1: City you mentioned, we went down there when I was
• 6:13
  Speaker 1: GM of the Suns, and then a couple of games
• 6:16
  Speaker 1: in Europe this year in Berlin, Memphis and Orlando are playing.
• 6:20
  Speaker 1: I think those two same teams are also playing in London.
• 6:23
  Speaker 1: So it's become a worldwide sport and a worldwide event.
• 6:27
  Speaker 1: And I think one of the things that's important for
• 6:29
  Speaker 1: guys like us that I don't want to get your
• 6:30
  Speaker 1: take on it, and when I say guys like us,
• 6:32
  Speaker 1: I mean executives, players, coaches, is to put aside any
• 6:38
  Speaker 1: selfishness or discomfort with breaking our routine or having to
• 6:42
  Speaker 1: do extra, because it is extra in terms of what
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: you're doing. And you're right, the fans don't necessarily want
• 6:47
  Speaker 1: to hear this, and I understand why, but it is
• 6:49
  Speaker 1: a grind the season can get a little bit monotonous
• 6:52
  Speaker 1: at times, so doing something different is exciting and it's fun.
• 6:55
  Speaker 1: It's great from a fan media perspective, but as you know,
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: a lot of players and coaches in particular pretty set
• 6:59
  Speaker 1: in their ways and the routines and don't like deviating
• 7:02
  Speaker 1: from that. But that I think that is so important
• 7:04
  Speaker 1: for all the reasons you mentioned just a moment ago.
• 7:07
  Speaker 1: We're trying to grow something here, we're trying to build something,
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: and we're trying to continue the momentum that has now
• 7:12
  Speaker 1: literally the most valuable sports franchise in the history of
• 7:15
  Speaker 1: the planet or you know, NFL, NBA and Major League
• 7:17
  Speaker 1: Baseball teams. So how do you continue to build that?
• 7:20
  Speaker 1: How do you continue to grow it? I think the
• 7:21
  Speaker 1: leagues with their international expansion have done a great job
• 7:24
  Speaker 1: of that.
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I couldn't agree with you more and I feel,
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: you know, from a small picture, we're trying to do
• 7:30
  Speaker 3: the best we can for our franchises and increase our
• 7:33
  Speaker 3: chances of winning and competing. But there is a bigger
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: cause we have here, which is we should leave the
• 7:38
  Speaker 3: sport that we participate in better for having had us
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: participate in it. Right, So I think we do have
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: an honor bound responsibility to grow the sport for you, basketball,
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: for meat baseball, and what comes with that is like
• 7:51
  Speaker 3: putting your a little bit your concerns about the competitiveness
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: and the schedule and the logistics aside and saying, hey,
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: you know what, we're getting an opportunity to entertain fans
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: in a different locale. We are going to not only
• 8:03
  Speaker 3: seize this, but we are going to make the absolute
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: most of these opportunities. Right when you guys were in
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Mexico City, when you're planning for that, like, how much
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: concern did you have about security and those sorts of things.
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: Did you get feedback from players and families or were
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: they just excited for the new opportunity.
• 8:19
  Speaker 2: Yeah, so a little bit of all of it. That's
• 8:21
  Speaker 2: a great question.
• 8:22
  Speaker 1: I was general manager of the Phoenix Suns from twenty
• 8:24
  Speaker 1: thirteen till twenty eighteen, and I think it was in
• 8:27
  Speaker 1: the middle of that time, the twenty sixteen seventeen season,
• 8:30
  Speaker 1: the NBA reached out. I think they do this stuff
• 8:33
  Speaker 1: well in advance, before the schedule comes out the previous summer,
• 8:36
  Speaker 1: said hey, will you guys be willing to go to
• 8:37
  Speaker 1: Mexico City? So the business side asked me about it,
• 8:40
  Speaker 1: and it was difficult that I'm not going to sugarcoat
• 8:43
  Speaker 1: it here because basically what they're asking us to do,
• 8:45
  Speaker 1: and what we ended up doing was give up two
• 8:47
  Speaker 1: home games to play two games in Mexico City. The
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: first game was against the Dallas Mavericks. The second game
• 8:53
  Speaker 1: I was against the San Antonio Spurs. So I told
• 8:56
  Speaker 1: our business people ob sually privately that essentially we're playing
• 8:59
  Speaker 1: thirty nine home games and forty three road games and
• 9:02
  Speaker 1: they said, well, those are technically our home games. They said, well, no,
• 9:04
  Speaker 1: they're not. We don't play in Mexico City. The guys
• 9:07
  Speaker 1: don't live in Mexico City, their families can't easily come
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: to the games, etc. So we went back and forth
• 9:12
  Speaker 1: about it, but you know, I did come to the
• 9:14
  Speaker 1: conclusion that we just discussed that it was beneficial for
• 9:17
  Speaker 1: the league and our franchise in particular. And keep in mind,
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: there are strategic reasons that as a border state in
• 9:23
  Speaker 1: Arizona to kind of try to reach into Mexico and
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: grab a lot of the Mexican audience. Mexico City is
• 9:28
  Speaker 1: one of the biggest cities in the entire world. You know,
• 9:31
  Speaker 1: Mexico is the only country in North America that does
• 9:35
  Speaker 1: not have an NBA team. Obviously, up in Canada we
• 9:37
  Speaker 1: had the Raptors and they used to have the Grizzlies.
• 9:40
  Speaker 1: So the business side said, look, we would really appreciate
• 9:42
  Speaker 1: it if you could do this. So that was, you know,
• 9:44
  Speaker 1: kind of the message. Again, once I saw the perspective,
• 9:47
  Speaker 1: you know, went to the coaches and players and said, hey,
• 9:49
  Speaker 1: this is gonna be a little different. But now, in hindsight,
• 9:52
  Speaker 1: having done it, we had a blast. It was an
• 9:54
  Speaker 1: incredible time. From a security perspective, I don't think we
• 9:57
  Speaker 1: could have been any safer that the NBA, the league,
• 10:00
  Speaker 1: the whole does an incredible job. They send their security
• 10:02
  Speaker 1: teams and there were people everywhere. To the extent I
• 10:05
  Speaker 1: felt it was a bit over the top where he said,
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: all right, I'm gonna walk over there and get an
• 10:08
  Speaker 1: ice cream. Well, this guy will walk with you. So no,
• 10:10
  Speaker 1: he just naffed. I can just wave to him, you
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: know when I get my ConA vanilla and I'll know
• 10:13
  Speaker 1: I'm fine. But so they really, you know, scouted it
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: out well. The political aspect was great to the government
• 10:20
  Speaker 1: and everybody. We had police escorts, everywhere. Traffic is a
• 10:24
  Speaker 1: big problem in Mexico City, and where the arena is
• 10:27
  Speaker 1: is not really where the nicer hotels are that NBA
• 10:30
  Speaker 1: and NFL and Major League Baseball teams usually stay, so
• 10:33
  Speaker 1: it was some distance from the hotel in traffic, I
• 10:36
  Speaker 1: think it, you know, usually would take an hour or two,
• 10:38
  Speaker 1: but they just kind of knocked everybody out of the
• 10:40
  Speaker 1: way and cleared the path for us. So really, in hindsight,
• 10:42
  Speaker 1: it was a great experience. We lost the first game
• 10:45
  Speaker 1: against Dallas. We won the second game against San Antonio,
• 10:47
  Speaker 1: which was a big win for us. They were a
• 10:49
  Speaker 1: good team at the time and we were very young,
• 10:51
  Speaker 1: and the players loved it. I think Devin Booker, who
• 10:54
  Speaker 1: was our young star at the time, in particular he
• 10:56
  Speaker 1: has some Mexican heritage, really leaned into that, and I
• 10:59
  Speaker 1: think his popularity in Mexico City and the country of
• 11:02
  Speaker 1: Mexico as a whole really soared because of that experience.
• 11:06
  Speaker 3: And one one additional thing I just would like to
• 11:08
  Speaker 3: offer to Matt in his question here, which was very thoughtful,
• 11:11
  Speaker 3: is I think whatever logistical concerns you have, when you
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: see the fans respond in these markets, it just lights
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: you up. So I just would like to, you know,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I've seen games in the Dominican Republic, in Puerto Rico
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: and Venezuela, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, and each fan base
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: is so unique. You know, when you go to Japan,
• 11:31
  Speaker 3: it's an incredible experience. They don't have walk up music.
• 11:34
  Speaker 3: There's a section of the stands in the right field
• 11:38
  Speaker 3: bleachers that is dedicated to home fans. There's one in
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: the left field bleachers dedicated to visiting fans. They have
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: a conductor. This section sings walk up songs for every
• 11:47
  Speaker 3: player as they come up, and you can hear it
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: throughout the stadium. It just electrifies the whole place and
• 11:52
  Speaker 3: it's one of the coolest experiences you're going to have.
• 11:55
  Speaker 3: And then when you watch a game in the Dominican
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: or Puerto Rico during winter ball, you're like, in the
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: third inning when there's a double play, the whole dugout
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: floods on the field. They celebrate. A brass band jumps
• 12:05
  Speaker 3: on top of the dugout and a tuba is playing,
• 12:08
  Speaker 3: you know, some an incredible song by Don Omar or something,
• 12:12
  Speaker 3: and you're like, what is going on here? And it's
• 12:14
  Speaker 3: like just getting to see that and getting to see
• 12:16
  Speaker 3: the enthusiasm and the energy, I think puts your mind
• 12:19
  Speaker 3: to rest.
• 12:20
  Speaker 4: It.
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: Hey, we're doing the right thing. We're spreading the game around,
• 12:23
  Speaker 3: We're increasing fanaticism, and it's just such a special thing
• 12:27
  Speaker 3: to be part of.
• 12:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah, in Fad, you made a great point. We're all
• 12:30
  Speaker 1: fans too, right, So whatever selfishness we have inside us,
• 12:34
  Speaker 1: we're saying, boy, it's tough to travel more, it's tough
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: to give up these home games and all that. I
• 12:38
  Speaker 1: think we ought to take a step back and look
• 12:39
  Speaker 1: at it as fans, which we are all are, first
• 12:41
  Speaker 1: and foremost. This past weekend, I was watching college football
• 12:45
  Speaker 1: the game in Dublin, Ireland, not exactly known as the
• 12:47
  Speaker 1: football hotbed between Kansas State and Iowa State, which by
• 12:50
  Speaker 1: the way, has one of the best nicknames in all
• 12:52
  Speaker 1: of sports in Pharmageddon. I didn't know that's what they
• 12:54
  Speaker 1: called the game, but I love that. So I was
• 12:57
  Speaker 1: watching it and a you know, I think historic soccer
• 12:59
  Speaker 1: state in Ireland was packed with the college football fans,
• 13:03
  Speaker 1: so it's an event.
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: It's a little different.
• 13:05
  Speaker 1: I feel the same thing watching the Winter Classic, you know,
• 13:08
  Speaker 1: when they're playing an ice hockey game on New Year's
• 13:10
  Speaker 1: Day and Finway Park or some other historic venue that
• 13:13
  Speaker 1: grabs the eye, and I think brings in a certain
• 13:15
  Speaker 1: segment of fan who would not watch those same two
• 13:17
  Speaker 1: teams play in their regular arena, right, And that's what
• 13:20
  Speaker 1: we're trying to do, trying to grow the sport, build
• 13:22
  Speaker 1: a brand. And I think the NBA, NFL, NHL, all
• 13:26
  Speaker 1: of them, major League Baseball, they've all done a really
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: good job of that because it is something different. That's
• 13:30
  Speaker 1: one of the criticisms that you and I hear about
• 13:32
  Speaker 1: these leagues. Well, there are too many games, especially in
• 13:34
  Speaker 1: baseball and in some extent the NBA and NHL, there
• 13:38
  Speaker 1: are too many games. Football I think has a huge
• 13:40
  Speaker 1: advantage with the scarcity value NFL and college football, every
• 13:43
  Speaker 1: game seems big bad. So with those other leagues in
• 13:46
  Speaker 1: particular that have more games. How do we make it
• 13:48
  Speaker 1: feel special? How do we make it feel unique? How
• 13:51
  Speaker 1: do we make it look unique? Whenever you were, turns
• 13:53
  Speaker 1: into grabs the eye. And I think the leagues have
• 13:56
  Speaker 1: done a really nice job of doing these different kind
• 13:58
  Speaker 1: of big events, and I think that's we'll continue that.
• 14:00
  Speaker 1: I think we'll see more of this going forward.
• 14:03
  Speaker 3: So Matt count Ryan and I as huge proponents of this.
• 14:07
  Speaker 3: I think it was two years ago a target field
• 14:09
  Speaker 3: hosted the Winner Classic in the NHL. It was negative
• 14:12
  Speaker 3: ten degrees. It was a fields like temperature of negative
• 14:16
  Speaker 3: twenty five and the place was packed and nobody left.
• 14:19
  Speaker 3: It was an incredible spectacle. Stay with us through the break.
• 14:23
  Speaker 3: Tom Tellusco will join us on the other side on
• 14:25
  Speaker 3: Rosters to Rings. Welcome back to Rosters to Rings. We're
• 14:38
  Speaker 3: thrilled to be joined again by Tom Tullusco. Just as
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: a refresher. Tom spent thirty three years working in the
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: NFL for the Bills, the Panthers, the Colts, the Chargers
• 14:47
  Speaker 3: and the Raiders, the last eleven plus seasons serving as
• 14:51
  Speaker 3: a general manager. Tom, Welcome back. We wanted to pick
• 14:54
  Speaker 3: up where we left off in our last conversation. Somehow
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: we didn't even make it to your tenure with the Chargers,
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: but it took twenty thirteen. You're hired by the Chargers,
• 15:01
  Speaker 3: and just share with the listeners what went into your
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: decision to pursue that opportunity and ultimately to take the
• 15:08
  Speaker 3: raids of the Chargers over as the general manager.
• 15:11
  Speaker 5: Yeah, you know, I don't know how you guys kind
• 15:14
  Speaker 5: of went through your career as you're kind of coming
• 15:16
  Speaker 5: up the ladder. But when I was with the Panthers
• 15:18
  Speaker 5: and then with the Colts for a long time.
• 15:21
  Speaker 4: Honestly, I didn't really think about being a GM.
• 15:23
  Speaker 5: It wasn't I mean not to say it wasn't a goal,
• 15:25
  Speaker 5: but it's just something I really wasn't focused on until
• 15:28
  Speaker 5: maybe later on in my career with the Colts, after
• 15:31
  Speaker 5: we after we won the Super Bowl and went to
• 15:34
  Speaker 5: another and then kind of realized, you know, maybe I'll
• 15:36
  Speaker 5: get an opportunity, maybe not, But I really wasn't focused
• 15:38
  Speaker 5: so much on it. But yeah, So later on my
• 15:43
  Speaker 5: tenure with the Colts, Bill Pulling had been let go
• 15:47
  Speaker 5: and then they brought Ryan Grigson in and I was
• 15:50
  Speaker 5: with Ryan Grigson for one year with the Colts and
• 15:53
  Speaker 5: learned a lot about doing some things a different way.
• 15:55
  Speaker 5: Because I've been with Bill Polling for so long, it
• 15:57
  Speaker 5: was need to get to see a different viewpoint.
• 15:59
  Speaker 4: So I learned a lot from Ryan.
• 16:02
  Speaker 5: But at that point I had an opportunity to interview
• 16:05
  Speaker 5: with the Chargers for the GM job and the Jets
• 16:09
  Speaker 5: for that matter, but the Charges were a little bit
• 16:11
  Speaker 5: farther along in their process. So and look, you know,
• 16:15
  Speaker 5: you very these situations, they.
• 16:18
  Speaker 4: Don't come up very often.
• 16:19
  Speaker 5: So it's not like I didn't feel like I was
• 16:21
  Speaker 5: someone that I could just kind of sit back and hey,
• 16:22
  Speaker 5: I'll eventually get a GM job someday and just a
• 16:25
  Speaker 5: matter of when.
• 16:26
  Speaker 4: So I'm gonna be really choosy.
• 16:27
  Speaker 5: That's not really what I was my thinking or my
• 16:30
  Speaker 5: thought process, but you certainly got to look at each
• 16:33
  Speaker 5: situation isn't the right fit. Because my last year with
• 16:35
  Speaker 5: with the with the Colts, I had a chance to
• 16:38
  Speaker 5: interview for the Saint Louis Rams job at Saint Louis
• 16:40
  Speaker 5: Rams at the time, and I ended up passing on
• 16:43
  Speaker 5: the interview to stay with the Colts for a couple
• 16:46
  Speaker 5: of different reasons, just family wise, really liked Indianapolis, and
• 16:51
  Speaker 5: then professionally they made a contract amendment, which which was nice,
• 16:54
  Speaker 5: and like I said, I wanted to kind of see
• 16:56
  Speaker 5: a different viewpoint too, working with Ryan Grigson.
• 16:58
  Speaker 4: So I did that for a year. So I did
• 16:59
  Speaker 4: pass that interview.
• 17:00
  Speaker 5: But but the Chargers, you know, interview came along and
• 17:05
  Speaker 5: they essentially probably interviewed me just because I was on
• 17:08
  Speaker 5: a winning team for a long time, and I'd worked
• 17:10
  Speaker 5: with Bill Polling for a long time and Bill wasn't
• 17:12
  Speaker 5: in the Hall of Fame at the time, but obviously
• 17:14
  Speaker 5: he was, you know, well regarded, and so you know,
• 17:18
  Speaker 5: went through the process, and you know, the big thing
• 17:21
  Speaker 5: with that particular job was two things really. One is
• 17:25
  Speaker 5: a family run team, so the ownership is run by
• 17:28
  Speaker 5: a family, which I was very used to from the Colts,
• 17:30
  Speaker 5: so that was very comforting for me that situation. And
• 17:33
  Speaker 5: then they had a quarterback with Philip Rivers, so that
• 17:37
  Speaker 5: that team had been a j. Smith was the gym.
• 17:39
  Speaker 4: Before I arrived there, and he'd put together really a
• 17:41
  Speaker 4: powerhouse roster that had won a lot of games.
• 17:44
  Speaker 5: They couldn't quite get over the hump. They put together
• 17:47
  Speaker 5: a really good team. But then as it goes, you know,
• 17:50
  Speaker 5: the team gets a little bit older. You know, a
• 17:52
  Speaker 5: couple of guys move on, you know, guys get traded, guys,
• 17:55
  Speaker 5: guys get released, and the roster wasn't quite where it
• 17:58
  Speaker 5: needed to be.
• 17:58
  Speaker 4: And that's you know a lot of times when up
• 18:00
  Speaker 4: making changes.
• 18:01
  Speaker 5: So went in interviewed with the Spanos family and and
• 18:05
  Speaker 5: Ron Wolf by the way, so Royan Wolf Legendary Hall
• 18:08
  Speaker 5: of Fame GM with the Green Bay Packers and really
• 18:12
  Speaker 5: came up before that with the Raiders. The Spanos family
• 18:15
  Speaker 5: had hired Ron to kind of be part of the interview.
• 18:17
  Speaker 4: Process, so that was interesting for me.
• 18:19
  Speaker 5: Like I'm a younger guy, I was forty years old.
• 18:22
  Speaker 5: I'm sitting in a conference room with the Spanos family
• 18:24
  Speaker 5: and Ron Wolf and they're asking me all these roster
• 18:27
  Speaker 5: building questions and I'm you know, I got Ron Wolf
• 18:29
  Speaker 5: sitting right across from me, and he's just staring me
• 18:31
  Speaker 5: down and I'm talking. I'm telling him about what I
• 18:33
  Speaker 5: would do and this is what I do, this is
• 18:34
  Speaker 5: what I would do. And I stopped at one point.
• 18:37
  Speaker 5: I'm like, Ron, you must look at me like like
• 18:40
  Speaker 5: I'm just some kid who's never done this job before,
• 18:42
  Speaker 5: and I'm telling you how to do it. And it
• 18:44
  Speaker 5: was actually kind of funny. He was he was great.
• 18:46
  Speaker 5: It was really actually really part of the interview process.
• 18:49
  Speaker 5: Was awesome to be able to talk with Ron Wolf,
• 18:51
  Speaker 5: and it's the way he did it was different than
• 18:54
  Speaker 5: Bill Pollinge, but obviously very successful.
• 18:57
  Speaker 4: So it's cool getting to know him in the process.
• 19:00
  Speaker 5: So I went through that whole interview process with the
• 19:02
  Speaker 5: Chargers that the Jets had kind of come in late
• 19:05
  Speaker 5: and I had decided felt really comfortable with the charger
• 19:08
  Speaker 5: job in the situation there, the staff that had, when
• 19:11
  Speaker 5: I say staff more like the support staff. We didn't
• 19:14
  Speaker 5: have a coaching staff at that point in ownership, and
• 19:18
  Speaker 5: I'd feel like I made the right decision.
• 19:20
  Speaker 4: I've had a chance to be there for eleven years.
• 19:21
  Speaker 5: Ownership supported me really well there, and it was kind
• 19:24
  Speaker 5: of similar like we put some good teams together, we
• 19:26
  Speaker 5: just couldn't quite get over the hump.
• 19:28
  Speaker 4: But I really enjoyed my time there.
• 19:31
  Speaker 1: And I'm sure the three of us will talk about
• 19:33
  Speaker 1: this more at some point, But statistically, to be a
• 19:36
  Speaker 1: general manager, to be a hard coach, head coach, is
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: extremely difficult to do. They're only thirty to thirty two
• 19:41
  Speaker 1: teams in these leagues between fifteen and fifty three players
• 19:45
  Speaker 1: on a roster. Certainly, none of the three of us
• 19:47
  Speaker 1: were saying it's easier to be a GM than play.
• 19:49
  Speaker 2: We couldn't.
• 19:50
  Speaker 1: It would probably scratch the surface in any of these
• 19:52
  Speaker 1: leagues from a physical standpoint, but it is difficult to
• 19:55
  Speaker 1: pass up interviews and jobs and things like that. I'm
• 19:58
  Speaker 1: sure we'll talk about that more in a future Your episode.
• 20:00
  Speaker 1: But where I want to go with you now, Tom
• 20:03
  Speaker 1: is today and this week because this week, I believe,
• 20:06
  Speaker 1: actually today we're recording the show on NFL cut Down Day.
• 20:10
  Speaker 1: Take us inside the front office. For our listeners who
• 20:12
  Speaker 1: have not worked for an NFL club, what is this
• 20:15
  Speaker 1: week and then next week? Like next week is the
• 20:17
  Speaker 1: opening season in the opening the regular season in the NFL.
• 20:21
  Speaker 2: But take us inside.
• 20:22
  Speaker 1: I imagine it's a very busy time as you're trying
• 20:24
  Speaker 1: to get your roster cut down and then prepare for
• 20:27
  Speaker 1: your opening game.
• 20:29
  Speaker 4: Yeah, it's it's extremely busy. It's it's like fifty to
• 20:32
  Speaker 4: fifty fifty.
• 20:33
  Speaker 5: Part percent of it is it's a really fun process
• 20:36
  Speaker 5: to get to your initial fifty three man roster. The
• 20:39
  Speaker 5: other fifty percent, quite frankly, it sucks because you're releasing
• 20:42
  Speaker 5: a lot of players and that that's no fun obviously
• 20:45
  Speaker 5: so but administratively, it's a lot of work. We go
• 20:48
  Speaker 5: from ninety to fifty three, so we have to make
• 20:50
  Speaker 5: thirty seven transactions of releasing those players, actually thirty eight
• 20:53
  Speaker 5: because usually one as an international player that doesn't count
• 20:55
  Speaker 5: on your roster, so it's thirty eight transactions as far
• 20:58
  Speaker 5: as releasing players signing some of them back if they
• 21:01
  Speaker 5: clear waivers to your practice squad. But administratively to do
• 21:04
  Speaker 5: that over two days is a lot on the coaching staff,
• 21:08
  Speaker 5: the pro scouting staff, and the general manager. But so
• 21:11
  Speaker 5: a lot of the work is done last week. A
• 21:14
  Speaker 5: bulk of the work is before the third preseason game.
• 21:17
  Speaker 5: I'd sit down with our coaching staff and just kind
• 21:20
  Speaker 5: of sketch out, Hey, this is what we're seeing for
• 21:23
  Speaker 5: the roster right now at these position. You know, we're
• 21:26
  Speaker 5: trunning towards say, you know, like nine offensive linemen. We
• 21:28
  Speaker 5: think these will be the nine trending towards three tight ends. Okay,
• 21:32
  Speaker 5: but we've got a still a competition for the third
• 21:34
  Speaker 5: spot between these two players.
• 21:37
  Speaker 4: These are the numbers of receiver.
• 21:38
  Speaker 5: And I'll kind of get to fifty three, but kind
• 21:40
  Speaker 5: of frame out where we are for the third preseason
• 21:42
  Speaker 5: game this week, can get make sure we at the
• 21:43
  Speaker 5: playtime set for the third preseason game of guys that
• 21:46
  Speaker 5: are still up in the air, and that way when
• 21:49
  Speaker 5: we come in after the third preseason game, it's a
• 21:51
  Speaker 5: little more efficient, like, hey, we got these three or
• 21:53
  Speaker 5: four talking points to kind of get the roster set
• 21:56
  Speaker 5: and concurrently with that I'll meet with the pro scouting
• 21:58
  Speaker 5: staff who have been scouting the whole league through the
• 22:00
  Speaker 5: whole preseason and talk about, hey, these are the positions
• 22:05
  Speaker 5: we feel like we need depth that so tell me
• 22:07
  Speaker 5: about the players who are on the bubble who may
• 22:09
  Speaker 5: not make their team that could help us, and it's
• 22:12
  Speaker 5: we call a second draft. We'll put up a draft
• 22:14
  Speaker 5: board of potential players who will be released across the
• 22:17
  Speaker 5: league that we could possibly claim. So we'll kind of
• 22:20
  Speaker 5: put those guys up on the board, we'll talk about them,
• 22:22
  Speaker 5: we'll do a little extra research on those players, and
• 22:25
  Speaker 5: then we come in from that third preseason game and
• 22:29
  Speaker 5: discuss it with the coaching staff and discuss it with
• 22:31
  Speaker 5: the pro scouting staff. And then what you're also doing
• 22:34
  Speaker 5: is now that you're at fifty three, any player that
• 22:37
  Speaker 5: you claim, so our younger players really four years or less.
• 22:41
  Speaker 5: If you release one of those players, they have to
• 22:43
  Speaker 5: go through waivers first where another team could claim them.
• 22:47
  Speaker 5: So we'd go through our staff and hey, look, if
• 22:49
  Speaker 5: we claim this player and we get them, it's one
• 22:51
  Speaker 5: on one off. Somebody has to be released, so we
• 22:53
  Speaker 5: discuss who would that player be, and we'd usually leave
• 22:57
  Speaker 5: a couple of open practice squad spots available to move
• 22:59
  Speaker 5: a eye down. So it's a lot of roster shuffling.
• 23:02
  Speaker 5: What's nice now is you basically have two weeks. It
• 23:05
  Speaker 5: used to be cut down was on Tuesday, opening day
• 23:08
  Speaker 5: with Sunday, and it was a tight week because any
• 23:10
  Speaker 5: players you claim to bring in, they come in on Wednesday.
• 23:13
  Speaker 5: It's hard to tell a coach, hey, he's coming in Wednesday.
• 23:15
  Speaker 5: He doesn't know our playbook offense or defense, but he's
• 23:17
  Speaker 5: got a dress on Sunday.
• 23:18
  Speaker 4: It's not a great position to be in. So the
• 23:22
  Speaker 4: extra time that this gives you really a whole week
• 23:24
  Speaker 4: to get your at least your initial fifty three set
• 23:27
  Speaker 4: and work your way through there with the staff and
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: the pro scouting staff, and then from there it just
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: never ends. Throughout the year.
• 23:31
  Speaker 5: You're constantly due to injury, due to performance, you know,
• 23:34
  Speaker 5: maybe making moves on the back end of your roster.
• 23:37
  Speaker 5: But you know all starts this week.
• 23:39
  Speaker 3: To I'm just curious when you said you're cutting down
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: thirty seven to thirty eight players in a two day period,
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: how many of those meetings would you sit in? And
• 23:48
  Speaker 3: then also can you take the listener inside the room
• 23:50
  Speaker 3: for one of those like how does that conversation go.
• 23:52
  Speaker 3: Who's involved?
• 23:53
  Speaker 4: Yeah, so every single one of them.
• 23:55
  Speaker 5: So you want to make sure I mean all these
• 23:57
  Speaker 5: players at the very least, if you're a first year guy,
• 24:01
  Speaker 5: you just spent the whole offseason, the whole spring, the
• 24:04
  Speaker 5: whole summer, whole training camp with us, and for a
• 24:06
  Speaker 5: lot of the players, you may have had them for two, three,
• 24:08
  Speaker 5: four or five years, so you do have a relationship
• 24:10
  Speaker 5: with these guys. But I thought it was really important
• 24:12
  Speaker 5: to make sure you sit down with each guy individually
• 24:16
  Speaker 5: and give him some feedback on the situation. So I
• 24:20
  Speaker 5: would Some teams do it differently. Some teams will have
• 24:22
  Speaker 5: the head coach and GM together talk.
• 24:24
  Speaker 4: With each player.
• 24:25
  Speaker 5: It's probably a little more efficient that way. The way
• 24:27
  Speaker 5: we end up doing it was the player would come
• 24:29
  Speaker 5: see me first, I talked to him, they'd go see
• 24:31
  Speaker 5: the head coach talk with him, and then usually a
• 24:33
  Speaker 5: position coach, and then go see the training staff, equipment
• 24:36
  Speaker 5: staff to sign out and they move on. But the
• 24:40
  Speaker 5: conversation are probably different for each player, But I want
• 24:42
  Speaker 5: to make sure they all had enough time to ask
• 24:45
  Speaker 5: any questions about the situation, about their opportunity. Unfortunately, for
• 24:50
  Speaker 5: a lot of times when you release a player, you know,
• 24:53
  Speaker 5: after you tell them we're going to release you, everything
• 24:55
  Speaker 5: you talk about after that just goes right over the
• 24:57
  Speaker 5: head because they're not really focusing a lot with more
• 25:00
  Speaker 5: I just got released and now they're thinking about what
• 25:03
  Speaker 5: happens next. But with a lot of the players, I
• 25:06
  Speaker 5: would try and give some feedback on you know, why
• 25:10
  Speaker 5: we made the move. Does he still have a future
• 25:12
  Speaker 5: with us? What would you bring him back on the
• 25:14
  Speaker 5: practice GUYD what would we bring him back on the
• 25:16
  Speaker 5: active roster? Or hey, look with us it is probably over,
• 25:19
  Speaker 5: but we still I still think you have a future
• 25:21
  Speaker 5: made with somebody else. Just try and give some honest feedback.
• 25:24
  Speaker 5: And for every now and then where the player that
• 25:26
  Speaker 5: you think is maybe at the end, I used to
• 25:29
  Speaker 5: try and leave it, give some advice, like, hey, look,
• 25:31
  Speaker 5: if you're going to move into whatever your life's work
• 25:33
  Speaker 5: after football, because these guys are all younger when they
• 25:35
  Speaker 5: when they stopped playing, you know, kind of give some
• 25:37
  Speaker 5: advice and guidance for that if they need it. So,
• 25:41
  Speaker 5: but I thought it was important to spend as much
• 25:42
  Speaker 5: time with the players as possible. They ninety five percent
• 25:46
  Speaker 5: of the time they did everything you asked on and
• 25:48
  Speaker 5: off the field to make the team. The easy release
• 25:51
  Speaker 5: are the guys that don't do what you ask, but
• 25:53
  Speaker 5: doesn't happen very often, so kind of go through that process.
• 25:57
  Speaker 5: It's not not fun because all these guys, every single
• 26:00
  Speaker 5: one of them, was no doubt, probably the best player
• 26:02
  Speaker 5: in their high school team, probably the best player in
• 26:04
  Speaker 5: their county, one of the best players on their college team,
• 26:08
  Speaker 5: and this is the first time in their life they've
• 26:09
  Speaker 5: been told that they're not good enough to be in
• 26:11
  Speaker 5: the team. And those aren't easy conversations and the ones
• 26:14
  Speaker 5: you don't like to have. I know you guys have
• 26:16
  Speaker 5: gone through the same thing in your sports. These guys
• 26:18
  Speaker 5: have been the best at the best for a long time,
• 26:20
  Speaker 5: and now all of a sudden they've told that they're
• 26:22
  Speaker 5: not good enough.
• 26:23
  Speaker 4: So but again, professional football, and usually the door.
• 26:27
  Speaker 5: Is always open for a player to come back if they.
• 26:28
  Speaker 4: Do with jazz. But that that's kind of how that
• 26:31
  Speaker 4: that cut down day goes.
• 26:33
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I've always thought it was the worst part of
• 26:35
  Speaker 1: the job of any of the three of our jobs
• 26:37
  Speaker 1: across sports, cutting a player or firing an employee, because
• 26:41
  Speaker 1: you're not only looking at the person thinking about them.
• 26:43
  Speaker 1: How you think about their wife, their children, you know,
• 26:45
  Speaker 1: them moving all the things that happened. When a person
• 26:49
  Speaker 1: has a significant job change and they're going to move on,
• 26:51
  Speaker 1: rarely does the person stay in the same market, especially
• 26:54
  Speaker 1: from a player's perspective. You know what that means. They're
• 26:57
  Speaker 1: packing their stuff and probably going somewhere else across country,
• 27:00
  Speaker 1: either to continue their career or as Sound said it,
• 27:02
  Speaker 1: for the end of their career, to go do something else. Tom,
• 27:05
  Speaker 1: one specific situation that I've been watching closely, I think
• 27:08
  Speaker 1: it's probably gotten more attention than your traditional third and
• 27:12
  Speaker 1: fourth quarterback on the depth chart battle is in Cleveland,
• 27:16
  Speaker 1: and I want to get your take on first the trade,
• 27:19
  Speaker 1: because yesterday in the NFL, the Cleveland Browns sent Kenny Pickett,
• 27:23
  Speaker 1: who was in the mix a quarterback, to the Las
• 27:25
  Speaker 1: Vegas Raiders. The Raiders needed another backup for Gino Smith
• 27:29
  Speaker 1: when Aidan O'Connell got hurt. O'Connell's going to be out
• 27:32
  Speaker 1: six to eight weeks with a fractured risk. How often
• 27:34
  Speaker 1: are trades this time of year, Tom, And what do
• 27:37
  Speaker 1: you think of the attention that the Browns quarterback battle.
• 27:41
  Speaker 1: I'll be honest with you, as a fan, it looks
• 27:42
  Speaker 1: like kind of a mess. But what are your thoughts
• 27:44
  Speaker 1: on Cleveland's quarterback room and their depth chart and all
• 27:47
  Speaker 1: the attention that's getting as well.
• 27:49
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I don't know if the attention is on their
• 27:50
  Speaker 5: quarterback room or just an Sudeur Sanders, so that's probably
• 27:55
  Speaker 5: but yeah, so that essentially they had four quarterbacks going
• 27:59
  Speaker 5: to camp, Joe Flacco, Kenny Pickett, who's a younger veteran,
• 28:04
  Speaker 5: and they drafted two players, Dylan Gabriel and Shooder Sanders.
• 28:08
  Speaker 5: So I know the original thought was, you know that
• 28:11
  Speaker 5: they would keep all for in the active roster.
• 28:13
  Speaker 4: It's something you could do. It would just be really
• 28:16
  Speaker 4: difficult for.
• 28:17
  Speaker 5: Extend amount of time of on a fifty three man
• 28:19
  Speaker 5: roster to hold four quarterbacks. Since only one plays and
• 28:23
  Speaker 5: then the other guy. They can't play special teams, they
• 28:25
  Speaker 5: don't do anything else, it would be really hard to
• 28:28
  Speaker 5: handle that.
• 28:28
  Speaker 4: Now their gam is Andrew Berry. He's really sharp and smart.
• 28:31
  Speaker 5: I bet he can probably do it for a little while,
• 28:33
  Speaker 5: but in the end, when you have some injuries, it
• 28:35
  Speaker 5: would just be hard to.
• 28:36
  Speaker 4: Hold those four quarterbacks.
• 28:38
  Speaker 5: So kind of figured one would be traded, kind of
• 28:40
  Speaker 5: figured he would be the one. Plus he missed about
• 28:43
  Speaker 5: a month of practice with the hamstring, so he really
• 28:45
  Speaker 5: hadn't done much. But the fact that he had some
• 28:48
  Speaker 5: background had some starts more so than the two rookies,
• 28:51
  Speaker 5: thought he could be the one that would move on.
• 28:54
  Speaker 5: But yeah, really the focus has really been on Shooder Sanders,
• 28:58
  Speaker 5: and it's understandable. I mean, he was the big story
• 29:01
  Speaker 5: of the draft. You know, he was an excellent college
• 29:04
  Speaker 5: quarterback that I think a lot of people myself included
• 29:07
  Speaker 5: thought he would be drafted higher and he wasn't. He
• 29:09
  Speaker 5: was drafted in the fifth round to a team that
• 29:13
  Speaker 5: doesn't have a future franchise quarterback. Joe Flacco was forty
• 29:16
  Speaker 5: years old. So there was a lot of interest there
• 29:19
  Speaker 5: watching it play out. And wherever Shadir Sanders goes, he's
• 29:24
  Speaker 5: a story.
• 29:25
  Speaker 4: It just is what it is.
• 29:26
  Speaker 5: Like, I just I was on the air yesterday yesterday
• 29:29
  Speaker 5: on NFL Radio and they had asked about, you know,
• 29:32
  Speaker 5: did Kevin Stefanski sabotage Shader Sanders in the third preseason
• 29:36
  Speaker 5: game and have him out there with an offensive line
• 29:38
  Speaker 5: it wasn't very good and call plays it didn't help him,
• 29:40
  Speaker 5: And I'm like, you got to be kidding me, Like
• 29:42
  Speaker 5: that what happened in the first preseason game when Shiro
• 29:45
  Speaker 5: Sanders played really well, did he decide not to sabotage
• 29:48
  Speaker 5: the first game but his third game.
• 29:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, it just makes no sense.
• 29:51
  Speaker 5: But this is part of the NFL is just the
• 29:53
  Speaker 5: focus on certain stories. But so right now we've got
• 29:57
  Speaker 5: Joe Flacco's a starter. He's forty years old. He could
• 30:00
  Speaker 5: still throw the ball really well, but you have some
• 30:03
  Speaker 5: concern over quarterback at that age. He played with the
• 30:06
  Speaker 5: Browns two years ago, had a really good year at
• 30:08
  Speaker 5: thirty eight years old, was with the Colts last year,
• 30:10
  Speaker 5: didn't play as well.
• 30:12
  Speaker 4: So we'll see.
• 30:13
  Speaker 5: Hopefully the Browns get the twenty three version of Flaco.
• 30:18
  Speaker 5: And then Dylan Gabriel was drafted in the third rounds.
• 30:21
  Speaker 5: He was drafted in front of Shador, so obviously their
• 30:23
  Speaker 5: staff felt at the time that Dylan was a better
• 30:26
  Speaker 5: prospect for them, and Dylan played well in the preseason.
• 30:29
  Speaker 4: I thought.
• 30:30
  Speaker 5: He's not the biggest quarterback in the world. He's got
• 30:33
  Speaker 5: really good arm strength for a smaller quarterback, which is
• 30:35
  Speaker 5: just in our business you don't see that often. He's
• 30:38
  Speaker 5: got a lot of pace on the ball and he's
• 30:40
  Speaker 5: a quick decision maker because the ball out of his hand.
• 30:42
  Speaker 5: He played a lot of snaps in college, as did Chador.
• 30:45
  Speaker 5: So you've got two young quarterbacks kind of waiting in
• 30:48
  Speaker 5: the wings that have a lot of college experience and
• 30:50
  Speaker 5: you can develop and you know, hope you get through
• 30:52
  Speaker 5: the year with Joe Flacco.
• 30:53
  Speaker 4: So I thought the trade was really good to the Raiders.
• 30:56
  Speaker 4: Raiders need a veteran quarterback. Browns get back a fifth rum.
• 31:00
  Speaker 5: Don't have to worry about the four man quarterback room
• 31:03
  Speaker 5: anymore because that's just going to be really hard to handle,
• 31:05
  Speaker 5: and you will move on from there.
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: You know, it's amazing that you just shared all that
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: and you didn't even mention Deshaun Watson's part of that
• 31:12
  Speaker 3: room in some capacity. I know is he's hurt, but
• 31:15
  Speaker 3: like that was part of the reason they are back
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: trying to draft a quarterback because unfortunately that hasn't worked
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: out as they would like. And Tom, I just was
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: going to share a little bit of a baseball perspective
• 31:27
  Speaker 3: based upon the depth that you just talked about. You know,
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: one of the biggest differences in baseball relative to basketball,
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: or certainly to football, basketball at least has a secondary
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: league now is like, we just have such an evolved
• 31:39
  Speaker 3: minor league system. So for us, these cuts have taken
• 31:42
  Speaker 3: a little bit of a different tone. And the thing
• 31:45
  Speaker 3: that we spend and this resonates with what you just
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: said a relative to the quarterback room in Cleveland, is
• 31:51
  Speaker 3: we spent so much for spring training trying to identify
• 31:53
  Speaker 3: what's our next line of defense and what's the line
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: of defense after that, And so one thing that I
• 31:58
  Speaker 3: think paved the way for smoother conversations on the backside
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: when we tell players they're not making the opening day roster,
• 32:05
  Speaker 3: and you know, the average major league baseball team will
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: have sixty ish players in camp, you have a twenty
• 32:09
  Speaker 3: six man roster an opening day, but in practice, unless
• 32:12
  Speaker 3: you're rebuilding probably about you know, fifteen to eighteen of
• 32:15
  Speaker 3: those spots are pretty much ironed up before spring training,
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: so you've got the rest of the guys competing for
• 32:20
  Speaker 3: the remaining you know, six to ten spots on the roster.
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: Is we were extremely communicative on the front end to
• 32:27
  Speaker 3: try to illustrate what you are competing for here, and
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: sometimes it was very clear, hey, listen, you're our opening
• 32:33
  Speaker 3: day starter, you know, and if you're healthy at the
• 32:36
  Speaker 3: end of camp, you're going to be our number one
• 32:38
  Speaker 3: starting pitcher. There's times where we say, hey, listen, you
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: reference there's three tight ends and maybe there are two
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: guys competing. We'd be very clear on that, like your
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: opportunities to compete to be our right fielder. The landscape
• 32:49
  Speaker 3: is three to four guys, and go get them. And
• 32:52
  Speaker 3: then there were some occasions where we were just like, hey,
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: you're an up and coming prospect. We want you to
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: soak in as much of this as you possibly can.
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: You're not making the opening day roster, there's no chance
• 33:01
  Speaker 3: of that, but we want you to learn as much
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: as you possibly can while you're here, such a when
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: you get to the big leagues, you're ready to rock
• 33:08
  Speaker 3: and roll. You're not just here and getting overwhelmed by
• 33:10
  Speaker 3: the crush of the media or the demands of advanced
• 33:13
  Speaker 3: scouting or a performance team. Learn all of those things
• 33:16
  Speaker 3: so that you can just play the game between the lines.
• 33:19
  Speaker 3: And so then when we had the conversation on the
• 33:21
  Speaker 3: back end, there shouldn't be too many surprises. There occasionally
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: was disappointments, no doubt, but there certainly shouldn't be surprises.
• 33:28
  Speaker 3: And I think another thing that you guys said, which
• 33:30
  Speaker 3: I really believe in, is you have to be very
• 33:34
  Speaker 3: honest with these guys. Like I learned the hard way
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: that sometimes if you're trying to be super nice, then
• 33:40
  Speaker 3: it takes the guy way too long to figure out
• 33:42
  Speaker 3: the actual message you're giving them. And their careers aren't endless.
• 33:45
  Speaker 3: And so if it takes the guy two to three
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: months to figure out what the hell was the actual
• 33:49
  Speaker 3: learning moment here, you're doing a gross disservice. So for
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: people such as myself, who were much more inclined to
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: be diplomatic and very kind, I had to be very
• 33:58
  Speaker 3: blunt in those moments and tell them exactly why they
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: weren't getting the opportunity and the things they needed to
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: work on, And then I had to hold ourselves accountable
• 34:05
  Speaker 3: if that guy went and worked on those things and achieved,
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: we should try to present an opportunity for them. So
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: I think the biggest distinction in baseball is just simply
• 34:14
  Speaker 3: that just the wealth of ability to retain these players
• 34:17
  Speaker 3: in the minor leagues doesn't result in a ton of
• 34:20
  Speaker 3: actual abject cuts. But one thing that we experienced tom
• 34:24
  Speaker 3: earlier in the show was aj Hinch came on and
• 34:26
  Speaker 3: one of the things.
• 34:26
  Speaker 2: He offered.
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: The perspective is sometimes when you're cutting that guy, you're
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: actually telling him his careers over. And that's a whole
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: different conversation, right, And like, sure they can go try
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: to catch on somewhere else, but they probably know they're
• 34:36
  Speaker 3: kind of towards the end of the line. Ryan, you
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: said it, but like, you have to be empathetic in
• 34:41
  Speaker 3: those moments. It's the most humanitarian opportunity we have to
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: deal with the facts but also deal with the empathy
• 34:48
  Speaker 3: required to handle these things responsibly.
• 34:51
  Speaker 5: Yeah, I can see that, And that's I've always told
• 34:54
  Speaker 5: players that if we're releasing them, hey, look this is
• 34:57
  Speaker 5: our opinion or my opinion of why not making the
• 35:00
  Speaker 5: team and your skills. But the GM at the next
• 35:03
  Speaker 5: team he may see you completely different. And I had
• 35:06
  Speaker 5: a stretch for a little bit that each kicker I
• 35:08
  Speaker 5: released went on to make the Pro Bowl the next year.
• 35:11
  Speaker 5: So we let we let young way Ku go, and like,
• 35:15
  Speaker 5: I don't know, week two or three of the season,
• 35:17
  Speaker 5: and I toldim, I said, look, I think you're gonna
• 35:18
  Speaker 5: get it eventually. We just don't have time to wait.
• 35:21
  Speaker 5: But I said, hey, the last kicker I let go
• 35:23
  Speaker 5: made the Pro Bowl the next year, and what do
• 35:25
  Speaker 5: you know what, Young way Kug goes Atlanta and makes
• 35:27
  Speaker 5: the Pro Bowl.
• 35:27
  Speaker 4: So like, it's an evaluation business.
• 35:31
  Speaker 5: And we're not right all the time, and and sometimes
• 35:34
  Speaker 5: we're just wrong evaluation why sometimes we just can't wait
• 35:37
  Speaker 5: as long as we would like to. So just because
• 35:40
  Speaker 5: you don't have a future here, it does not mean
• 35:41
  Speaker 5: another team will not see your talent and think you're
• 35:43
  Speaker 5: a better fit.
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: Did you find the kicker started lining up outside your
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: office asking to be released?
• 35:49
  Speaker 4: I mean, I'll tell you what we had for my time.
• 35:53
  Speaker 5: We brought it more kickers to work out, had more
• 35:55
  Speaker 5: kickers come through, and then we finally a couple of
• 35:59
  Speaker 5: years ago, we signed Cameron Dicker i think during training camp,
• 36:03
  Speaker 5: right after training camp, and you know, with the long
• 36:05
  Speaker 5: term extension, he's going to be there a long time.
• 36:07
  Speaker 5: So we finally found one.
• 36:08
  Speaker 4: But man, it was.
• 36:10
  Speaker 5: There is no worst feeling on a football team than
• 36:13
  Speaker 5: if your kicker is inconsistent. Because I've told all of
• 36:17
  Speaker 5: our kickers, like championship teams have championship kickers. They're a
• 36:20
  Speaker 5: big part of the game. But the finally consistent one
• 36:24
  Speaker 5: that can do it, you know, a week after week
• 36:27
  Speaker 5: some teams found them. We just we just struggled trying
• 36:30
  Speaker 5: to find the right guy, and sometimes we find the
• 36:32
  Speaker 5: right guy and he would get hurt.
• 36:33
  Speaker 4: So the Chargers have a really good one right now.
• 36:37
  Speaker 1: Tom, I think the story you should go with is
• 36:38
  Speaker 1: you're just looking for the guy with the best nickname,
• 36:40
  Speaker 1: because Dicker the kicker is one of the best nicknames
• 36:42
  Speaker 1: I think in all of sports.
• 36:44
  Speaker 2: Oh yeah, that's one one of my all time favorites. Yeah,
• 36:47
  Speaker 2: but no.
• 36:48
  Speaker 1: So the next topical NFL question I have for you is,
• 36:51
  Speaker 1: as you mentioned, this time of year, in particular in
• 36:54
  Speaker 1: the NFL, certain storylines dominate the headlines, and one that
• 36:57
  Speaker 1: popped up again this past weekend was the Dallas Cowboys
• 37:01
  Speaker 1: and the Micah Parsons situation. I was actually really proud
• 37:04
  Speaker 1: that I don't know, you know, if you know the guy,
• 37:06
  Speaker 1: but one of the local guys in Dallas added some
• 37:08
  Speaker 1: context to the situation because there were pictures and videos
• 37:11
  Speaker 1: and Michaeh. Parsons he was lying down, looked like on
• 37:14
  Speaker 1: a training table, and one of the reporters who I
• 37:17
  Speaker 1: think covers the Cowboys was around the team say wait
• 37:18
  Speaker 1: a minute, don't extrapolate that snapshot and take it out
• 37:22
  Speaker 1: of context because he did that for a brief period
• 37:24
  Speaker 1: of time, but he was also up and walking around
• 37:26
  Speaker 1: and interacting with people. But we know how it is
• 37:28
  Speaker 1: in pro sports, especially in the social media age, there
• 37:31
  Speaker 1: are certain snippets or sound bites or pictures that go viral,
• 37:34
  Speaker 1: and that was one of them. So, Tom, that's a
• 37:36
  Speaker 1: long window way of me asking what are your thoughts
• 37:38
  Speaker 1: on Michaeh Parson's situation and how do you think it
• 37:41
  Speaker 1: gets resolved with the Cowboys.
• 37:43
  Speaker 5: Yeah, this one is so unique in this particular situation,
• 37:47
  Speaker 5: and it's funny that laying on the table. I get
• 37:50
  Speaker 5: it you don't want snapshots, but to me, like thirty seconds,
• 37:54
  Speaker 5: thirty minutes, it's just not the look I'm looking for
• 37:56
  Speaker 5: on our sideline. But yeah, this situation has been different
• 38:00
  Speaker 5: than other holdouts hold ins, and I'd be curious to
• 38:05
  Speaker 5: get some feedback from you guys. So you know, typically
• 38:08
  Speaker 5: in our league, like GM owner whoever, front office negotiates
• 38:12
  Speaker 5: with the agent unless a player doesn't have an agent,
• 38:15
  Speaker 5: which doesn't happen very often. Now, the Cowboys they do
• 38:19
  Speaker 5: some things a little bit differently. I know they've they've
• 38:21
  Speaker 5: i think a negotiate with some players one on one,
• 38:24
  Speaker 5: but typically you're going to go through the agent. So
• 38:27
  Speaker 5: in this particular process, it sounds like they haven't talked
• 38:30
  Speaker 5: to the agent at all, which just boggles my mind.
• 38:33
  Speaker 5: I mean, I just don't know how you can get
• 38:34
  Speaker 5: a deal done, especially a deal like this, without having
• 38:37
  Speaker 5: the agent part of it. And you know, I know
• 38:39
  Speaker 5: the agency, I know the agent. I just there's just
• 38:41
  Speaker 5: no way it's going to happen without them being part
• 38:43
  Speaker 5: of it. And you know, I can't believe I would
• 38:47
  Speaker 5: carry an agent's water. I'm a GM, but it is
• 38:49
  Speaker 5: what it is like, it's there, They're part of the process.
• 38:51
  Speaker 5: It's just and there's a reason why players have agents.
• 38:54
  Speaker 5: I mean, I know some players could probably do their
• 38:56
  Speaker 5: own negotiations, but could they do it as well as
• 38:59
  Speaker 5: an agent does it every day for their life, you know,
• 39:02
  Speaker 5: for their for their career.
• 39:04
  Speaker 4: They do that for a living.
• 39:05
  Speaker 5: So players have these agents to get guidance advice on
• 39:09
  Speaker 5: their contract. There's a lot of little pieces that go
• 39:11
  Speaker 5: into it, not just the numbers, but the payouts and
• 39:14
  Speaker 5: the and the language and the clauses.
• 39:15
  Speaker 4: So the agent is part of the process.
• 39:19
  Speaker 5: And right now it's hard to do negotiating when nobody's
• 39:22
  Speaker 5: talking to each other.
• 39:23
  Speaker 4: So I don't know where this is going to go.
• 39:25
  Speaker 4: The one thing I do know is.
• 39:26
  Speaker 5: This so so he is a hold in, he's not
• 39:29
  Speaker 5: a holdout. If you hold out in the NFL before
• 39:32
  Speaker 5: a training camp, you would go on a reserve did
• 39:34
  Speaker 5: not report list, and on the reserve not report list
• 39:37
  Speaker 5: you don't get paid. So if you're not there for
• 39:40
  Speaker 5: week one of the you don't play in the first game,
• 39:42
  Speaker 5: you don't get paid.
• 39:43
  Speaker 2: But a hold in is.
• 39:44
  Speaker 5: Really just a really nice way of saying, I mean,
• 39:48
  Speaker 5: the player is refusing to practice and play because he's
• 39:50
  Speaker 5: on the active roster. So he's on the active roster,
• 39:54
  Speaker 5: and come next week on Tuesday, if he's on the
• 39:56
  Speaker 5: active roster just like he is now, the Cowboys have
• 39:59
  Speaker 5: to pay for week one whether he plays or not,
• 40:02
  Speaker 5: which is like one point three million dollars. And I
• 40:04
  Speaker 5: don't know very many gms or owners and want to
• 40:06
  Speaker 5: pay a player one point three million to not play.
• 40:09
  Speaker 5: So between now and next Tuesday, something has to happen.
• 40:12
  Speaker 5: It's either going to be they get a deal done.
• 40:14
  Speaker 5: Hopefully that happens.
• 40:16
  Speaker 4: If not, you're.
• 40:16
  Speaker 5: Looking at probably a suspension for conduct detrimental which is
• 40:21
  Speaker 5: that's that's what we would be.
• 40:22
  Speaker 4: Usually you'd be.
• 40:23
  Speaker 5: Finding the player right now for conduct detrimental, for not practicing.
• 40:26
  Speaker 5: That's discretionary. You can if you want. Usually by this
• 40:30
  Speaker 5: far in the preseason you probably would, and maybe they
• 40:32
  Speaker 5: are I don't know, but certainly for that first regular
• 40:35
  Speaker 5: season game, if he's still playing, I'm not playing, you'd
• 40:38
  Speaker 5: probably put him on a suspended list and you'd go
• 40:40
  Speaker 5: on reserve suspended, which means you don't get paid for
• 40:43
  Speaker 5: that week. So and typically if you're holding out for
• 40:46
  Speaker 5: more money, you don't want to give money back. So
• 40:49
  Speaker 5: I got to think by next Tuesday, like we're gonna
• 40:51
  Speaker 5: have some sort of resolution. There's either gonna be a
• 40:53
  Speaker 5: deal that's done or he's gonna have to be put
• 40:56
  Speaker 5: on a suspended list so they don't have to pay
• 40:59
  Speaker 5: him for that week. So we're going to find out
• 41:01
  Speaker 5: a lot. But this process has been different than the
• 41:04
  Speaker 5: other ones, just because it just sounds like the club
• 41:07
  Speaker 5: doesn't want to negotiate with the agent, and there's been
• 41:09
  Speaker 5: playing negotiations. I didn't want to negotiate with the agent either,
• 41:11
  Speaker 5: but it's necessary evil and quite honestly, it's just easier
• 41:15
  Speaker 5: that way I don't I mean to do it with
• 41:17
  Speaker 5: a player. You wouldn't want the feeling that the player
• 41:20
  Speaker 5: feels like you're going to pull one over on them.
• 41:22
  Speaker 5: I mean, teams negotiate for a living. Players play football
• 41:24
  Speaker 5: for a living, so you wouldn't want to have that feeling.
• 41:27
  Speaker 5: I just think it's easier to discuss a player and
• 41:29
  Speaker 5: who he compares to in all his contracts with an agent.
• 41:33
  Speaker 5: It's more efficient, bit easier way to go. So we'll
• 41:37
  Speaker 5: know the next seven days exactly what happens here.
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: I just I would love to hear your perspective on
• 41:43
  Speaker 3: this as well, Ryan, because you know in baseball, we
• 41:46
  Speaker 3: don't have holdouts or hold ins. We tend not to
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: have players demand trades. You guys deal with that on
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: a regular basis. And you know, the only reason I
• 41:56
  Speaker 3: think we don't have it as a few fold one
• 41:58
  Speaker 3: when our contracts bind large guaranteed and so there's less
• 42:02
  Speaker 3: risk the players assuming on a regular basis. But you know, Tom,
• 42:06
  Speaker 3: you mentioned the relationship with agents. I always thought that
• 42:10
  Speaker 3: that was a little bit overplayed. You know, we see
• 42:13
  Speaker 3: the movies and it seems as if the executive and
• 42:15
  Speaker 3: the agent are always yelling at each other. And diametrically
• 42:18
  Speaker 3: opposed and whatnot. I found in my career that that
• 42:21
  Speaker 3: was like a pretty significant misrepresentation. Like the best agents
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: were actually partners, you know, in some regards, I want
• 42:30
  Speaker 3: nothing more than to have to pay your player a
• 42:32
  Speaker 3: lot of money, and that's because he's performed well enough
• 42:34
  Speaker 3: to demand a very high salary. Therefore, he's performed very
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: well for our team and hopefully we've as a result
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: won a lot of games. Like that's actually a really
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: good outcome. The worst contracts I felt I had to
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: negotiate was when you're kind of hammering a guy because
• 42:46
  Speaker 3: he hadn't performed well. He was a disappointment, he was
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: an underachiever, Like, I actually want to pay you a
• 42:51
  Speaker 3: lot of money. And so the best relationships I had
• 42:54
  Speaker 3: with agents, we spent so much more time talking when
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: we weren't negotiating, and kind both pulling on the same
• 43:01
  Speaker 3: end of the rope, you know, like they were helping
• 43:03
  Speaker 3: us try to figure out pass forward for their player
• 43:05
  Speaker 3: to excel. We were doing the same with the common
• 43:08
  Speaker 3: goal that nothing would draw more pleasure for both of
• 43:11
  Speaker 3: us if this player made a lot of money, because
• 43:13
  Speaker 3: that meant he delivered on his promise, and so that
• 43:17
  Speaker 3: was kind of a baseball perspective I just wanted to share.
• 43:19
  Speaker 3: But Ryan, it seems to be most prevalent in the NBA.
• 43:22
  Speaker 3: I know Tom you deal with it as well, but
• 43:24
  Speaker 3: like this notion, and I know that this is part
• 43:27
  Speaker 3: of the nuance of the Micah Parsons an insinuation that
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: he doesn't want to play there anymore. But Ryan, you've
• 43:33
  Speaker 3: dealt with this the most, Like does how does this
• 43:36
  Speaker 3: happen mechanically when an agent tells you hey, or the
• 43:38
  Speaker 3: player tells you, hey, listen, I want to be traded,
• 43:40
  Speaker 3: and then what happens next?
• 43:41
  Speaker 1: From your standpoint, it's one of my biggest frustrations with
• 43:45
  Speaker 1: the NBA, And one of the reasons is, frankly, that
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: I haven't rushed back to the team side. That the
• 43:49
  Speaker 1: players do have a ton of control right now, and
• 43:52
  Speaker 1: to some extent, as they should. And he knows the
• 43:54
  Speaker 1: player empowerment era. These guys are the best athletes in
• 43:56
  Speaker 1: the world, and they're among the very highest paid athletes.
• 44:00
  Speaker 2: In the world.
• 44:01
  Speaker 1: In one of the things, I know it would have
• 44:02
  Speaker 1: been contentions, but I thought in the most recent round
• 44:05
  Speaker 1: of collective bargaining agreement negotiations. The league should have put
• 44:08
  Speaker 1: in some kind of clause that where if a player
• 44:10
  Speaker 1: signed a maximum contract in particular, he could not be
• 44:13
  Speaker 1: traded for a certain period of time. So whether the
• 44:16
  Speaker 1: player wanted to be traded or the team wanted to
• 44:18
  Speaker 1: trade him, I kind of view it like a marriage,
• 44:20
  Speaker 1: where they should try to figure it out at least
• 44:22
  Speaker 1: for a certain period of time, and then toward the
• 44:24
  Speaker 1: back end of the contract, certainly with the year left,
• 44:27
  Speaker 1: maybe with a couple of years left, that would open
• 44:28
  Speaker 1: up and you could trade the player. Because what's happened
• 44:31
  Speaker 1: now in the NBA is I don't think a great
• 44:33
  Speaker 1: trend for the teams in the league. And one of
• 44:36
  Speaker 1: the things I realized working for NBATV was I think
• 44:39
  Speaker 1: it was twenty twenty two. I was heading to Atlanta
• 44:42
  Speaker 1: to do the free agency shows from the Turner Studios
• 44:45
  Speaker 1: and Kevin Durant had just demanded a trade from the
• 44:48
  Speaker 1: Brooklyn Nets, and I'm looking at his contract, I'm saying,
• 44:50
  Speaker 1: wait a minute, he just signed a three year extension
• 44:52
  Speaker 1: last fall and that extension has not started yet, so
• 44:56
  Speaker 1: he wants to be traded from the team that gave
• 44:58
  Speaker 1: him an extension. That technically does not be in for
• 45:00
  Speaker 1: a few more days and has three years left on it.
• 45:02
  Speaker 1: I think that's that's a problem. So but yeah, it's
• 45:05
  Speaker 1: something I think the NBA, you know, it's certainly aware of.
• 45:09
  Speaker 1: But you know, one of these things, and you guys
• 45:11
  Speaker 1: know this. I mean, there are three leagues, NFL, NBA,
• 45:14
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball are the three biggest in the world arguably.
• 45:18
  Speaker 1: So it then becomes a question of what are people
• 45:20
  Speaker 1: willing to go to the mat for and what are
• 45:22
  Speaker 1: people willing to risk work stoppage for it, and and
• 45:25
  Speaker 1: owners losing money and players losing money. And in the NBA,
• 45:28
  Speaker 1: I guess it turns out it was it was not that,
• 45:30
  Speaker 1: but yeah, that's really a town. The players make so
• 45:32
  Speaker 1: much money. The contracts are guaranteed, and the term now
• 45:35
  Speaker 1: that I kind of laugh at now that I'm not
• 45:37
  Speaker 1: of the team site at least, is pre agency. They
• 45:39
  Speaker 1: call it pre agency instead of free agency. Say well,
• 45:42
  Speaker 1: instead of becoming a free agent, why don't you get
• 45:44
  Speaker 1: your money now it's guaranteed. And then if down the
• 45:47
  Speaker 1: road you don't like the situation, the money is guaranteed.
• 45:50
  Speaker 1: Usually your own team can pay you more than any
• 45:52
  Speaker 1: other team can pay you. And then when that money's
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: in the bank and guaranteed demand to trade then. And
• 45:56
  Speaker 1: so that's the way it works in the NBA. I
• 45:59
  Speaker 1: really dislike it. But at the same time, if the
• 46:01
  Speaker 1: league doesn't go to the mat for it and collective bargaining,
• 46:04
  Speaker 1: I don't think that changes anytime soon.
• 46:06
  Speaker 5: Yeah, with all the trade requests I got over the years,
• 46:09
  Speaker 5: basically went in this year and out the other. I
• 46:12
  Speaker 5: never really paid a whole lot of attention to it,
• 46:14
  Speaker 5: like if and that's just some way that we really
• 46:16
  Speaker 5: wanted to trade.
• 46:16
  Speaker 4: But other than that, and I didn't. I just it
• 46:18
  Speaker 4: was just outside noise.
• 46:20
  Speaker 5: But the one thing I learned, and like when I
• 46:22
  Speaker 5: when I came up under Bill Pulling and Bill with
• 46:24
  Speaker 5: his negotiations with agents, it was a war, yelling, screaming war.
• 46:29
  Speaker 4: That's just how we did it, you know.
• 46:30
  Speaker 5: That was his personality worked pretty well at it. My
• 46:34
  Speaker 5: personality is different. But the one thing I learned I
• 46:36
  Speaker 5: learned this from our I had two really good cap
• 46:40
  Speaker 5: and contract negotiators, Salary cap Ed MacGuire with the Chargers
• 46:43
  Speaker 5: and then one year at Tom Delaney with the Raiders.
• 46:46
  Speaker 5: And what I learned from those guys is it's up
• 46:48
  Speaker 5: to us to come up with solutions. You know, it's
• 46:51
  Speaker 5: usually a player we want to pay, and there's plenty
• 46:53
  Speaker 5: of good agents out there. They do the same thing,
• 46:55
  Speaker 5: just from a different side. But let's come up with
• 46:57
  Speaker 5: a solution to get this done. And some time it
• 47:00
  Speaker 5: takes longer than others. But that's what it's about, is
• 47:02
  Speaker 5: just trying to you know, hey, there's certain non negotiables
• 47:05
  Speaker 5: for us that this we have to have, but we
• 47:08
  Speaker 5: can move on this agent will give you, Hey, this
• 47:10
  Speaker 5: is what we have to have, but there they would
• 47:13
  Speaker 5: never say like this, but we have some movement here.
• 47:15
  Speaker 5: But that's and that's how you start moving things around.
• 47:17
  Speaker 5: And my year with the Raiders with Tom Delaney, he
• 47:20
  Speaker 5: was so good at that. I've just kind of come
• 47:23
  Speaker 5: up with options and solutions rather than us just saying, hey,
• 47:27
  Speaker 5: this is what we're offering is take it or leave it.
• 47:29
  Speaker 5: You know, that doesn't get you anywhere, and usually that
• 47:31
  Speaker 5: take it. I would never say take or leave it
• 47:33
  Speaker 5: because that pretty much puts you in a box. You know,
• 47:37
  Speaker 5: whatever you tell an agent like I want to be
• 47:38
  Speaker 5: honest up front, and I'm never going to say take
• 47:40
  Speaker 5: or leave it and then we move on it later.
• 47:42
  Speaker 5: That'd be awful. It would kill my reputation. But it's
• 47:45
  Speaker 5: our jobs as GMS is come up with solutions. We had,
• 47:50
  Speaker 5: but one of my bigger regrets we drafted Melvin Gordon
• 47:53
  Speaker 5: with the with the Chargers, and I love Melvin Gordon.
• 47:56
  Speaker 5: He was a really good player for us, but then
• 47:58
  Speaker 5: he was holding out and it's up to me to
• 48:01
  Speaker 5: come up with a solution, and we just couldn't come
• 48:03
  Speaker 5: up with a solution. That was one of the few
• 48:05
  Speaker 5: times that we just couldn't get just couldn't get it done.
• 48:08
  Speaker 5: So we ended up he ended up holding out for
• 48:09
  Speaker 5: a while, end up coming in and then he held
• 48:12
  Speaker 5: off for so long, probably didn't have a great year.
• 48:14
  Speaker 5: We end up extending Austin Eckler instead, and then Melvin
• 48:17
  Speaker 5: moved on in free agency to the Broncos. But I
• 48:20
  Speaker 5: always kind of prided myself on to find a way,
• 48:23
  Speaker 5: even if it takes forever, we've got to find a
• 48:25
  Speaker 5: way to work our way through.
• 48:26
  Speaker 4: Is that one we didn't quite get there.
• 48:29
  Speaker 5: But you know, that's our job is to It's to
• 48:32
  Speaker 5: come up with solutions and answers to problems, and sometimes
• 48:36
  Speaker 5: we're better than others at it.
• 48:37
  Speaker 4: But that's a big part of the job.
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: And Tom, I think I think my experience echoes yours,
• 48:42
  Speaker 3: which is I think the responsibility was on the executive
• 48:45
  Speaker 3: side more than the agent side. I would say the
• 48:47
  Speaker 3: vast majority of deals I've negotiated, whether there were contract extension,
• 48:51
  Speaker 3: free agent deals, trades, what you hear on the other
• 48:54
  Speaker 3: side at some point is like, well, there's nothing more
• 48:55
  Speaker 3: we have to talk about, and like if you take
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: that at face value, or if you take the this
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: is the taket to leave it at face value, you
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: just don't get deals done. It becomes emotional, it becomes irrational.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: So I felt like the science of getting a deal
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: done was being prepared, knowing all the information, knowing where
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: a fair deal was, what the range for fair was
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: in that deal. I think the art form, though, was
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: to listen as best you could, to hearing what are
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: other things this player wants? What are the quality of
• 49:22
  Speaker 3: life things that I can deliver? Then maybe don't have
• 49:24
  Speaker 3: as much value to me that I can really give on.
• 49:27
  Speaker 3: And then when you hear no, it's not that you
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: throw it up your hands and say, well, I guess
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: there's nothing we can do here, but rather it's like, okay,
• 49:33
  Speaker 3: now we're going back to the drawing board. And I
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: don't mean to sound anything inappropriate here, but I feel
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: like there were so many times where I was negotiating
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: both sides of the deal because you had to equip
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: the agent with the arguments he could take back to
• 49:47
  Speaker 3: the player to make the player feel good about signing
• 49:49
  Speaker 3: the deal. And so you did it subtly. You tried
• 49:52
  Speaker 3: to get the guy on board and collaborate with them,
• 49:54
  Speaker 3: but buying large, what you're doing is you want to
• 49:56
  Speaker 3: make sure he feels comfortable at the deal. It was
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: very rare that one point two million was the absolute
• 50:01
  Speaker 3: right number. One point one was absolutely wrong. It was
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: the feel associated with the numbers. If you could get
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: to drill down what is the feel, what matters to them,
• 50:10
  Speaker 3: deliver rational arguments to justify why one point one is
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: better than one point two, you can oftentimes prevail. When
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: the agent is taking the posture there's nothing more for
• 50:19
  Speaker 3: us to talk about. And so I think that was
• 50:22
  Speaker 3: really important to me in these negotiations. Ryan, how was
• 50:25
  Speaker 3: that for you?
• 50:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with that. It was absolutely the same.
• 50:29
  Speaker 1: And one of the things that you know, movies and
• 50:31
  Speaker 1: to some extent even the more mainstream media over dramatizes
• 50:34
  Speaker 1: is the you know, screw you, I'm never doing business
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: with you again. An executive on one side and an
• 50:39
  Speaker 1: agent on the other shouting at each other and then
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: vowing never to speak again. That doesn't happen, or it
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: can't happen, because, especially in the NBA, the big agencies,
• 50:48
  Speaker 1: you know, c A. Wasserman, Clutch sal you know, they
• 50:51
  Speaker 1: control a lot of players. And if you do that,
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: you're shooting yourself on the foot regardless of what happens
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: or doesn't happen with this player. So that's not really
• 50:58
  Speaker 1: something that happens, at least in the NBA. Taed, I
• 51:01
  Speaker 1: have a question for you that it's similar, but I
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: think a little bit different slant relative to arbitration. And
• 51:07
  Speaker 1: it ties into what you were just saying, because talking
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: to Major League Baseball executives, a lot of whom are
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: friends of mine and ours, you know, a lot of
• 51:14
  Speaker 1: mutual friends in that group, A lot of them will say, look,
• 51:16
  Speaker 1: we want to avoid arbitration because in Major League Baseball,
• 51:19
  Speaker 1: arbitration essentially you're saying everything you don't like about your player,
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: and then the player and the agent hear that, and
• 51:25
  Speaker 1: that really damages the relationship. So I want to get
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: your take on that, because I do think it ties
• 51:30
  Speaker 1: into what we're talking about. You want to be fair,
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: you want to be principled. Yes, everybody wants to get
• 51:34
  Speaker 1: a good deal in a negotiation, but at the same time,
• 51:37
  Speaker 1: you don't want to burn the relationship so badly or
• 51:39
  Speaker 1: push so hard that you've fractured that relationship between the
• 51:42
  Speaker 1: player and the team.
• 51:44
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's a great question. So for major League baseball players,
• 51:47
  Speaker 3: the first six years of their career, we control them.
• 51:50
  Speaker 3: The first three years is called pre arbitration. It's actually
• 51:52
  Speaker 3: unilateral negotiations, so we effectively dictate what they're going to
• 51:56
  Speaker 3: get paid. They have to get paid at least the
• 51:58
  Speaker 3: major league minimum, and they get raises. For the first
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: three years, you ideally come to a negotiated agreement, but
• 52:03
  Speaker 3: by and large, I can just tell you you're getting
• 52:05
  Speaker 3: paid seven hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
• 52:07
  Speaker 2: That's it.
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: Then the next three years they enter into arbitration, which
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: is a bilateral negotiation. Their agent now comes into play,
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: and if we don't come to a negotiated agreement, we
• 52:17
  Speaker 3: both submit figures to a panel, and so we submit
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: a number that's lower they submit a number that's higher,
• 52:23
  Speaker 3: and then the panel we both make presentations in front
• 52:26
  Speaker 3: of a panel. The panel literally at the beginning of
• 52:29
  Speaker 3: this process, we both sign a contract that is a
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: blank contract, so I sign on the bottom on behalf
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: of the club. The player signs on behalf of himself.
• 52:37
  Speaker 3: The one line that's empty is how much we're paying them,
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: and we give that to the panel. At the end
• 52:41
  Speaker 3: of it, they effectively deliver the contract back with either
• 52:44
  Speaker 3: the player's salary or our salary as the salary that
• 52:47
  Speaker 3: will govern their earning potential for the next year. But
• 52:50
  Speaker 3: during that time, as you illuminated, we have to justify
• 52:53
  Speaker 3: why the lower figure makes sense. They have to justify
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: a way the higher figure makes sense. What I always
• 52:58
  Speaker 3: thought were the best arbitration cases to go I went
• 53:00
  Speaker 3: to was when the player was excellent and we're saying, hey,
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: we think he's excellent. They think he's excellent. Now we
• 53:05
  Speaker 3: just have to determine in this lexicount of how excellent
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: they are, where do they fit. The worst were when
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: it was a player who really struggled because the mechanics
• 53:15
  Speaker 3: of it, as you're literally sitting the width of a
• 53:18
  Speaker 3: table across from the players staring him in the eyes
• 53:20
  Speaker 3: and either you're presenting it or your legal representative is
• 53:23
  Speaker 3: presenting why the person has fallen short and why he
• 53:27
  Speaker 3: doesn't deserve anything, and then you break afterwards, everyone has
• 53:30
  Speaker 3: a you know, a club sandwich. We both get on
• 53:33
  Speaker 3: the plane and go back to spring training and say, hey,
• 53:34
  Speaker 3: no hard feelings, and you have this look in there
• 53:36
  Speaker 3: eye were like, I think there may have been some
• 53:38
  Speaker 3: hard feelings here, and so most teams try to avoid
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: those things at all costs. I did find the best
• 53:45
  Speaker 3: ones to go into. Or when you're talking about Vlad
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: Guerrero and how awesome he was, or you know, these
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: guys who've done some epically good things, when you're talking
• 53:52
  Speaker 3: about the players who faltered, it is it is a
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: hell of a thing to do, because it's hard not
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: to come in off as being a owner's employee trying
• 54:00
  Speaker 3: to keep the little player down and really highlighting all
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: their flaws in front of a room of people. It
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: just comes across very, very inhumane.
• 54:08
  Speaker 5: I think actually that just triggers something with me because
• 54:11
  Speaker 5: I know you guys have been through this before. So
• 54:13
  Speaker 5: I mean, a GM has two negotiations, one with the
• 54:16
  Speaker 5: player agent, one with your own ownership because you have
• 54:18
  Speaker 5: to tell ownership, hey, this is why I want to
• 54:20
  Speaker 5: invest this much money in this player, and you got
• 54:22
  Speaker 5: to really spell it out. And then if that number
• 54:24
  Speaker 5: starts to creep up, you have to go back to
• 54:27
  Speaker 5: ownership and say, look, I know it's going to cost
• 54:29
  Speaker 5: this much, but this is where I think it's going
• 54:31
  Speaker 5: to go. Those aren't great conversation to have, especially if
• 54:34
  Speaker 5: you really miss which that would not be a good sign.
• 54:37
  Speaker 5: But because part of the negotiation is there has to
• 54:41
  Speaker 5: be an end point somewhere, like you got to decide
• 54:43
  Speaker 5: where that is, and it can't you can't tell an
• 54:46
  Speaker 5: owner you know, hey, this is where my endpoint is
• 54:48
  Speaker 5: and then come back in hey, you know I got
• 54:50
  Speaker 5: to spend.
• 54:50
  Speaker 4: An extra four million dollars. That doesn't go well.
• 54:53
  Speaker 5: I remember with different, little different situation, but we had
• 54:56
  Speaker 5: drafted Hunter Henry at tight end from Arkansas outstanding play,
• 55:00
  Speaker 5: one of my favorite players when I was with the
• 55:02
  Speaker 5: Chargers and thought he'd be with us for ten plus years.
• 55:05
  Speaker 5: It's a high level tight end. You know, we were
• 55:07
  Speaker 5: gonna pair him with the Antonio Gates for a while.
• 55:09
  Speaker 5: When when Gates retires and goes to canton we got
• 55:12
  Speaker 5: Hunter Henry to come in. Well, he was a free agent,
• 55:16
  Speaker 5: but our offensive line was very weak at that point.
• 55:19
  Speaker 5: I want to invest more money in the offensive line,
• 55:22
  Speaker 5: especially at center. So we had a line for Hunter
• 55:26
  Speaker 5: Henry that I was hoping to get him for, but
• 55:28
  Speaker 5: it realized the market it may not get there, and
• 55:31
  Speaker 5: the Patriots offered him a lot more and end up
• 55:34
  Speaker 5: using his money to go get Corey Linsley, who was
• 55:36
  Speaker 5: a center from the Packers, which was a great signing
• 55:39
  Speaker 5: for us. You'm going to a Pro Bowl and he
• 55:41
  Speaker 5: was a really good player. But it was painful to
• 55:43
  Speaker 5: let one of our own go because now we're fixing
• 55:46
  Speaker 5: other areas of the roster. But trying to find out
• 55:48
  Speaker 5: where that jumping off point is is really really difficult. Now,
• 55:52
  Speaker 5: if you're closed, you can kind of reason it, but
• 55:55
  Speaker 5: you know, if it's a pretty big gap and you
• 55:56
  Speaker 5: got to let a guy go that you want to keep,
• 55:59
  Speaker 5: but those are that that's why the GM has to
• 56:01
  Speaker 5: sit down with this captain contract staff and really discuss
• 56:05
  Speaker 5: where's the market for this player. So we know going
• 56:08
  Speaker 5: in and you know our surprise in the end.
• 56:11
  Speaker 4: Tom.
• 56:11
  Speaker 3: I think it also works the other way, which is
• 56:14
  Speaker 3: if you tell the agent, Hey, I think this guy's
• 56:16
  Speaker 3: worth five million, and then you come back and sign
• 56:17
  Speaker 3: them for two million. It also looks like you're sandbagging
• 56:20
  Speaker 3: it a little bit. So it's really important to I think,
• 56:23
  Speaker 3: know the marketplace, but also be fair in your proposals,
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: like we're not looking to, you know, vanquish the foe
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: in these negotiations. We do want to treat the players fairly.
• 56:31
  Speaker 3: We want to get a deal closer to our end
• 56:33
  Speaker 3: of fair. But I never approached these as a negotiation
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: where I was seeking an adda boy from the owner
• 56:39
  Speaker 3: because I told them the player's worth four million, and
• 56:41
  Speaker 3: I got them for a million dollars less like I
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: want to treat the players fairly, like I want them
• 56:45
  Speaker 3: to not be disgruntled. But Tom, I just wanted to
• 56:48
  Speaker 3: follow up with you because I think you bring up
• 56:49
  Speaker 3: an extremely important point here, which is the relationship with owners.
• 56:53
  Speaker 3: And over the course of your last three steps, you
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: work for three of the more storied franchises. You get
• 57:00
  Speaker 3: to work for the Ersay family, the Spanos family, and
• 57:03
  Speaker 3: then the Davis family. I will say personally, because I
• 57:07
  Speaker 3: grew up in Northern Virginia, nineteen eighty four was a
• 57:09
  Speaker 3: dark day when mister Ersay took the Colts away from us.
• 57:13
  Speaker 3: So I don't have the most fond memories of the
• 57:15
  Speaker 3: Ersay family, But talk to us a little bit about
• 57:17
  Speaker 3: the you know, forging relationships with those three incredible families,
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: and how much I played into your experience and your
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: satisfaction on the job working for those three franchises.
• 57:28
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 57:28
  Speaker 5: Well, first, you know jim Irsay, who was who just
• 57:31
  Speaker 5: passed away. He was a lot different than his dad.
• 57:33
  Speaker 5: His dad to move the Colts from Baltimore, so Jim
• 57:36
  Speaker 5: was a completely different guy. But I wasn't in the
• 57:38
  Speaker 5: GMC with the Colts. I'd see Bill Pollyne work with
• 57:41
  Speaker 5: jim Irsay, but I wasn't part of that a whole lot.
• 57:44
  Speaker 5: But again, it was a family run team, so that
• 57:46
  Speaker 5: was very I was used to seeing that now with
• 57:49
  Speaker 5: the Spanos family and then Mark Davis. Again, I was
• 57:52
  Speaker 5: just used to the family atmosphere and used to people
• 57:55
  Speaker 5: that have owned the team for really for most of
• 57:57
  Speaker 5: their lives. I mean the Ersay family. Jim Mersey was
• 58:01
  Speaker 5: I think a teenager when his dad bought the team,
• 58:03
  Speaker 5: so he grew up in the business. Dean Spanles was
• 58:06
  Speaker 5: a little bit older when his dad bought the team,
• 58:08
  Speaker 5: but Dean essentially grew up around NFL football with the
• 58:11
  Speaker 5: Chargers that Mark Davis, you know, basically from birth until
• 58:14
  Speaker 5: now has been in the NFL. So I think it
• 58:17
  Speaker 5: was important number one, to kind of tap into that
• 58:21
  Speaker 5: guidance can come from anywhere, and even though the owner
• 58:24
  Speaker 5: is hiring you to make the football decisions, there were
• 58:27
  Speaker 5: still a lot of things. First of all, owners they
• 58:29
  Speaker 5: want to have some input. I mean they should, it's
• 58:31
  Speaker 5: their team, a billion dollar team that they own. But like, like,
• 58:35
  Speaker 5: like Dean Spance was great on league matters and kind
• 58:38
  Speaker 5: of comparing to you know, how things worked in the
• 58:41
  Speaker 5: league before I was in the league and trying to
• 58:43
  Speaker 5: get some some advice and guidance from that, and then
• 58:47
  Speaker 5: Mark Davis.
• 58:48
  Speaker 4: Had really seen everything.
• 58:50
  Speaker 5: But it was really big on Really with any ownership
• 58:53
  Speaker 5: is just communication of not just what you're doing, but
• 58:57
  Speaker 5: why you're doing it. I was so lucky you like
• 59:00
  Speaker 5: both both Dean and Mark Davis. They gave me the
• 59:04
  Speaker 5: unilateral authority to make the decisions, which not every team
• 59:09
  Speaker 5: I think has.
• 59:11
  Speaker 4: But it was always hey, this is the why.
• 59:12
  Speaker 5: Behind it, and explain, hey, look and if it doesn't work,
• 59:15
  Speaker 5: this is why it didn't work and have no pri
• 59:17
  Speaker 5: I never had any problems like admitting, hey, look this
• 59:20
  Speaker 5: is what we thought going in, we knew this with
• 59:21
  Speaker 5: the downside, Well guess what we hit the downside. You're
• 59:23
  Speaker 5: just not gonna be right on every decision. But I
• 59:25
  Speaker 5: think the biggest thing is giving the why to the
• 59:28
  Speaker 5: decisions you're making, just to give some thought and clarity there.
• 59:32
  Speaker 5: What was easy with with with the Chargers and Raiders
• 59:35
  Speaker 5: as ownership was in the building a lot, so communication
• 59:38
  Speaker 5: was super simple. You know, you weren't on the phone
• 59:40
  Speaker 5: trying to chase people down. They weren't all over the
• 59:42
  Speaker 5: world like they were invested in their teams and they
• 59:45
  Speaker 5: were around and that just makes everything just you know,
• 59:49
  Speaker 5: it could be like a fifteen minute conversation, you know,
• 59:51
  Speaker 5: just some passing or you know, demad come down to
• 59:53
  Speaker 5: my office except for you know, ten or fifteen minutes
• 59:55
  Speaker 5: to kind of give an update of you know, kind
• 59:57
  Speaker 5: of where we are, and then you'd move on somewhere else.
• 1:00:00
  Speaker 5: But like, it was just easy communication. Same with Mark Davis.
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 5: Mark was in the building every single day. You know,
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 5: he wasn't a controlling owner, but he wanted to know
• 1:00:09
  Speaker 5: what's going on which was good, and you give him updates,
• 1:00:12
  Speaker 5: you know, throughout the throughout the day or throughout the week.
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 5: And I just think that's that's a major part of
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 5: the GM's job is to keep ownership abreast of what's
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 5: going on, and you know the why behind the making decision,
• 1:00:24
  Speaker 5: or the why behind why you're not making decision, why
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 5: you're not.
• 1:00:26
  Speaker 4: Going to make this move, this this.
• 1:00:29
  Speaker 5: Player that's out there, boy, he sounds great. Are you
• 1:00:31
  Speaker 5: guys gonna go after him? Well, the answers no, But
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 5: these are the reasons why. So just having that, you know,
• 1:00:36
  Speaker 5: back and forth, I think it's really important.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: Tom.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 1: One of the things that's going to get a lot
• 1:00:41
  Speaker 1: of discussion over the next week or so leading up
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 1: to Opening Night in the NFL are the win totals.
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 1: We'll see every prominent media member will have some kind
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 1: of prediction this team is going to win the Super Bowl.
• 1:00:51
  Speaker 1: Here are the teams we like the over on the
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 1: sports betting. Here are the teams we think are going
• 1:00:55
  Speaker 1: to underperform. In your time with the Chargers and Ray,
• 1:01:00
  Speaker 1: is that something that you talked about at all? Would
• 1:01:02
  Speaker 1: you use that, you know, with the coaches, with the
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 1: players either, you know, in terms of encouragement. Hey, people
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 1: think we're going to be pretty good and I think
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 1: so as well, or you know, take the other side
• 1:01:11
  Speaker 1: of it. Nobody really believes in us, right right, this
• 1:01:14
  Speaker 1: is disrespectful. Is that something that would get talked about
• 1:01:17
  Speaker 1: at all inside NFL locker rooms?
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 2: From your experience, you know what, not much.
• 1:01:22
  Speaker 5: I know my last year at the Colts Andrew Lux
• 1:01:25
  Speaker 5: rookie year, we were I don't know where it was.
• 1:01:28
  Speaker 5: We were picked to finish like, you know, thirtieth in
• 1:01:30
  Speaker 5: the league or something like that. So we made a
• 1:01:32
  Speaker 5: big deal out of that kind of chip on our shoulder,
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 5: and you know, everyone thinks we suck, and actually we
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 5: actually made the playoffs that year. But other than that,
• 1:01:41
  Speaker 5: I don't really remember talking about it too much. I know,
• 1:01:43
  Speaker 5: I know they talk about win totals in baseball a lot,
• 1:01:45
  Speaker 5: and it's actually it's amazing. It seems like like those
• 1:01:48
  Speaker 5: win totals before the season kind of really bear out
• 1:01:50
  Speaker 5: in the end, which is amazing to me. NFL to me,
• 1:01:54
  Speaker 5: it is literally it's week to week and my philosopher's always, hey,
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 5: look we're going to line up in play seventeen games,
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 5: will add them up at the end.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 4: Of the year.
• 1:02:01
  Speaker 5: Like, I was never focused on, Hey, what's the end
• 1:02:03
  Speaker 5: win total? Hey, this is where I think we can be.
• 1:02:05
  Speaker 5: I think we can be a ten win team, a
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 5: twelve win team. I was just worried about game to
• 1:02:10
  Speaker 5: game to game, and.
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 4: That's It's like each week is really a season end itself.
• 1:02:15
  Speaker 5: In football, it's just a lot different. So I never
• 1:02:18
  Speaker 5: really paid too much attention to the win total predictions.
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 5: But I was kind of fascinated in baseball that I've
• 1:02:23
  Speaker 5: seen those before the season and then seen after the
• 1:02:26
  Speaker 5: season and see like how remarkable, Like how many of
• 1:02:29
  Speaker 5: those kind of hit football.
• 1:02:31
  Speaker 4: Probably it doesn't seem like it's the same, but it
• 1:02:33
  Speaker 4: wasn't discussed a whole lot of lease around me.
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and Tom, I think it has become more prevalent
• 1:02:39
  Speaker 3: in baseball. I think for a long time we were
• 1:02:41
  Speaker 3: not as responsive to those things, and now we're realizing
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 3: that some of these sites out there, Fangrafts as an example,
• 1:02:49
  Speaker 3: they really do a nice job, and they're doing it
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 3: based upon a real in depth assessment of your talent,
• 1:02:55
  Speaker 3: how it compares to your division, your schedule, and then
• 1:02:59
  Speaker 3: it kind gives you a sense of like, okay, based
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: upon your talent and the schedule it maps to a
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: certain number of wins, and I think the way Baseball
• 1:03:07
  Speaker 3: looked at it mostly was like, you're less attentive to
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: the extraal win total, but more the ordinal rank, Like
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 3: where do we rank in our division based upon this
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: assessment of our talent and what are the gaps and
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 3: how do we see it? Because make no mistake, every
• 1:03:22
  Speaker 3: Major League Baseball team also has their own system that
• 1:03:25
  Speaker 3: they're overlaying with this. But I think the one thing
• 1:03:28
  Speaker 3: to just be honest about these systems is these systems
• 1:03:31
  Speaker 3: recommend certain types of players. You go acquire those types
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 3: of players. Therefore, most teams like their own systems more
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: because you've acquired the players that the systems identified as
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: being more valuable than other teams value those players. So really,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: when you're looking for the really objective viewpoint, you do
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: go to places like fangrafts and you look at it.
• 1:03:50
  Speaker 3: And I think we always use that you referenced it
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: earlier the conversations with ownership to try to offer like
• 1:03:55
  Speaker 3: kind of a level set before the season of you know,
• 1:03:58
  Speaker 3: we're all probably a little bit in the business of
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: under promising and over delivering, but you do want to
• 1:04:03
  Speaker 3: provide that empirical data of Hey, listen, you know the
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: fans are whipped into a fervor we just signed a
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: great tree agent, but in practice, on paper, it still
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: looks like we're slated to be the second or third
• 1:04:13
  Speaker 3: best team in the division. And you know, I just
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: remember talking to players in the past Michael Young jumps
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: out to me where he would say, you know, I'd
• 1:04:20
  Speaker 3: have to say, like, if this team doesn't do well
• 1:04:23
  Speaker 3: and we do well, then something could happen. Well, you
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: want to do a stand up in front of a
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: group of people and say, if everyone in our division
• 1:04:28
  Speaker 3: plays to the best of their ability, we're going to
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: still kick their butt. Because like that, when you have
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: too many if then statements that need to be answered
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: positively to win, that doesn't mean you can't win, but
• 1:04:38
  Speaker 3: it also means you're kind of fighting an up till battle.
• 1:04:41
  Speaker 3: When I was always asked like, how many games do
• 1:04:42
  Speaker 3: you think you guys are going to win this year?
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: I would always say the target is to win at
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: least one more than the second place team, and I
• 1:04:48
  Speaker 3: didn't care if we did that with eighty two wins,
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: the ninety two wins or one hundred two wins. If
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: we're in the playoffs and playing home home games in
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: the playoffs, I'll consider that a successful season. But I
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: do think a lot of those preseason numbers have become
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: much more. They've tracked much more in baseball recently than
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: they ever once did. Ryan, does that apply to the
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: NBA at all?
• 1:05:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'd say the sports books across sports, but speaking
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 1: from an NBA perspective, are pretty sharp. I mean they're
• 1:05:15
  Speaker 1: pretty accurate. In fact, I have somebodies who'd asked me,
• 1:05:17
  Speaker 1: you know, the preseason, Hey, what do you think? And
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: I'll look at all thirty teams and just give them
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 1: privately some advice, and I'll say, these twenty five or
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 1: so majority of league, I wouldn't touch those because to me,
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 1: those look right on the number. And then I think,
• 1:05:28
  Speaker 1: you know, there are a couple of handful or less,
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 1: say three to five the standout say actually, personally, I
• 1:05:33
  Speaker 1: think this team's going to be a little better or
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 1: a little worse than the win total. But yeah, something
• 1:05:38
  Speaker 1: and Tom made a great point earlier. So much of
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 1: it is what do you say to your locker room,
• 1:05:43
  Speaker 1: what do you say to the media, the fans? All that,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 1: But then also what do you say to the owner,
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 1: Because I worked for a couple of different owners, one
• 1:05:49
  Speaker 1: in particular was very unrealistic, where around the draft, you'd
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 1: want to win the draft, you'd want to make trades,
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: you want to load up on young players, and then
• 1:05:56
  Speaker 1: the roster be set. Opening night would be upon us,
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 1: and you say, our goals to make the playoffs, And
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: we said, that's not really how we built this thing.
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: Looking backwards, if we knew that, we would have done
• 1:06:05
  Speaker 1: a lot differently over the last few months in terms
• 1:06:07
  Speaker 1: of trying to build for the future. So you hope
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 1: that yes, obviously, outwardly you're always projecting confident within reason,
• 1:06:14
  Speaker 1: but confidence enthusiasm, and we're try to win as many
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 1: games as possible. But then internally you think and hope
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 1: that everybody from the owner to the business side and
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 1: on down is realistic about what it is, because you know,
• 1:06:25
  Speaker 1: not all thirty two NFL teams have a chance to
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 1: win the championship when the game start next week. We
• 1:06:30
  Speaker 1: know that, but the challenge is that the people in
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 1: the building know that. And if you're building for something,
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 1: especially long term over time, do the fans know that?
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 1: Are they going to be patient with it? And you
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 1: guys know, these things have certain ebbs and flows and
• 1:06:42
  Speaker 1: life cycles. Sometimes, even if you're doing the right thing
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 1: in the short term, on a rebuild, you run out
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: of time and don't get to see it through on
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 1: the back end.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 4: So the perfect tagline for the podcast should be under
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 4: sell over deliver.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: It's a good way. It correlateshime to job security. I
• 1:07:01
  Speaker 3: would say, Tom, you've been exceptionally generous with your time.
• 1:07:05
  Speaker 3: I have one last question for you before we let
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: you go, and understand you may want to plead the
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: fifth here, but if you would share with us, here's
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: another thing that I think is over dramatized in movies,
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: which is, you know, all of these jobs are meant
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: to come to an end at some point. There's a
• 1:07:21
  Speaker 3: reason the three of us are talking today here. We've
• 1:07:23
  Speaker 3: all had these experiences. You had a great run with
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: the San Diego Chargers. It comes to an end.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 2: What is that take?
• 1:07:31
  Speaker 3: Take the listener inside the conversation. What is that conversation
• 1:07:34
  Speaker 3: like when you're notified that you know your time with
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: the Chargers has come to an end.
• 1:07:39
  Speaker 4: Oh boy, we're ending this on a really high note.
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 4: That say what for me?
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 5: It was we had because I got let go during
• 1:07:48
  Speaker 5: the season at the end of the season.
• 1:07:50
  Speaker 4: I don't even know. It was like maybe four weeks ago.
• 1:07:52
  Speaker 5: We had just played Thursday night at the Raiders, so
• 1:07:55
  Speaker 5: pretty big rival.
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 4: And we lost. It was I don't know, sixty something
• 1:07:59
  Speaker 4: to twelve. I lost track.
• 1:08:03
  Speaker 5: It was one of the worst games I'd ever seen
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 5: a team play, was how we played that day, and
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 5: we gave up just a ton of points. And I
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 5: guess being in the league long enough and I knew
• 1:08:12
  Speaker 5: what the stakes were.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 4: We had made the.
• 1:08:13
  Speaker 5: Playoffs the year before, it had a really tough loss
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 5: that Jacksonville were up big at the in the first
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 5: half and then lost. I kind of knew going into
• 1:08:21
  Speaker 5: the next year, I've been there eleven years. If we
• 1:08:24
  Speaker 5: don't win big in the playoffs this year, my time's
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 5: probably up. And I understood that and was and was
• 1:08:30
  Speaker 5: okay with that. Like I had a pretty good run,
• 1:08:32
  Speaker 5: so it didn't it doesn't mean you're not competitive. But
• 1:08:36
  Speaker 5: so after that Raiders game, I came into work next morning,
• 1:08:39
  Speaker 5: I could just feel like, this is this is not
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 5: isn't going to end well.
• 1:08:42
  Speaker 4: I can tell that.
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 5: So I didn't know exactly when, but all so when
• 1:08:47
  Speaker 5: and then I got let go of that morning. And
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 5: you know, it's tough because you were with one I
• 1:08:53
  Speaker 5: was with them for eleven years, and and you know,
• 1:08:55
  Speaker 5: with ownership for that long, and you know, you worked
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 5: side by side through a lot of difficult situations, become
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 5: really tight with people. But it's also professional sports, you
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 5: know how it works. But I remember going home that
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 5: day and I was just exhausted. I mean, it's, as
• 1:09:09
  Speaker 5: you guys know, like it's a twenty four to seven job,
• 1:09:12
  Speaker 5: three hundred and sixty five days a year.
• 1:09:14
  Speaker 4: It's always on your mind.
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 5: Like even on a Friday night, if I'm out to
• 1:09:18
  Speaker 5: dinner with my wife and some friends, and it could
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 5: be in season or out of season. I may be
• 1:09:23
  Speaker 5: discussing non football stuff with somebody, but it's it's still
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 5: in my head, like you're always just thinking about the
• 1:09:29
  Speaker 5: next move, the next transaction, what we have to do,
• 1:09:32
  Speaker 5: Concerned about this, concerned about that.
• 1:09:34
  Speaker 4: It just never goes away.
• 1:09:36
  Speaker 5: So it was just a sense of just take a
• 1:09:40
  Speaker 5: step back and just kind of get refreshed. And and
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 5: like I said, I was really grateful for the time
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 5: I had there and the relationships I made, and I
• 1:09:47
  Speaker 5: thought we did a good job.
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 4: There just not good enough. And then I you know,
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 4: rolled right into the Raiders' job, which I didn't expect.
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 5: You know, it's just life in the NFL, but.
• 1:09:57
  Speaker 4: But yeah, it was.
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 5: You know, we all know the time comes for all.
• 1:10:01
  Speaker 5: Very few of us are going to just have this
• 1:10:03
  Speaker 5: job and then retire on our own and you know,
• 1:10:06
  Speaker 5: move on to doing podcasts like this. So you always
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 5: and it's always you know in the back of your mind, O, hey,
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 5: what would I do if I don't work.
• 1:10:13
  Speaker 4: As a GM.
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 5: Well, for a lot of us is go back to
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 5: a team and you know, maybe as a consultant, maybe
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 5: as an assistant GM whatever it is, or maybe you know,
• 1:10:21
  Speaker 5: do some media stuff like we're doing right now and
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 5: just kind of educating people on our experiences and telling
• 1:10:25
  Speaker 5: some stories and give some perspective what goes in the job.
• 1:10:28
  Speaker 5: So no complaints. For me, I've been extremely lucky. I
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 5: knew that when I had the job, never took it
• 1:10:35
  Speaker 5: for granted a day in my life, and just really
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 5: enjoyed just I enjoyed leading people.
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 4: That was kind of the best part of.
• 1:10:40
  Speaker 5: The job is you get a chance to kind of
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 5: implement your vision and people, you know, and lead people
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 5: it's fun, but you also know at some point it's
• 1:10:49
  Speaker 5: gonna end like it did for the three of us.
• 1:10:51
  Speaker 5: But now we got all the answers because we're on
• 1:10:52
  Speaker 5: a podcast, so there's got no no no owners, no agents,
• 1:10:58
  Speaker 5: no players. You know, we can just you know, give
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 5: all of our answers and like we're always right.
• 1:11:03
  Speaker 3: When I ultimately had a conversation with the twins and
• 1:11:07
  Speaker 3: parted ways, much to my surprise, it ended with owner
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: Joe Pollett and team president Dave San Peter both standing
• 1:11:13
  Speaker 3: up and giving me a hug at the end, and
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: I was like, this isn't how I was expecting this
• 1:11:17
  Speaker 3: all to go down. I've watched the movies where people
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: are throwing chairs and you know, lighting things on fire
• 1:11:22
  Speaker 3: as they slammed doors on the way out. It's like,
• 1:11:24
  Speaker 3: and here we are hugging each other and.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 4: The same thing.
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 5: You know, like in sports, like you're you're working with people.
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 5: It's it's wins and losses, highs and lows. It's just
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 5: it's not your regular dusk job. So you end up
• 1:11:35
  Speaker 5: getting really connected with the people you work for. And
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 5: I wasn't mad. I was disappointed, but I wasn't mad.
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 4: I was being let go. I was more disappointed that
• 1:11:43
  Speaker 4: I couldn't deliver to them what they hired me to do,
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 4: Like you just couldn't get over the hump. That's what
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 4: I felt worse.
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 5: About, is just couldn't you know, I just couldn't get there.
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 5: And same thing with the Raiders, or just couldn't couldn't
• 1:11:55
  Speaker 5: deliver what I was hired for. Is that That's usually
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 5: the first thing that entered my mind more so than Hey, look,
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 5: I wasn't given a chance like the Raiders hired me
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 5: right off coming getting let go by the Chargers, so
• 1:12:04
  Speaker 5: you know, I can't complain about that.
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 4: They gave me an opportunity.
• 1:12:07
  Speaker 5: You know, things change, so but yeah, I mean we're
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 5: paid to win and if you don't win enough, then
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 5: go get somebody else.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 2: Yeah.
• 1:12:16
  Speaker 1: The thing that stands out for me when I get
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 1: let go as GM of the Phoenix Suns was it's
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 1: kind of an out of body experience that may sound
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 1: weird to our listeners, but I was thinking about everybody
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 1: else but myself. You know, I'm thinking about my wife
• 1:12:28
  Speaker 1: and the kids, how are they going to be? And
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 1: then the staff in particular, that's where my mind immediately jumps. Hey, well,
• 1:12:34
  Speaker 1: if they're making a change at the top or a
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 1: bunch of these men and women who are great people,
• 1:12:38
  Speaker 1: work hard. You guys know that people behind the scenes
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 1: do a ton of the work and get very little credit.
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 1: You know, they're not making GM or head coach money,
• 1:12:47
  Speaker 1: So what's going to happen to them? And then kind
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 1: of all all of that so mine. I'd say the
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 1: timing of when I got fired and Phoenix was a
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 1: surprise because it was the middle of preseason, which is
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 1: an unusual time to make a change in the.
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 4: NBA, really time to do that.
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 1: Yeah, the owner was a different guy, but the fact
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 1: that I got look go was not a surprise because
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 1: you know, on the team for about twenty years. Somebody
• 1:13:08
  Speaker 1: pointed out when I got fired, I was the longest
• 1:13:11
  Speaker 1: tenure general manager or head coach. And almost one of
• 1:13:14
  Speaker 1: the things I'd encourage our listeners to do is take
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 1: a step back from any one of the three of us,
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: or really any one individual in general, and look at
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 1: certain franchises, Tom in your league. The Pittsburgh Stealers stand
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 1: out to me, the consistency, the longevity. It seems like
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 1: the Ravens I have a lot of that too. In
• 1:13:29
  Speaker 1: the NBA, I'd say San Antonio, Miami, Boston, And it's
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 1: kind of a chicken or the egg argument. Are those
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 1: guys entrench because they're exceptional or is it because they're
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 1: extremely Their ownership is extremely patient and gives them the
• 1:13:43
  Speaker 1: benefit of the doubt and is willing to see them
• 1:13:45
  Speaker 1: through and let them do their job. So, you know,
• 1:13:47
  Speaker 1: for me in Phoenix, it was it was weird and
• 1:13:50
  Speaker 1: what I realized, and it happened over the phone. I
• 1:13:53
  Speaker 1: got a call from the owner on a Sunday, which
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: again the timing surprised me, but we had just had
• 1:13:57
  Speaker 1: a significant draft and we had a significant disagreement on
• 1:14:00
  Speaker 1: draft night. I thought we needed a primarily primary ball handler.
• 1:14:03
  Speaker 1: We weren't able to acquire one, and I spent the
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 1: entire offseason trying to get one who is decent, not
• 1:14:08
  Speaker 1: at the level of the guys that we just passed on.
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 1: So I bring that all up because he told me
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 1: over the phone what he was thinking, and you know,
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: I took the high road and said, appreciate, accepted all that,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 1: and I said, well, actually I was going to call
• 1:14:19
  Speaker 1: you to recommend a trade because this team wants to
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 1: do this deal. And I said I think we should
• 1:14:24
  Speaker 1: do it, and then I caught myself. I said, correction,
• 1:14:26
  Speaker 1: I think you guys should do it, So if you
• 1:14:28
  Speaker 1: want to do it, yeah, because I want to see
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 1: the franchise do well. And I knew, you know, kind
• 1:14:32
  Speaker 1: of what it meant that that destabilization at the top
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 1: of the organization with a GM going out, what it
• 1:14:37
  Speaker 1: meant to the head coach and the players and all that.
• 1:14:39
  Speaker 1: So I said, look, call this guy with this organization.
• 1:14:41
  Speaker 1: He and I just verbally agreed on the deal. I
• 1:14:43
  Speaker 1: was going to call you and recommend it, but if
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 1: you guys want to do it, that's on you.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: And it was. It was just like I said, it
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 2: kind of an.
• 1:14:49
  Speaker 1: Out out of body experience because for me, it did
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 1: happen over the phone, and I just kind of went
• 1:14:53
  Speaker 1: down to my office.
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 2: Nobody knew about it.
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: I just kind of cleared out, you know, the personal
• 1:14:56
  Speaker 1: belongings and pictures and you know, tax documents and all
• 1:14:59
  Speaker 1: the stuff I had there that probably shouldn't be keeping
• 1:15:01
  Speaker 1: the office, and then just you know, went home and
• 1:15:03
  Speaker 1: had dinner with the wife and waited for the rest
• 1:15:05
  Speaker 1: of the world to find out. The next morning on
• 1:15:07
  Speaker 1: a Monday, and it was Yeah, it was kind of
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 1: a bizarre time, but you know, like I said, you're
• 1:15:12
  Speaker 1: certainly appreciative of these opportunities and you always want to
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 1: try that as best you can. Take the high road
• 1:15:17
  Speaker 1: because you know, you guys point out this happens to everybody,
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 1: literally everybody in pro sports. If you're a GM or
• 1:15:22
  Speaker 1: head coach long enough, you're going to get fired at
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 1: some point.
• 1:15:24
  Speaker 5: Yeah, take the high road and then educate your kids
• 1:15:27
  Speaker 5: on what you're going to read the next twenty four
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 5: to forty eight hours.
• 1:15:30
  Speaker 4: That it's just part of the business, which.
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 5: I I kind of with our kids, I kind of
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 5: thought it was a good education for them of you know,
• 1:15:38
  Speaker 5: handling adversity, handling what people say. You know, you can
• 1:15:41
  Speaker 5: you can complain about, you know, head coaches and gms
• 1:15:44
  Speaker 5: that you have to go through that, but we try
• 1:15:46
  Speaker 5: to use as a positive to kind of develop, you know,
• 1:15:48
  Speaker 5: some tough skin, which I think kids need. So you know,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 5: your your dad's you know, the same guy as he was,
• 1:15:54
  Speaker 5: you know a couple of years ago. He just has
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 5: a job that's you know that a lot of people
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 5: see and they see every mistake you make. But you
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 5: got to handle that. You got to handle that socially.
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Josh Burns was a good friend of mine and
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: a mentor, and he said when I started my career,
• 1:16:09
  Speaker 3: like you hope you work long enough to get fired.
• 1:16:12
  Speaker 3: And he said, you know, there's two ways to approach
• 1:16:14
  Speaker 3: these jobs. You either try to survive every day and
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: covet the job and don't make decisions that could be judged,
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: or you try to do things to arrive on behalf
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: of the organization. If you do that long enough, you're
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: eventually going to make a mistake and you're probably in the.
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 2: Need to get relieved of your duties.
• 1:16:29
  Speaker 3: So there's a world in which like getting relieved of
• 1:16:32
  Speaker 3: your duties means you were genuinely trying. It doesn't mean
• 1:16:35
  Speaker 3: we always did the right thing, but we never stopped trying,
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: and we never put the franchises, you know, you know,
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: ourselves ahead of the franchises. And one other thing Ryan,
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 3: I would just share with you anecdotally relative to trying
• 1:16:46
  Speaker 3: to take care of the people around you in these
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: circumstances is I remember, and I won't mention the general
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: manager I was working for, but we were on a
• 1:16:53
  Speaker 3: particularly bad vender in the middle of the season ownership
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: impromptu called to a meeting. He rushed into my office
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: and he gave me this envelope and he said, if
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: I don't come back, open this envelope. And so I'm like, okay, buddy.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 3: So that he finally came back that afternoons, like, he
• 1:17:08
  Speaker 3: can give me the envelope back. They didn't fire me,
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: So what was in the envelope? And he was like,
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: it was extensions for you and four of the other guys,
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: and I had already signed off on it.
• 1:17:15
  Speaker 2: So I was like, it's a bummer you didn't get fired.
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 2: We were all going to get to a big payday.
• 1:17:19
  Speaker 2: But he was that committed to try to take care
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 2: of us.
• 1:17:21
  Speaker 3: I don't think we would have ever acted on that
• 1:17:23
  Speaker 3: or that would have passed, but he actually had thought
• 1:17:25
  Speaker 3: about it. It was the in case of emergency break
• 1:17:28
  Speaker 3: glass box that he had given me, and it was
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: extensions for his leadership team.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 4: That's pretty cool.
• 1:17:34
  Speaker 1: I love that story. That's what it's all about. It's,
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 1: you know, top of the organization. The GM head coach
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 1: get the credit. But I think what makes the three
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 1: of us a little bit unique is that we've been
• 1:17:42
  Speaker 1: at every level of the organization, starting in the video
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 1: room and then or low level scouting and then working
• 1:17:48
  Speaker 1: our way up. Well that was Tom Celesco. Tom, we
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 1: really appreciate you joining us on rosters to rings that
• 1:17:53
  Speaker 1: now will be doing this every week going forward. Next
• 1:17:56
  Speaker 1: week we have the NFL getting started, We have the
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 1: Major League Baseball Play payoff race in full swing. The
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 1: NBA regular season and preseason just around the corner. He
• 1:18:05
  Speaker 1: istad Levine. I am Ryan McDonald join us again next
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 1: week on rosters to rank