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3 Guys Before The Game - Pro Football Talk Founder Mike Florio (Episode 642) · 3 Guys Before The Game

• 0:08
  Speaker 1: It is showtime in the Big City. Hi, everybody, welcome
• 0:11
  Speaker 1: in our summer series continues. And have I ever said
• 0:14
  Speaker 1: this before? Well, we got a Dandy for you. I mean,
• 0:19
  Speaker 1: first time I've said that. First, I got a Dandy.
• 0:22
  Speaker 1: We got a Dandy. He's back. It's his annual appearance.
• 0:25
  Speaker 1: It's kind of like those actors that go and do
• 0:27
  Speaker 1: summer stock like they appear. They just show up in
• 0:30
  Speaker 1: the summer. Mike Florio of Pro Football Talk dot Com
• 0:34
  Speaker 1: is our special guest. This is gonna be fun. We
• 0:37
  Speaker 1: haven't even as you know, no pre show notes, no
• 0:40
  Speaker 1: pre show meetings, no nothing. It's gonna be good.
• 0:42
  Speaker 2: You missed the meeting we had them, Brad.
• 0:45
  Speaker 3: I think I missed last year. Was I here last year?
• 0:48
  Speaker 3: I think we weren't able to line it up last year.
• 0:51
  Speaker 4: I thought you were here for something last year.
• 0:53
  Speaker 1: You I don't know, may have I don't know. It's always,
• 0:57
  Speaker 1: it's just it's I mean, it's just great to have
• 1:00
  Speaker 1: you with us. It's great to be here. You're you've changed.
• 1:03
  Speaker 1: I mean the first time you came, you had no
• 1:05
  Speaker 1: security people. Wait a minute, now, three security guys. Bobby is,
• 1:09
  Speaker 1: Tommy and Luig is The podcast Okay, is everything okay?
• 1:13
  Speaker 1: Is everything fine? Yeah, you're wondering about sponsors.
• 1:15
  Speaker 3: I'm wondering you did. I mean you usually do a
• 1:17
  Speaker 3: like a five minute read before we even start interesting.
• 1:20
  Speaker 1: You bring that up. Free Guys is brought to us
• 1:22
  Speaker 1: by Jan Dill's Attorneys at Law. They won't take no
• 1:26
  Speaker 1: for an answer. By Comac's Business Systems, keeping West Virginia's
• 1:29
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• 1:32
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• 1:45
  Speaker 1: Sales dot Com. By Tutors Biscuit World, Start your day
• 1:48
  Speaker 1: the Homemade way.
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: What were you saying? A wait to excuse me, you
• 1:52
  Speaker 2: got any sponsors on that TV show?
• 1:54
  Speaker 1: You?
• 1:55
  Speaker 3: No, I just don't know why we're still on the air, right.
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: Let me tell you not to be specific. Yeah, go
• 2:06
  Speaker 3: ahead for one sponsor and alienate the others. But I
• 2:11
  Speaker 3: love me some Tutors Biscuits.
• 2:13
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, I mean it's hard not to the question
• 2:17
  Speaker 1: we often have on this show is at your height
• 2:20
  Speaker 1: of hunger? Could you eat too?
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, I've eaten too before bang bang bang bang
• 2:26
  Speaker 3: after the others not to in one day to consecutive.
• 2:30
  Speaker 4: Uh.
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: We used to stop there after church years ago when
• 2:34
  Speaker 3: I actually went to church. That's a different discussion.
• 2:37
  Speaker 1: That up there. We're talking wheeling and we're talking home in.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Bridgeport, and there's been a tutors over by or inside
• 2:46
  Speaker 3: the go mart there.
• 2:48
  Speaker 1: You go inside, we call that, we call that a
• 2:51
  Speaker 1: wonderful marriage. Yeah.
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: And also there was pizza place in there too. I
• 2:54
  Speaker 3: don't know if it's still there. Gino's Pizza used to.
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: I don't know if it's still there. We don't live
• 2:58
  Speaker 3: on that side of town.
• 2:59
  Speaker 2: Any sure, video rental.
• 3:00
  Speaker 3: But but we would. We would go to church and
• 3:03
  Speaker 3: we'd get the tutor's biscuits and then come home and yeah,
• 3:05
  Speaker 3: I would. I've been known to you to them, what's
• 3:07
  Speaker 3: your egg and bacon? No cheese, know anything else? I'm
• 3:11
  Speaker 3: good with egg and bacon on the biscuits.
• 3:12
  Speaker 2: And I'm with you on that.
• 3:13
  Speaker 4: Yeah, cheese, he'd be good with the three guys biscuit
• 3:16
  Speaker 4: where you don't know if you're getting cheese or not.
• 3:19
  Speaker 1: We're trying to get it. We're trying to get an
• 3:20
  Speaker 1: item named after us. There, they still don't have that done.
• 3:24
  Speaker 4: Efforting.
• 3:25
  Speaker 1: So how are you good?
• 3:27
  Speaker 3: Better than good? Good? Is the perfunctory answer. I was
• 3:30
  Speaker 3: surprised socially acceptable to just say I'm good because nobody
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: really cares. Haven't you noticed that when you ask somebody
• 3:36
  Speaker 3: how are you? You just say it because that's the
• 3:39
  Speaker 3: social convention. Nobody really cares.
• 3:42
  Speaker 2: Wait, wait, except I mean, if you're just transacting, okay,
• 3:46
  Speaker 2: you might say I'm good, I'm well. But if you
• 3:48
  Speaker 2: if you have you might say how are you doing?
• 3:51
  Speaker 2: You might say I've had some some things and you go, okay,
• 3:53
  Speaker 2: well tell me.
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: So how much time do we have?
• 3:55
  Speaker 4: I don't know that we want to We want goods.
• 4:01
  Speaker 4: Like I didn't wanted to tell me what was wrong,
• 4:04
  Speaker 4: I'll do respect.
• 4:05
  Speaker 1: How how often I was surprised you were in a
• 4:07
  Speaker 1: WV shirt? How often do you you crack a WV
• 4:10
  Speaker 1: emblem shirt?
• 4:11
  Speaker 3: My wardrobe approach when I'm at home, right, we were
• 4:14
  Speaker 3: talking earlier about this football night in America. I basically
• 4:18
  Speaker 3: wear what's in the dressing room when I show up
• 4:21
  Speaker 3: to get ready for the show, and whatever's there that's it.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: At home, I have one rule, the closest and the cleanest,
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: so you know, if it's right there, and if I
• 4:33
  Speaker 3: can tell quick nasal inspection, if it's yea, if it's
• 4:38
  Speaker 3: fresh from the laundry, then you're in. That's today's But
• 4:43
  Speaker 3: I had to do something WV.
• 4:44
  Speaker 1: Well, we appreciate it. No, no, I just we appreciate it.
• 4:46
  Speaker 1: And you've always been I mean you've always been up front. Yeah.
• 4:52
  Speaker 1: Your fandom of West Virginia to me is like extremely real.
• 5:00
  Speaker 1: You don't have fanaticism in you. You like them, you
• 5:05
  Speaker 1: enjoy them, but at the same time, you keep it very,
• 5:08
  Speaker 1: very real.
• 5:09
  Speaker 3: It's the only thing we truly have. I remember, and
• 5:13
  Speaker 3: this may be one of the reasons why I never
• 5:15
  Speaker 3: became a Steelers fan, even though I grew up in Wheeling,
• 5:18
  Speaker 3: sixty miles from Pittsburgh. And when I discovered the NFL
• 5:22
  Speaker 3: on December twenty three, nineteen seventy two, the Immaculate Reception
• 5:25
  Speaker 3: Game and realized this is a pretty big deal, I
• 5:29
  Speaker 3: resisted the Steelers. And I think one of the reasons
• 5:31
  Speaker 3: I resisted the Steelers is I was aware of the
• 5:33
  Speaker 3: whole West Virginia pit thing, Like why do we love
• 5:35
  Speaker 3: the Steelers. If we hate Pitt, that makes no sense
• 5:38
  Speaker 3: to me. West Virginia is the only uniquely West Virginia
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: thing that we have. Otherwise, gloming onto whatever is geographically convenient.
• 5:46
  Speaker 3: If you're in the southern part of the state, what
• 5:47
  Speaker 3: are the Bengals fans down there? I think there's Bengals
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: fans down there, and you've got the Washington fans and
• 5:53
  Speaker 3: the fan handles. So yeah, I I never felt compelled
• 5:58
  Speaker 3: by NFL geography because we don't have team. This is
• 6:00
  Speaker 3: all we have. And if you're gonna live here, if
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: you're from here, sure I don't. I don't know why
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: anybody wouldn't be. I remember arguing with people in Wheeling
• 6:09
  Speaker 3: in December of nineteen eighty eight, Wheeling residents who were
• 6:13
  Speaker 3: all in Notre Dame oh yes, and advanced to the festival,
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: and I was pissed. Sure, it's like Notre Dames won
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: their championships. Not Dame is always gonna be Notre Dame.
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: This is our this is our chance, this may be
• 6:22
  Speaker 3: our only shot. Like, you got to set that aside.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: You're a West Virginian, you got to set that aside.
• 6:26
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And they're all highest state fans up there too.
• 6:28
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 6:29
  Speaker 3: Yeah, well it's easy. I mean I was born in Ohio.
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: I mean it'd be easy to say, oh yeah, Ohio state.
• 6:35
  Speaker 3: But you know, you are a product of where you
• 6:38
  Speaker 3: grew up and where you've lived most of your life,
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: and for me, that's here.
• 6:41
  Speaker 1: Yeah. The Wheeling area geographically, when it comes to fandom,
• 6:45
  Speaker 1: I think is the most Oh what's the word. It's
• 6:48
  Speaker 1: this cosmopolitan thing, like you said, because of the heavy
• 6:51
  Speaker 1: Catholic faith in the Wheeling area, that Notre Dame thing
• 6:57
  Speaker 1: is huge for them, huge for them, and some people
• 7:01
  Speaker 1: just don't vacillate from that.
• 7:02
  Speaker 2: That's true.
• 7:03
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I think you're right now. I look, I had
• 7:04
  Speaker 3: twelve years of Catholic school and yeah, still there's a
• 7:07
  Speaker 3: point where that ends.
• 7:09
  Speaker 1: Yeah, you're out, you're out mountaineer stuff. Okay, you're in
• 7:13
  Speaker 1: your current you're in your sabbatical from your daily show
• 7:16
  Speaker 1: that you do.
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: And that's and it's funny because I can always spot
• 7:21
  Speaker 3: the people who have no idea what I do. When
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: after the super.
• 7:25
  Speaker 1: Bowl they ask you what you do?
• 7:27
  Speaker 3: Oh, oh, you got some time off, Now what are
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: you gonna do for the next six months? It's like, well,
• 7:31
  Speaker 3: how long do you have. Yeah, so yeah. We shut
• 7:35
  Speaker 3: down our daily show during the slow part of the
• 7:39
  Speaker 3: NFL calendar middle of June to the end of July,
• 7:43
  Speaker 3: and I still do. Like before I left, I did
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: our separate podcast it's called PFTPM. I did forty five
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: minutes solo, went over some of the news the day,
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: because it's always news, answered some questions. I'll do that
• 7:57
  Speaker 3: every day, but it's it's looser. It's more casual about
• 8:00
  Speaker 3: the clock in. W't have to wear up breaks, I
• 8:02
  Speaker 3: don't have anybody to throw to. I just talk as
• 8:04
  Speaker 3: long as I want to talk. When I'm done, I'm done,
• 8:06
  Speaker 3: and then we have fresh video we can put on
• 8:07
  Speaker 3: the website. I mean, that's the only reason I do it.
• 8:09
  Speaker 3: I want to have fresh video content that can be
• 8:11
  Speaker 3: connected to the stories that we have on the website,
• 8:13
  Speaker 3: because every story on the website now has a video,
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: And if I didn't do anything for six weeks, we'd
• 8:18
  Speaker 3: be running the same damn videos from mid June in
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: late July. So I need to do it. It's just
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: I don't have to get up at six, I'm not
• 8:28
  Speaker 3: tied to the show. I can get a little more sleep.
• 8:30
  Speaker 3: I just have a it's a looser feel, but it's
• 8:34
  Speaker 3: still NonStop, especially because I load up the six weeks
• 8:38
  Speaker 3: with all the stuff I don't have time to do
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: from the end of July until you know the middle
• 8:44
  Speaker 3: part of June.
• 8:46
  Speaker 1: It's to me, I love your evolution. Like you just said, Yeah,
• 8:50
  Speaker 1: I just went and did a podcast, did it by myself,
• 8:52
  Speaker 1: went forty five minutes. Like I remember when you didn't
• 8:55
  Speaker 1: do any spoken word whatsoever. So think about it. Now
• 9:01
  Speaker 1: you host hours, hundreds and thousands of hours a year,
• 9:06
  Speaker 1: but that's not where you had any base training whatsoever.
• 9:10
  Speaker 1: You were We've documented well on this show. Your your
• 9:13
  Speaker 1: educational background, engineering law, and then it was writing. And
• 9:18
  Speaker 1: now just like dude, I mean, you ever put in
• 9:20
  Speaker 1: as that hobby can certainly attest to this. Doing two
• 9:25
  Speaker 1: hours doing forty five minutes by yourself, that's big boy.
• 9:31
  Speaker 3: But it's like anything else, the more you do it,
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: the easier it can stand. And for me, the gateway
• 9:37
  Speaker 3: was being the call in guest on a show. First
• 9:43
  Speaker 3: place every day was WGR five fifty in Buffalo. I
• 9:46
  Speaker 3: would do something every week back in two thousand, right
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: after I stumbled into the business. And one thing I noticed,
• 9:51
  Speaker 3: because I was practicing a low at the time. When
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: you practice law, you have to get up and speak
• 9:54
  Speaker 3: extemporaneously in front of a judge, and you have different
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: settings where you have to be on and you have
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: to make sense. And one thing I learned is the
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: more I did that radio, the better it made me
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: when it was time to do the real job, because
• 10:10
  Speaker 3: you're just talking and there's no net and there's no
• 10:14
  Speaker 3: do over when it's live radio. So you do that
• 10:17
  Speaker 3: over and over and over again, and then you get
• 10:19
  Speaker 3: to a point where you're in the other chair and
• 10:21
  Speaker 3: you do that over and over and over again, and
• 10:23
  Speaker 3: you get to a point where you could talk about
• 10:25
  Speaker 3: anything for any amount of time, Like the Corey Booker
• 10:29
  Speaker 3: twenty five hour filibuster. I could do that. If I
• 10:32
  Speaker 3: had a catheter, I could do that, and a diaper,
• 10:35
  Speaker 3: I could do that. I could talk about anything for
• 10:37
  Speaker 3: twenty five hours because you just have an idea and
• 10:41
  Speaker 3: you just go and it's just stream of consciousness. But
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: you've learned how and you know this, any of you
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: guys you're doing speaking for a living. You learn how
• 10:51
  Speaker 3: to use your voice as an instrument. You learn how
• 10:53
  Speaker 3: to articulate your thoughts in a semi cogent way, and
• 10:55
  Speaker 3: you just go.
• 10:56
  Speaker 2: But but but you gotta have you gotta have content.
• 11:00
  Speaker 2: You can't just talk. So what you do, you're I
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: think you're diminishing.
• 11:04
  Speaker 1: He's diminishing, diminish.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: The significance of what you're doing, because if you don't
• 11:08
  Speaker 2: have content, you're just a guy talking.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: But the content comes from the research. Well, and there's
• 11:14
  Speaker 3: no research. It's constant. What's the next story? What's the
• 11:17
  Speaker 3: next story? That's my workflow. I sit down at my desk,
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: I get my keyboard. What's the next story, what's going
• 11:23
  Speaker 3: on in the NFL? What information do I have? And
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: I haven't disseminated yet. I keep a running list of
• 11:27
  Speaker 3: all the stories I want to get to. Okay, I
• 11:29
  Speaker 3: got one done? What's next? And I never have any
• 11:32
  Speaker 3: prep for any show other than Sunday Night Football. Sunda
• 11:35
  Speaker 3: Night Football is different. But the weekday show, you just
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: talk about the stuff you've been writing about because if
• 11:44
  Speaker 3: your clued into what the top stories are in the
• 11:45
  Speaker 3: NFL at the website. Good job swallowing that you on,
• 11:49
  Speaker 3: By the way, that was very impressive.
• 11:54
  Speaker 1: What do you do?
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: He's still swallow?
• 11:55
  Speaker 1: I didn't. I'm just messing.
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: But but but anyway, I lost my train of thought,
• 12:02
  Speaker 3: which I never do.
• 12:03
  Speaker 1: It's easy to do just what you're doing. It's easier
• 12:05
  Speaker 1: just regurgitating what you've been working.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: There's nothing to prep. It's all the stuff you've been
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: thinking about writing about talks about.
• 12:11
  Speaker 4: You, just a lot of you want to write versus
• 12:13
  Speaker 4: talk though still.
• 12:15
  Speaker 3: It doesn't matter now when you talk and you're on
• 12:20
  Speaker 3: all the time and you have to watch what you're
• 12:22
  Speaker 3: saying all the time. And a podcast, a true podcast
• 12:25
  Speaker 3: without a video component. Of course, they all have a
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: video component now because you can monetize the video component.
• 12:29
  Speaker 3: But a true podcast is easier.
• 12:31
  Speaker 4: Well, somebody get on.
• 12:36
  Speaker 1: That one down right now.
• 12:39
  Speaker 3: When the camera, when there's a camera always on you, like,
• 12:42
  Speaker 3: you know, you have to you have to make facial
• 12:45
  Speaker 3: expressions that go with what you're saying, and you have
• 12:47
  Speaker 3: to you know, not you know, stick your finger in
• 12:48
  Speaker 3: your ear, up your nose or whatever, clean out your
• 12:50
  Speaker 3: teeth in the middle of the thing. So that adds
• 12:52
  Speaker 3: a different element to it. But that concept of being
• 12:54
  Speaker 3: on NonStop and you know this, you get used to
• 12:59
  Speaker 3: it after a few and it's even if you don't
• 13:00
  Speaker 3: feel like doing it today. Once the light goes on
• 13:02
  Speaker 3: off you go. It's easier to just sit and type
• 13:06
  Speaker 3: and move on to the next story. That's easy. That's nothing.
• 13:08
  Speaker 3: I could do that in my sleep. Like I would
• 13:11
  Speaker 3: never stop doing what I do because what else would
• 13:15
  Speaker 3: I do? Like I come to my office, I sit down,
• 13:19
  Speaker 3: I turn on the TV. Well, I'm gonna sit there
• 13:21
  Speaker 3: and just watch the TV. No, it's a boom but
• 13:23
  Speaker 3: boom and and next story, but next story. And you
• 13:25
  Speaker 3: just after twenty five years, it's like breathing.
• 13:28
  Speaker 1: Are you writing in the barn? Is that where you write?
• 13:31
  Speaker 3: No, I go to the barn to write fiction. I
• 13:35
  Speaker 3: do all of my work in my office.
• 13:37
  Speaker 1: At my house.
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: You know, I'm like, I still I still think you're
• 13:41
  Speaker 2: soft pedaling your accomplishment and what you do because you
• 13:45
  Speaker 2: still got to show up, you still got to read,
• 13:47
  Speaker 2: you still got to research, you still got to report,
• 13:49
  Speaker 2: and you still got to write. I mean, so I
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: understand it feels like breathing to you. But there's a
• 13:55
  Speaker 2: lot that goes in to be able to do it
• 13:56
  Speaker 2: that way.
• 13:57
  Speaker 1: Sure, sometimes it makes you late, for I'm scheduled, that's true.
• 14:01
  Speaker 3: Hot stars supposed to be the certain a phone call
• 14:05
  Speaker 3: I could not I'm sorry, I am sorry to.
• 14:07
  Speaker 1: Be somewhere and you don't show up.
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: I mean, maybe we're just different because in you know,
• 14:11
  Speaker 2: I spent years writing a daily commentary and doing to
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: our show, and I was obsessed with preparation, and when
• 14:18
  Speaker 2: I was writing, it felt like sometimes that like I
• 14:21
  Speaker 2: was like great writers or artists. I was like laying blocks.
• 14:25
  Speaker 1: You know.
• 14:26
  Speaker 2: It didn't it was not always easy. And if I
• 14:28
  Speaker 2: came up with a good line like once a week,
• 14:29
  Speaker 2: I thought that's a good one. Lots of times it's
• 14:31
  Speaker 2: just like it's a struggle.
• 14:32
  Speaker 1: So here's what I would say. He's like a finishing carpenter.
• 14:35
  Speaker 1: You're more of a framer.
• 14:37
  Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm doing the studs.
• 14:38
  Speaker 1: You're just you're just bringing to the two You're, you're, you're,
• 14:39
  Speaker 1: you're butting the wood together. Like, but he's kind of
• 14:41
  Speaker 1: like into the detail work.
• 14:42
  Speaker 3: I think when you get to the point where and
• 14:45
  Speaker 3: I try to do an estimate from time to time,
• 14:49
  Speaker 3: twenty five million words written in twenty five years. I
• 14:52
  Speaker 3: don't know, it's an ungodly amount. I'm surprised my fingers
• 14:56
  Speaker 3: and my wrists are still properly functional. A couple of
• 14:59
  Speaker 3: weeks ago, I was starting to feel something in my
• 15:00
  Speaker 3: like my thumb and my wrist, and it went away.
• 15:02
  Speaker 3: But it's like, this is gonna be a problem because
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: I've never had this. I can't do my work if
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: I can't. But through that repetition, every day, NonStop, not
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: you know, over and over and over again, for weeks
• 15:17
  Speaker 3: and months and years, you get to a point where
• 15:20
  Speaker 3: I never ever ever have writer's block in anything. I
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: just sit down and I go And it might be
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: the product of a hyperactive brain, but at the same time,
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: it allows me to create, uh, you know, I guess
• 15:38
  Speaker 3: an amount of content that would seem objectively unfathomable, but
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: for me, it's just it's like breathing. And that's the
• 15:45
  Speaker 3: product of years and years and years of doing.
• 15:47
  Speaker 4: Do you ever just stop, though and do nothing? One
• 15:50
  Speaker 4: or two? Do you ever read for your own enjoyment?
• 15:53
  Speaker 3: I never stop and do nothing. And I don't know
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: if I've ever told you the story before. You know,
• 15:59
  Speaker 3: you get to do this so many times you forget
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: how many stories you've told, which means if you've forgotten them,
• 16:03
  Speaker 3: there's a chance, like you lose your wife. Does your
• 16:06
  Speaker 3: wife ever say, does your wife ever say? You know,
• 16:08
  Speaker 3: I don't want to wear this again. I don't remember
• 16:11
  Speaker 3: if I wore this joy whisky. Well, if you don't remember,
• 16:13
  Speaker 3: how's anybody else can remember? Like if I don't remember
• 16:16
  Speaker 3: telling you the story, then you probably forget it too.
• 16:18
  Speaker 3: But but deep seated psychological injury Slash Boost ten years old,
• 16:25
  Speaker 3: playing grade school football at Saint Michael's in Wheeling, West Virginia. Okay,
• 16:31
  Speaker 3: I was lazy, didn't want to work, didn't want to run,
• 16:36
  Speaker 3: wanted to stand around.
• 16:37
  Speaker 1: You had a husky body build, husky.
• 16:39
  Speaker 3: Very husky, husky that was the word. Though they had
• 16:41
  Speaker 3: We had our own clothes. So if you stood around,
• 16:49
  Speaker 3: and if the coach noticed you standing around. Back in
• 16:52
  Speaker 3: those days, it was socially acceptable to put a foot
• 16:54
  Speaker 3: into someone's ass. I'm not saying I condone it. I'm
• 16:57
  Speaker 3: not saying we should spin the clock back to those days, right,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: But I will tell you from having a foot placed
• 17:03
  Speaker 3: in my ass a sufficient number of times.
• 17:06
  Speaker 1: It took a few, multiple took a few. It wasn't one.
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: But at one point after that foot hit my ass,
• 17:14
  Speaker 3: something in my brain said, you're never standing still ever
• 17:19
  Speaker 3: again in your life.
• 17:21
  Speaker 1: Do you remember whose foot that was? What was his name?
• 17:23
  Speaker 2: Bill?
• 17:23
  Speaker 1: Book Bill book kicked you in the ass kick.
• 17:25
  Speaker 3: Me in the ass enough times that it it caused
• 17:28
  Speaker 3: something in me to wig ward your brain apparently, and
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: I that's where it is. I still think about that
• 17:33
  Speaker 3: now life. No, thank you, No matter what is going on,
• 17:37
  Speaker 3: I can't. I can't just and my wife's the same
• 17:39
  Speaker 3: way too, So we we both influenced.
• 17:41
  Speaker 2: Jack.
• 17:42
  Speaker 3: You got to accomplish something every day. You gotta be
• 17:43
  Speaker 3: doing something all the time. Now we will a few
• 17:47
  Speaker 3: nights a week. We haven't in a while though, it's
• 17:48
  Speaker 3: been a busy couple of weeks. You know, you shut
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: down for a couple of hours and find something to
• 17:52
  Speaker 3: watch on TV. But nowadays the process of finding something
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: to watch on TV is as much work like you spend.
• 17:59
  Speaker 3: If you have two hours budgeted to watch a show,
• 18:02
  Speaker 3: you spend an hour trying to figure out and then
• 18:05
  Speaker 3: it's a negotiation which one do you want? Which one
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: do I want? And are you really going to watch
• 18:09
  Speaker 3: this or are you just?
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: Are you?
• 18:11
  Speaker 1: Like?
• 18:11
  Speaker 3: I don't want you to pretend you care, and I
• 18:14
  Speaker 3: don't want to pretend I care. Like, let's find something
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: we really want to watch. But anyway, that's the only
• 18:17
  Speaker 3: time that I truly shut it down. But even then,
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: I mean, we're all we've all been, we've all been
• 18:21
  Speaker 3: corrupted and rewired by the device.
• 18:24
  Speaker 4: That you can read as much as I read some Yeah,
• 18:27
  Speaker 4: I read some fiction.
• 18:29
  Speaker 3: I read some fiction, I read some nonfiction. I've got
• 18:31
  Speaker 3: like three books going right now. I need to let's think,
• 18:33
  Speaker 3: you've got to finish one and get to the other one.
• 18:34
  Speaker 3: And I like to do one at a time. I
• 18:36
  Speaker 3: don't like having different threads of books because they get
• 18:40
  Speaker 3: forgotten very easily, but I like to do that. I
• 18:44
  Speaker 3: just it has to be good. I hate reading a
• 18:49
  Speaker 3: book that is boring, and I work that into my
• 18:53
  Speaker 3: approach to what I write, because I think the biggest
• 18:55
  Speaker 3: obligation for anyone who writes is to write something that
• 18:57
  Speaker 3: holds the attention of the reader. And I hate when
• 19:02
  Speaker 3: I'm twenty percent of the way through a book and
• 19:04
  Speaker 3: I'm saying, where the hell is this going and why
• 19:07
  Speaker 3: am I reading it? And then you feel compelled to finish. Finish.
• 19:10
  Speaker 3: Spent you spent the eight ninety nine for the book,
• 19:14
  Speaker 3: so you got to get your money's worth. And there
• 19:16
  Speaker 3: was one that that it took me like four months
• 19:19
  Speaker 3: to finally finish it. When I finally finished, It's like,
• 19:21
  Speaker 3: what the hell did I just read?
• 19:22
  Speaker 1: It was supposed to be a.
• 19:23
  Speaker 3: Good book, Like all these people say it's a great book.
• 19:25
  Speaker 3: It's like, what am I missing?
• 19:26
  Speaker 1: Yeah? Did you? Will you read the House Settlement?
• 19:29
  Speaker 2: Now?
• 19:29
  Speaker 1: Wait, you won't read the House Settlement.
• 19:31
  Speaker 3: I'll pick up what I need from after others read it,
• 19:35
  Speaker 3: because I it college stuff isn't directly in our Why.
• 19:38
  Speaker 1: I get Will you read the Collective Bargaining Agreement? You
• 19:40
  Speaker 1: know the CBA.
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: I know how to find what I need in the CBA.
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: I know how to navigate it. I like I I
• 19:46
  Speaker 3: use it at least two or three times a week.
• 19:48
  Speaker 3: Pulled up. Oh that's what I'm looking for. That close
• 19:51
  Speaker 3: and I'll learn something new. I learned something last week
• 19:55
  Speaker 3: that I didn't know about the process for re entering
• 19:59
  Speaker 3: the Shamar Stewart, the Bengals defensive end. There's an impasse
• 20:04
  Speaker 3: between him and the team about a very obscure, esoteric
• 20:07
  Speaker 3: contractual term. But both sides are dug in what are
• 20:10
  Speaker 3: his options? When I went to the CBA, found the
• 20:12
  Speaker 3: provision and it's like, oh, you can go, And I
• 20:16
  Speaker 3: think this could happen at some point and the biggest
• 20:19
  Speaker 3: story from a traffic standpoint that we ever had on
• 20:21
  Speaker 3: PFT was posted the Friday night of the draft, when
• 20:23
  Speaker 3: Shadur Sanders slipped through round two into round three. And
• 20:29
  Speaker 3: I'd been thinking, when you consider that all of these
• 20:32
  Speaker 3: rules that the NCAA has put in place, they are
• 20:34
  Speaker 3: all anti trust violations. All of the independent businesses came together.
• 20:38
  Speaker 3: All of the universities are independent businesses, is the easiest
• 20:40
  Speaker 3: way to explain it. They're all independent businesses and they
• 20:42
  Speaker 3: come together under this phony umbrella of the NCAAA to
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: make these rules that allow all of them to say, sorry,
• 20:47
  Speaker 3: we'd love to pay you, but we can't. It's an
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: NCAA rule. It's a collective action by the universities to
• 20:53
  Speaker 3: come together and suppress the labor market. So every rule
• 20:57
  Speaker 3: is potentially anti trust violation. So the rule that if
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: I declare for the draft and I don't like where
• 21:04
  Speaker 3: I was drafted, I haven't signed a contract. I can't
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: go back to school. Why can't I go back? Why
• 21:08
  Speaker 3: can't I go back? I haven't signed a contract, right,
• 21:10
  Speaker 3: why can't I go back? So we put out there
• 21:12
  Speaker 3: this idea that at some point should her Sanders has
• 21:14
  Speaker 3: to say, I can just go back at Colorado, or
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: I could go somewhere else, go play at North Carolina
• 21:19
  Speaker 3: with Bill Belichick and get his seal of approval. Maybe
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: I'll get drafted a lot higher next year. That was
• 21:23
  Speaker 3: our biggest story ever. So anyway, that was one of
• 21:25
  Speaker 3: the things I looked into with Shamar Stewart. If you
• 21:28
  Speaker 3: do that after you've been drafted, if you go back
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: to school, that team still holds your rights until the
• 21:36
  Speaker 3: moment you re enter. Until you come back, they still
• 21:40
  Speaker 3: hold your rights through that same draft. It will be
• 21:43
  Speaker 3: as if they drafted you, let's say round five the Browns.
• 21:45
  Speaker 3: If he had gone back to Colorado next year, it
• 21:48
  Speaker 3: would have been as if the Browns had taken him
• 21:49
  Speaker 3: in round five. So the team doesn't lose the rights.
• 21:52
  Speaker 3: The only way the team loses the rights is if
• 21:54
  Speaker 3: the player sits out the entire year and does nothing.
• 21:57
  Speaker 3: Then that player re enters the draft the next year.
• 21:59
  Speaker 3: So that's an example of I need to know something,
• 22:02
  Speaker 3: I know where to find it. I found it, and
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: I learned something I didn't know.
• 22:05
  Speaker 2: Yeah, hey, get into his short story and tell the story.
• 22:09
  Speaker 2: Excuse me, would you get it?
• 22:11
  Speaker 1: Did you say? Read the Jan Dill's attorneys at law commercial.
• 22:14
  Speaker 1: Is that what you said I did? Would you please
• 22:16
  Speaker 1: do that? Mike's a former practicing attorney and a darn
• 22:18
  Speaker 1: good one of that was most of your stuff employment law. Yes,
• 22:21
  Speaker 1: that's what I thought. Well, Jen doesn't do that. Jen
• 22:24
  Speaker 1: Dill's Attorneys at Law. They specialize in both the Social
• 22:27
  Speaker 1: Security disability benefits and military disability benefits. If you are
• 22:32
  Speaker 1: someone that you know has those types of needs, then
• 22:37
  Speaker 1: go to the people to do it every single day,
• 22:39
  Speaker 1: those that are trained, especially in the social security space.
• 22:41
  Speaker 1: Did you know eighty eight percent of Social Security disability
• 22:44
  Speaker 1: benefit claims are rejected on the first attempt.
• 22:47
  Speaker 3: I did not know that.
• 22:48
  Speaker 1: That's why Jen Dill's Attorneys at Law says, go to
• 22:50
  Speaker 1: them first and you will have a much much better
• 22:54
  Speaker 1: chance of getting what you want to hear, So, social
• 22:57
  Speaker 1: Security disability benefits and military disability benefits. Jendl's Attorneys at Law,
• 23:01
  Speaker 1: we believe in a great deal of hydration on this program.
• 23:04
  Speaker 1: I've been worried about those guys down there for a while.
• 23:06
  Speaker 1: Comac's Business Systems now has these water machines, hot water,
• 23:10
  Speaker 1: cold water, and ice cubes along with their fine line
• 23:14
  Speaker 1: of other business equipment. They've got their stuff in fifty
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  Speaker 1: five of our fifty five counties. You can visit. Visit
• 23:19
  Speaker 1: COMAXWV dot com, COMAXWV dot com. Tell them, Hey, I'm thirsty.
• 23:25
  Speaker 1: I need a water machine, either hot or cold. They
• 23:27
  Speaker 1: got it for you at COMAXWV.
• 23:29
  Speaker 4: Do you get one hundred phone lines too if you want?
• 23:30
  Speaker 4: Can't you?
• 23:31
  Speaker 1: Oh, you could get a one thousand cold, thousand phone lines.
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: As a kidney stone survivor, I will say hydration is
• 23:37
  Speaker 3: very important.
• 23:38
  Speaker 1: I didn't know you had those. Just one hurt.
• 23:40
  Speaker 3: It was awfully hit me in Connecticut on a Saturday
• 23:45
  Speaker 3: night in advance of a full workday at NBC, and
• 23:51
  Speaker 3: I knew a day or two in advance something wasn't right,
• 23:53
  Speaker 3: but I didn't know what it was. And it was
• 23:56
  Speaker 3: about three thirty am Saturday night. Woke up and I
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: I got up and I started walking around.
• 24:05
  Speaker 1: It's like to put a muscle, like pull a muscle
• 24:10
  Speaker 1: in yeah, like how do flexers?
• 24:12
  Speaker 2: Like?
• 24:12
  Speaker 3: What did I do? And I started walking around the
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: hotel room and it's like it's not getting any better,
• 24:19
  Speaker 3: and just like all of a sudden, it was excruciating.
• 24:25
  Speaker 3: And while you're in that state of pain that you've
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: never before experienced in your life. You have to figure
• 24:30
  Speaker 3: out what do I do?
• 24:32
  Speaker 2: What do you call?
• 24:32
  Speaker 3: I'm alone?
• 24:34
  Speaker 4: Where do I go?
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: And I refuse to be ambulance guy. Maybe in ten years,
• 24:41
  Speaker 3: but for now, I'm not going to be ambulance guy.
• 24:43
  Speaker 3: I'm not going to be nine to one one guy
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: for something like that. I'll find a way. So it
• 24:46
  Speaker 3: was get an uber, middle of the night, find a hospital.
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: And I walked in and I was sweating profusely, and
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: they stopped me at the desk and they wanted to
• 24:57
  Speaker 3: get my information. It's like, I'm can we do this later.
• 25:01
  Speaker 1: I'm dying.
• 25:01
  Speaker 3: I'm dying. I'm dying. And one of the security guards
• 25:04
  Speaker 3: recognized me and they were like, get he's fine, take
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: care of it, cover it, and and it was they couldn't,
• 25:12
  Speaker 3: you know, because one of the first things is they
• 25:13
  Speaker 3: think you're having a heart attacks. So they slap on
• 25:15
  Speaker 3: the Yeah, I was so sweaty they wouldn't stick.
• 25:17
  Speaker 1: Oh that's a lot of wetness.
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: It was bad. It was bad. And they gave me
• 25:23
  Speaker 3: morphine that didn't work. They gave me tour it all.
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: That's the pain reliever of choice for the NFL. Play.
• 25:32
  Speaker 3: I know why that works.
• 25:35
  Speaker 1: Take it out there a little bit.
• 25:36
  Speaker 3: It passed through the spot. There's one spot where it
• 25:39
  Speaker 3: causes the most discomfort as the kidney empties into the
• 25:43
  Speaker 3: euro They showed me it passed. I made it. I
• 25:47
  Speaker 3: made it to work work the next day. I was
• 25:49
  Speaker 3: three hours latter. Is perfectly fine. It was like it
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: never even happened. It was so weird. It was such
• 25:53
  Speaker 3: an intense, awful experience. Three hours letters I can never happen.
• 25:57
  Speaker 3: So and I hope it never happens again. I would
• 25:58
  Speaker 3: not wish. I seriously would not wish that on anyone.
• 26:01
  Speaker 3: And my sister in law says it hurts worse than childbirth.
• 26:04
  Speaker 1: That's what they say. So so just think about that
• 26:07
  Speaker 1: once again. The NFL saved your ass. That security guy
• 26:10
  Speaker 1: wouldn't know who you are, you said, they're trying to get.
• 26:15
  Speaker 3: I wouldn't have been alone in a hotel room in Connecticut.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: But that's right.
• 26:18
  Speaker 2: That helped to ken this year.
• 26:21
  Speaker 1: Is the NFL as healthy as it's ever been?
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: Yes? But could it be healthier? Could it do better?
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: They're so obsessed with expanding internationally. I feel like there's
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: still meat on the bone domestically, every year when the
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: Super Bowl ratings come out. This year it was one
• 26:45
  Speaker 3: hundred and thirty three million, Right, what the hell are
• 26:48
  Speaker 3: the other two hundred and fifty million people in the
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: country doing during those four hours? You're getting one out
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: of three people watching the Super Bowl. So I feel
• 26:55
  Speaker 3: like they could do more to capture more Americans who
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: aren't paying attention. But they want, I think, to get
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: that virus, that thing that made us all love football.
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: You introduce that to other cultures. Flag football is a
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: big part of that now. Because it's one thing to
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: have a local tackle football eleven on eleven league with
• 27:18
  Speaker 3: all the equipment in some foreign country. It's another thing
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: to have flag football. Flag football is easy. Flag football
• 27:25
  Speaker 3: is the closest thing to basically basketball, and it becomes
• 27:29
  Speaker 3: something that's easy to participate in soccer. You just give
• 27:31
  Speaker 3: me a ball, give me a ball, and we'll kick
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: it around. Give me a ball and we'll throw it around.
• 27:35
  Speaker 3: And I think that that is part of this longer
• 27:38
  Speaker 3: term obsession, and I really do think it's an obsession
• 27:41
  Speaker 3: by the NFL to take the product they currently have
• 27:43
  Speaker 3: and get more people hooked on it around the world.
• 27:45
  Speaker 3: But yeah, they had a goal They've had a goal
• 27:47
  Speaker 3: for years now of twenty five billion in annual revenue
• 27:51
  Speaker 3: by twenty twenty seven, and they're on track to hit it.
• 27:53
  Speaker 3: And it's amazing. When they first set it, I said
• 27:55
  Speaker 3: it's never going to happen, and then they're on track
• 27:56
  Speaker 3: to get there.
• 27:59
  Speaker 1: It's amazing. You think where it was.
• 28:01
  Speaker 3: I remember in the seventies because I was as much,
• 28:06
  Speaker 3: if not more, of a baseball fan in the early seventies,
• 28:09
  Speaker 3: really love the Pirates. Would sit there, you know, the
• 28:12
  Speaker 3: bowl of frosted flakes, reading the box scores every day,
• 28:15
  Speaker 3: trying to figure out what they meant. You go through
• 28:17
  Speaker 3: that realization when you were a kid and you start
• 28:18
  Speaker 3: figuring out what the columns mean and what eer means
• 28:21
  Speaker 3: and all this different stuff, and that to me was
• 28:26
  Speaker 3: as exciting, and it lasted longer football. Does you know
• 28:28
  Speaker 3: it's one day a week. Back then it was Sunday
• 28:31
  Speaker 3: and Monday night. Two windows on Sunday afternoon and Monday night.
• 28:33
  Speaker 2: That was it.
• 28:34
  Speaker 3: Every once in a while they do a Thursday night
• 28:35
  Speaker 3: game because they were trying to avoid competing, had to
• 28:37
  Speaker 3: help with the World Series. Now they just laugh in
• 28:39
  Speaker 3: the World Series. But back then baseball was clearly number one.
• 28:42
  Speaker 3: Football was down there with basketball and hockey, and you know,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: football kind of emmerges number two. But I think the
• 28:52
  Speaker 3: the public at large, the average person would have been
• 28:54
  Speaker 3: stunned by the idea that the NFL is going to
• 28:56
  Speaker 3: overtake baseball. And the NFL overtook it and left it
• 28:59
  Speaker 3: in the dust, you know, Mike, Mike.
• 29:01
  Speaker 2: One of the I think maybe one of the similar
• 29:03
  Speaker 2: moments of that was I was a big fan of
• 29:05
  Speaker 2: the old AFL and watched a lot of which played
• 29:07
  Speaker 2: on Saturday a lot, and there was interest in that.
• 29:10
  Speaker 2: And I mean the NFL was forced to merge because
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: the AFL was getting in popularity and Jonama science with
• 29:15
  Speaker 2: the Jets. To me, that was a seminal moment of
• 29:18
  Speaker 2: expanding interest nationwide in NFL. Agree.
• 29:22
  Speaker 3: I agree with you completely, And in hindsight, the fact
• 29:25
  Speaker 3: that the NFL would even do that merger shows you
• 29:28
  Speaker 3: how seriously the NFL perceived that threat that they were
• 29:31
  Speaker 3: going to get overtaken by the AFL if they didn't
• 29:33
  Speaker 3: find a solution and come together. And that's really what
• 29:36
  Speaker 3: helped the NFL explode. Between TV the nineteen fifty eight
• 29:41
  Speaker 3: championship game, where I think It burst onto the American
• 29:44
  Speaker 3: consciousness with the overtime game between the Colts and the Giants,
• 29:47
  Speaker 3: and then the merger that changed everything, and that just
• 29:51
  Speaker 3: and NFL films too. NFL films was the prime vehicle
• 29:54
  Speaker 3: for indoctrinating America's youth. There was no Madden. You got
• 29:58
  Speaker 3: to see a couple of games a week if you
• 30:00
  Speaker 3: were lucky. It was the Harry Kallus John Fascenda slow
• 30:03
  Speaker 3: motion that that created a mythology, and it put the
• 30:08
  Speaker 3: NFL on a pedestal. People people said to me, well,
• 30:10
  Speaker 3: you hate the NFL. Why do you hate the NFL? Say,
• 30:11
  Speaker 3: I don't hate the NFL. I love the NFL. I
• 30:15
  Speaker 3: I love the NFL enough to say, here's what they're
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: doing wrong, here's where they're falling short, here's where they
• 30:20
  Speaker 3: need to improve. And I'm just trying to get them
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: to live up to the standard that they convinced me
• 30:25
  Speaker 3: they occupy. Based upon all that stuff from the NFL
• 30:29
  Speaker 3: films products of the early seventies.
• 30:31
  Speaker 1: That's a wonderful point because everyone relates to story, right,
• 30:35
  Speaker 1: we all go to story, and that's what NFL films was.
• 30:39
  Speaker 1: That was story, and that's how we grew up listening
• 30:42
  Speaker 1: to those stories right.
• 30:43
  Speaker 3: And they did a great job of taking what would
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: otherwise seem mundane, yes, and finding some thread. Steve Sable
• 30:50
  Speaker 3: was excellent at that. Ed Sable the founder. They did
• 30:53
  Speaker 3: a great job. Ed Sables in the Hall of Fame
• 30:55
  Speaker 3: and he deserves. That's about the real hall of fame,
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: not the separate awards that aren't really you don't get bust,
• 31:00
  Speaker 3: you just get your name on a plaque. He's got
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: a bust in the Hall of Fame for what he
• 31:03
  Speaker 3: did with NFL films.
• 31:04
  Speaker 4: So, speaking of stories, how long will we have Hard
• 31:07
  Speaker 4: Knocks type programming? I can't imagine anybody else wants to
• 31:11
  Speaker 4: be on camera divulging that stuff. Yes, it has been
• 31:14
  Speaker 4: I think great programming over the years, talking about bringing
• 31:16
  Speaker 4: people on board, But now it seems like why would you?
• 31:20
  Speaker 4: I mean, I know they're forced to to an extent,
• 31:22
  Speaker 4: why would you agree to.
• 31:23
  Speaker 2: Do that now?
• 31:23
  Speaker 3: Now they're forced to? The Bills didn't want to do
• 31:25
  Speaker 3: it this year. They have to do it when it's
• 31:28
  Speaker 3: the preseason Hard Knocks. There's a formula that's gotten looser.
• 31:32
  Speaker 3: It's it's easier now the pool of teams. Every year
• 31:34
  Speaker 3: they can get the tap on the shoulder you're doing.
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: It is bigger than ever before. And they do the
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: n season hard knocks now where they take all four
• 31:40
  Speaker 3: teams from one division. They did it with the AFC
• 31:43
  Speaker 3: North last year, they're doing I can't remember they're doing
• 31:46
  Speaker 3: this year. They're doing the NFC East this year. I
• 31:47
  Speaker 3: think it's the NFC East this year. But they're taking
• 31:49
  Speaker 3: all four teams and you have no say, you have
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: no choice in that. The only thing where they give
• 31:55
  Speaker 3: you an option is for the offseason hard knocks that
• 31:59
  Speaker 3: the Giants did last year year, and no one is
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: ever going to agree to do it because the Giants.
• 32:06
  Speaker 3: That was like the biggest unforced error in the history
• 32:11
  Speaker 3: of NFL broadcasting that the Giants laid out there. They're
• 32:14
  Speaker 3: thinking with Saquon Barkley, their internal deliberations where you have
• 32:18
  Speaker 3: one of the guys in the room like are are
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: you sure? Are we sure that this is really the
• 32:24
  Speaker 3: right thing to do to let this guy go? And
• 32:26
  Speaker 3: it just created fodder for criticizing the Giants all you're long,
• 32:29
  Speaker 3: and they couldn't find anybody to do it this year.
• 32:30
  Speaker 3: They were going to do North Carolina Bill Belichick first year.
• 32:35
  Speaker 3: There is hard knocks until that fell through that No
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: NFL team will touch that.
• 32:40
  Speaker 1: Fascinating stuff.
• 32:41
  Speaker 3: But they're going to keep doing it because it's it's
• 32:43
  Speaker 3: just number one, it's revenue, and number two, it just
• 32:46
  Speaker 3: keeps it's it's just it's everywhere. Now, it's everywhere. Every
• 32:51
  Speaker 3: team has their own in house media production the content,
• 32:55
  Speaker 3: and that's what makes it hard to compete. People have
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: so many different options from websites and podcasts and shows
• 33:02
  Speaker 3: and and but there's an endless appetite for it. Even
• 33:05
  Speaker 3: in June. There's an endless appetite for it.
• 33:08
  Speaker 1: Yeah, each visit here, we've talked more and more, spent
• 33:12
  Speaker 1: more and more time on your writing away from Pro
• 33:16
  Speaker 1: Football Talk dot com. Well, let's just hand those over please.
• 33:22
  Speaker 3: I expect to written report, double spaced, watch the margins.
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: I want good penmanship, cursive.
• 33:29
  Speaker 1: If I did it like I was in school, I'd
• 33:31
  Speaker 1: have to get first the cliff Notes version and then
• 33:33
  Speaker 1: go from there. Let me see how you autograph this.
• 33:37
  Speaker 3: That's what I did.
• 33:38
  Speaker 1: I did.
• 33:38
  Speaker 3: I just did. I. I couldn't think of anything good
• 33:41
  Speaker 3: and I didn't want to.
• 33:42
  Speaker 1: I thought you were going to put the word we described.
• 33:44
  Speaker 3: No, I didn't do that. I can't do that because
• 33:46
  Speaker 3: I never know who's going to see it. You may
• 33:47
  Speaker 3: have some you know, grandchild. At some point it says, hey, pap, Paul,
• 33:50
  Speaker 3: what's this word?
• 33:51
  Speaker 1: It starts with f father of mine and Son of mine,
• 33:55
  Speaker 1: currently available on Amazon, among other places, where you find.
• 34:00
  Speaker 3: Only Amazon by the books. The print edition is on
• 34:03
  Speaker 3: Amazon for I Believe fourteen ninety nine. I decided only
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: the second time of my life that i'd made a
• 34:08
  Speaker 3: New Year's resolution that I followed January one of this year.
• 34:11
  Speaker 3: I made the e books for both of those and
• 34:13
  Speaker 3: on our way home ninety nine cents. I want to
• 34:15
  Speaker 3: promote reading. You mentioned cliff notes. I hated reading as
• 34:19
  Speaker 3: a kid because they made us do it. You have
• 34:21
  Speaker 3: to read this book. I don't want to read this book.
• 34:23
  Speaker 3: You have to read this book and write I don't
• 34:25
  Speaker 3: want to the fact that you're telling me I have
• 34:27
  Speaker 3: to do it makes me not want to do it.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: And I've read so many I'm really restraining myself here.
• 34:32
  Speaker 3: I don't know if this is I don't know what
• 34:33
  Speaker 3: your rating is for your book. Okay, so I'm glad.
• 34:37
  Speaker 3: I'm glad that I restrained myself because I work with
• 34:39
  Speaker 3: Chris Simms and let me tell you, he is the master,
• 34:43
  Speaker 3: and he will just drop an F bam without warning.
• 34:45
  Speaker 3: Now I usually you can feel like, you know, Mount
• 34:49
  Speaker 3: Vesuvius is starting to rumble a little bit. He just
• 34:51
  Speaker 3: lets it fly. It's like dude live on Peacock. He
• 34:56
  Speaker 3: just lets it fly. He does, and that is funny
• 34:58
  Speaker 3: because oh yeah, oh yeah, yeah, you're telling on yourself
• 35:02
  Speaker 3: you never watched the show, because he does it every
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: day pretty much, at least once at once a week,
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: i'd say. But our show is reaired on Sky, the
• 35:10
  Speaker 3: UK equivalent of ESPN, and we have a huge following
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: there because there are so many unsatisfied NFL fans that
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: don't have content, and they love our show and they
• 35:19
  Speaker 3: love our sensibility. And I'll hear back from viewers on
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: Sky when they fail to hit the button and the
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: F bomb gets through.
• 35:30
  Speaker 1: Yeah that's a word. That's definitely a word. Hey.
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: My position is life is rated R and everybody talks
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: that way at some point or another. And if you
• 35:41
  Speaker 3: act the people who act like they don't are the
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: ones who are letting it go as soon as they
• 35:47
  Speaker 3: get home. Over and over again. There's no way, there's
• 35:51
  Speaker 3: no way. It's just part of And I've seen studies
• 35:54
  Speaker 3: where two things. Two things. Number one it is a
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: great stress reliever, right, seen that, And number two, it
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: is a sign of advanced intelligence. Excuse me, it's a
• 36:04
  Speaker 3: lot of advanced intelligence if you use it smartly.
• 36:06
  Speaker 2: Okay, okay, but if but if you use it smartly,
• 36:11
  Speaker 2: but you will see and hear people who cannot people
• 36:15
  Speaker 2: who are in prominent positions, who can't go a sentence
• 36:20
  Speaker 2: without using it, right, and then it loses its offense exactly,
• 36:24
  Speaker 2: But a well placed has impact exactly.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: I agree with you.
• 36:29
  Speaker 1: Okay, yeah, I agree with that.
• 36:31
  Speaker 2: So why don't you take your.
• 36:34
  Speaker 1: So this is a fascinating topic. So you've written a
• 36:39
  Speaker 1: short story and it's gathering and garnering interest already.
• 36:44
  Speaker 3: Here's what happened. I'll tell you that. I'll tell you
• 36:45
  Speaker 3: how I got here, because I've been doing this five
• 36:48
  Speaker 3: years now. It all started during the pandemic. When I
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: got to this point of the calendar and we got
• 36:55
  Speaker 3: post draft. They had no off season programs that year.
• 36:58
  Speaker 3: Things really got slow and nobody was going anywhere, Nobody
• 37:03
  Speaker 3: was doing anything. I had an idea that became father
• 37:07
  Speaker 3: of mine. It was sparked by a dream that I
• 37:09
  Speaker 3: had about my dad and my dad we've talked before,
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: was a bookie and wheeling. And I started just pulling
• 37:17
  Speaker 3: threads of that idea from you know, and dreams. No
• 37:19
  Speaker 3: dream ever makes sense, but there were at least some
• 37:21
  Speaker 3: sensible parts of it. And I sat down one night
• 37:23
  Speaker 3: and I started going so fast forward through two agents.
• 37:30
  Speaker 3: The agent that I hired last year shares my vision,
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: shares my confidence that I may be onto something with this,
• 37:39
  Speaker 3: and has some really good ideas, and he's pushing me
• 37:43
  Speaker 3: more toward the realm of film. And I've I've written
• 37:48
  Speaker 3: some screenplays just kind of it's it's easier than writing
• 37:51
  Speaker 3: a novel. It's it is, it is. It's all dialogue,
• 37:54
  Speaker 3: it's all dialogue driven. It's I'm sure, I'm just I'm
• 38:00
  Speaker 3: a story. I'm telling a story. He's telling a story.
• 38:02
  Speaker 3: So one thing that obviously, you can't begin to develop
• 38:07
  Speaker 3: a movie if you don't have an idea, and you know,
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: kind of like a friendly challenge like let's see him
• 38:13
  Speaker 3: and they call him log lines. The log line is
• 38:15
  Speaker 3: the the encapsulation, it's the premise of the movie. Let's
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: see how many can come up with. So I started
• 38:19
  Speaker 3: coming up with them, and I suggested one to him
• 38:23
  Speaker 3: and he said, I kind of like that. I'll tell
• 38:26
  Speaker 3: you what don't don't. Don't write it as a novel.
• 38:28
  Speaker 3: Write is a short story?
• 38:29
  Speaker 2: Well?
• 38:30
  Speaker 1: Why?
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Why is a short story?
• 38:31
  Speaker 1: Well?
• 38:32
  Speaker 3: Right now? And you know he's got his finger on
• 38:34
  Speaker 3: the pulse of the industry and the trends. A short
• 38:37
  Speaker 3: story is the vehicle to get the attention to the studios.
• 38:40
  Speaker 3: And I don't know whether it's because you know, ten
• 38:42
  Speaker 3: thousand words is easy to read the ninety thousand, but
• 38:47
  Speaker 3: so I did and I didn't you know, I wrote
• 38:52
  Speaker 3: it in like three weeks back in March April time frame,
• 38:55
  Speaker 3: and I wrote it and I read through it and yeah,
• 38:58
  Speaker 3: I like it is I like it. Send it to
• 39:02
  Speaker 3: him and he's like, damn, this is good. I think
• 39:05
  Speaker 3: I hete that. I think I'm gonna send it out,
• 39:08
  Speaker 3: all right, send it out. And I'm so used to
• 39:10
  Speaker 3: rejection in this space. You're like, you'll never survive in
• 39:13
  Speaker 3: any creative field if you don't develop a very thick,
• 39:17
  Speaker 3: hard shell where you just expect that you're gonna hear no,
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: you expect that the answer is going to be not
• 39:23
  Speaker 3: a fit, not for us. It's so subjective and so
• 39:27
  Speaker 3: I'm like, yeah, okay, fine, I've been there, done that.
• 39:29
  Speaker 3: I'll wait for the rejection emails, like I'll go ahead
• 39:32
  Speaker 3: send it out. And this was he started sending out
• 39:36
  Speaker 3: two weeks ago. He called me last Tuesday night. And
• 39:39
  Speaker 3: I know it's a big deal when he calls me
• 39:40
  Speaker 3: because usually just Emoch I think called me last Tuesday night.
• 39:42
  Speaker 3: It's like, hey, I think we got something here. And
• 39:45
  Speaker 3: we've got three major studios, Major major, Major, the one
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: to meet. So first meetings Friday, next one's early next week,
• 39:56
  Speaker 3: third ones after that, we'll see where it goes and
• 39:58
  Speaker 3: we'll see who else. You see what else wants to
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: come to the table.
• 40:00
  Speaker 1: So this is awesome.
• 40:01
  Speaker 2: The title of the story is The Summons, and Mike,
• 40:04
  Speaker 2: I think this gets into also your writing because I
• 40:06
  Speaker 2: read it. I just want to read the first two
• 40:09
  Speaker 2: paragraphs because you write in very short, simple sentences, a
• 40:12
  Speaker 2: lot of dialogue.
• 40:13
  Speaker 1: He said, I.
• 40:14
  Speaker 2: Always get nervous. This is what it says. I always
• 40:17
  Speaker 2: get nervous on the first day of trial, even when
• 40:20
  Speaker 2: it's a slam dunk, no brainer, thirteen minute deliberation.
• 40:24
  Speaker 1: It was worse than.
• 40:25
  Speaker 2: Usual this time. I wasn't sure why. I read those
• 40:28
  Speaker 2: sentences and I said, I'm in you know now you
• 40:33
  Speaker 2: hooked me in those first two sentences, first couple of sentences.
• 40:37
  Speaker 2: So my question to you is, you say, you sit
• 40:39
  Speaker 2: down and you write, did you just bang you just
• 40:43
  Speaker 2: bang that out? Or do you have to come back
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: and revisit that because the first lines are critically import
• 40:47
  Speaker 2: cooking and hooking a reader.
• 40:48
  Speaker 3: In this case, that was the first thing that came out.
• 40:51
  Speaker 3: Usually that first line, that first chapter. Okay, I'm working
• 40:56
  Speaker 3: on finishing up a novel that hopefully will be available
• 41:00
  Speaker 3: in August called Big Shield that is a football gambling
• 41:03
  Speaker 3: mob thing. And I just rewrote chapter one. Yeah, it's
• 41:07
  Speaker 3: like chapter one doesn't work. Chapter one doesn't work. I
• 41:09
  Speaker 3: just rewrote it because you're right that, especially in a
• 41:13
  Speaker 3: longer piece, that's get to it. Sure, sure, shorty, you
• 41:16
  Speaker 3: gotta get to it. But yeah, that's a rare that's
• 41:19
  Speaker 3: a rare example of when I went back, I kept that.
• 41:22
  Speaker 1: Because the ending of your work before you start it. No,
• 41:27
  Speaker 1: you don't.
• 41:28
  Speaker 2: Really.
• 41:29
  Speaker 3: What I'll do is for a novel, because usually they're
• 41:32
  Speaker 3: between eighty and ninety thousand words, I'll do the first
• 41:35
  Speaker 3: forty thousand words wherever the spirit takes me, and then
• 41:38
  Speaker 3: after I'm halfway through, I'll figure out where I'm going
• 41:40
  Speaker 3: from there, and I'll realize that I have just kind
• 41:44
  Speaker 3: of coincidentally put enough things into the first half, little pieces,
• 41:50
  Speaker 3: little things, little straight comments that can be used in
• 41:53
  Speaker 3: the back half. But for this one, and the premise
• 41:57
  Speaker 3: is pretty simple. There's a man on trial for murder.
• 42:04
  Speaker 3: His defense is temporary insanity by reason of demonic possession,
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: and as the trial proceeds, the prosecutor realizes the defense
• 42:14
  Speaker 3: may have merit, and the way that I pitched it
• 42:16
  Speaker 3: to my agent was defendant temporar insanity by reason of
• 42:22
  Speaker 3: demonic possession. Mayhem ensues, so I had to figure out
• 42:26
  Speaker 3: what the mayhem was going to be and how it
• 42:27
  Speaker 3: was all going to wrap up. So I knew kind
• 42:29
  Speaker 3: of where. I knew that at some point it was
• 42:31
  Speaker 3: going to go off the rails and it was gonna
• 42:33
  Speaker 3: get crazy and there's gonna be all sorts of stuff happening,
• 42:35
  Speaker 3: but I didn't know what. I didn't know how, And
• 42:37
  Speaker 3: that's part of the process. You just have to trust
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: that as you go through it, one word at a time,
• 42:41
  Speaker 3: it will all eventually make sense, and if it doesn't,
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: you just rewrite it.
• 42:44
  Speaker 1: I would.
• 42:44
  Speaker 3: If it doesn't, then you rewrite it again.
• 42:46
  Speaker 1: Those two guys already wrote read it.
• 42:48
  Speaker 3: I knew you wouldn't have read it. And I know
• 42:49
  Speaker 3: you're you say you are taking these with you to
• 42:52
  Speaker 3: the beach. There is no way you're going to read these.
• 42:55
  Speaker 3: You will be killing the mosquitoes with these before you're
• 42:58
  Speaker 3: reading them. Actually they would be. You could do some damage.
• 43:01
  Speaker 1: Here's the deal, dude.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: Hey, you know what, growing up, if my mom would
• 43:04
  Speaker 3: have had this thing, it would have been it would
• 43:07
  Speaker 3: have been part of the arsenal.
• 43:08
  Speaker 1: I've got six to seven hours a day under an umbrella.
• 43:12
  Speaker 1: I'm reading both of those.
• 43:13
  Speaker 4: We're aware of where you're going and what you're doing.
• 43:15
  Speaker 4: We also know that you don't read.
• 43:16
  Speaker 1: Is there going to read books? Is there a foam
• 43:18
  Speaker 1: involved in his demonic possession? Does he foam at all?
• 43:21
  Speaker 2: He's got to read that.
• 43:24
  Speaker 4: You're gonna read what I think you did, not to
• 43:25
  Speaker 4: not to booster Ego anymore that you're sitting here, but
• 43:28
  Speaker 4: you know I'm a fan of.
• 43:29
  Speaker 3: I'm right to take it. I'm glad that did you.
• 43:31
  Speaker 3: If I'm going to leave the house.
• 43:33
  Speaker 4: I'm gonna talk about you while you're like, you're not here.
• 43:35
  Speaker 4: Did you realize going into that that it was a
• 43:36
  Speaker 4: short story or did you think it was an excerpt
• 43:40
  Speaker 4: of a book that was coming.
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: I thought, well, just because I got a heads up
• 43:43
  Speaker 2: from Tony it was a short story.
• 43:45
  Speaker 4: It's a short story. I'm extremely disspointed.
• 43:47
  Speaker 1: He came in.
• 43:51
  Speaker 4: Here's what I think you did well. Because I'm a
• 43:52
  Speaker 4: fan of legal thrillers. That's when I sit down to read.
• 43:55
  Speaker 4: I like those type of books. I think you did
• 43:57
  Speaker 4: a great job of taking something that could have really
• 44:00
  Speaker 4: hokey with the demonics okay, demonic possession okay, and made
• 44:04
  Speaker 4: it like I'm reading that going. I'll tell you that's
• 44:08
  Speaker 4: that's as believable as demonic Possession can get in my
• 44:11
  Speaker 4: mind for something that could have I think gone off
• 44:14
  Speaker 4: the hoky trail.
• 44:14
  Speaker 1: I thought that was make a cartoon.
• 44:16
  Speaker 4: It was not a cartoon.
• 44:17
  Speaker 2: It was really like it's done.
• 44:19
  Speaker 4: I read a lot in that genre, and I'm reading
• 44:21
  Speaker 4: that going. I'm in if this is a full book.
• 44:24
  Speaker 4: I'm reading that was really interesting.
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: How you did that well, and I appreciate that because
• 44:27
  Speaker 3: you never know when you're writing it, you never know
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: how it's gonna I always write from the perspective of
• 44:31
  Speaker 3: and it's the same thing that brought me into my
• 44:34
  Speaker 3: primary job. Like I try to create what I would
• 44:38
  Speaker 3: want to consume, and I try to always keep that Barama,
• 44:42
  Speaker 3: or would I think this was interesting if I'm the one,
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: you know, I said earlier, like it's taken me months
• 44:49
  Speaker 3: to read a book because it's like what, I don't
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: get it? What is this? It's not interesting, nothing's happening,
• 44:53
  Speaker 3: it's boring, it's meandering. I try to always remember that
• 44:59
  Speaker 3: and be cognitive, and I try to only create. Whether
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: it's at the website, whether it's a short story, whether
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: it's a novel, whether it's screenplay, it's got to be
• 45:05
  Speaker 3: something that I would say, oh man, yeah, I'm I'm in.
• 45:09
  Speaker 3: I'm in. I can suspend disbelief for this, I can.
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: I can invest my time.
• 45:13
  Speaker 1: You you.
• 45:16
  Speaker 2: You have a ton of dialogue. You rely a lot
• 45:20
  Speaker 2: on dialogue.
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: I love dialogue, dialogue to reveal character dialogue today you
• 45:25
  Speaker 3: can you can do so much through dialogue. I hate
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: when you get to the chapter in the book, the
• 45:29
  Speaker 3: perfunctory description of the person from top of head to
• 45:33
  Speaker 3: you know, to pinky toe, Like you don't need to
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: do all that in a paragraph. All that stuff can
• 45:38
  Speaker 3: come through over the course of tell them the story
• 45:41
  Speaker 3: through dialogue, among other things.
• 45:43
  Speaker 2: And again the it's a short story, so you're you
• 45:48
  Speaker 2: add texture. You don't have a lot of time to
• 45:51
  Speaker 2: add texture, right, but you do.
• 45:54
  Speaker 1: And like.
• 45:56
  Speaker 2: This to me was a small thing, but it stood
• 45:57
  Speaker 2: out to me. Let me find it here. The courthouse
• 46:00
  Speaker 2: wasn't far from home, because it's the day of the trial.
• 46:03
  Speaker 2: The courthouse wasn't far from home. I could have walked.
• 46:06
  Speaker 2: I often say I will, but uh, but never do.
• 46:10
  Speaker 2: I had a good I had a good excuse this time.
• 46:13
  Speaker 2: This guy was turning dark fast. That has a whole
• 46:18
  Speaker 2: ominous ring to it that goes back to the very beginning,
• 46:20
  Speaker 2: Like you got this weird bad feeling about this and
• 46:23
  Speaker 2: just that little thing, which again you're relying so much
• 46:25
  Speaker 2: on dialogue, but there's this little bit in there that
• 46:29
  Speaker 2: adds to the texture and the foreboding of what's ahead.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and I appreciate that. And that's all intentional. And
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: the one time that you know, I actually paid attention
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: to these classes, like I picked up I think it
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: was high school, because I never took anything English related
• 46:45
  Speaker 3: or literature related. But you know the messages and the
• 46:49
  Speaker 3: meanings and the things that are embedded in there, and
• 46:54
  Speaker 3: it makes it enjoyable to reread it or to rewatch
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: a movie. The best movies to me are the one
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: when you get to the end, the first thing you
• 47:01
  Speaker 3: want to do is watch it again. And the best
• 47:04
  Speaker 3: books are the ones where when you get to the end,
• 47:06
  Speaker 3: like where did I miss this?
• 47:08
  Speaker 4: Oh?
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: Oh, I think I know where this was? And so
• 47:11
  Speaker 3: you just sprinkle in and you only have eleven thousand
• 47:14
  Speaker 3: words to work with in a short story, and I
• 47:16
  Speaker 3: went over the target. The targets ten thousand, but I forget,
• 47:19
  Speaker 3: what the hell, I'll take a liberty and make an
• 47:20
  Speaker 3: eleven thousand.
• 47:21
  Speaker 4: But yeah, you've got to do what you can with
• 47:23
  Speaker 4: what you have to work How this may be one
• 47:25
  Speaker 4: of those questions at like asking Jordan how you play basketball? Though?
• 47:28
  Speaker 4: How do you?
• 47:28
  Speaker 1: How do you get?
• 47:29
  Speaker 4: That's a great compare why, because how do you drop
• 47:31
  Speaker 4: those things in without really having an outline of where
• 47:35
  Speaker 4: you're headed?
• 47:36
  Speaker 3: How does a general idea where you're going? You know,
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: I mean I knew where it was going, so I
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: knew that I wanted to create this idea that some
• 47:46
  Speaker 3: bad stuff's going to happen to this guy today. Yeah, so,
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: and and I don't know whether that may have been.
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: I'm sure that was in there from the beginning too,
• 47:54
  Speaker 3: because I knew as I sat down to do it
• 47:56
  Speaker 3: where this was all going to lead.
• 47:58
  Speaker 2: By the way, it's dark.
• 48:00
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, that's the idea.
• 48:01
  Speaker 2: It's really dark.
• 48:03
  Speaker 3: Well, and my agent had been and has been, like,
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: the one thing he's trying to get me to do
• 48:08
  Speaker 3: is come up with a legal series where it's the
• 48:11
  Speaker 3: same character in this adventure, this adventure, that adventure. And
• 48:15
  Speaker 3: that was the thing he said after he said when
• 48:16
  Speaker 3: I read, he said, this is the voice that I
• 48:18
  Speaker 3: want to see in a longer form series of legal thrillers.
• 48:25
  Speaker 3: And and what I'd like to and I've kind of
• 48:29
  Speaker 3: been roughing out different ideas. I'd like to do a
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: book of short stories that are just kind of like
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: combination of legal procedural and the Twilight Zone, where there's
• 48:38
  Speaker 3: something weird that happens in every case. But apparently short
• 48:41
  Speaker 3: story compilations don't sell, so I'm only going to waste
• 48:44
  Speaker 3: my time on things that I think are gonna sell.
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: But this idea of a legal rill series yea.
• 48:51
  Speaker 2: By the way, and if they do make like a
• 48:53
  Speaker 2: movie out of this, I mean, you might need extras that.
• 49:00
  Speaker 3: To be you do that, I'm gonna drive a hard Barkin.
• 49:02
  Speaker 3: I mean, I got I'm still learning how this business works.
• 49:06
  Speaker 3: This is the first time I've ever had leverage. But
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: you got three different companies. Like at a certain point
• 49:12
  Speaker 3: you're dictating the terms.
• 49:14
  Speaker 1: Can we okay? So with that being said, thank you.
• 49:16
  Speaker 1: Can we do? Can we do a verbal agreement? And
• 49:19
  Speaker 1: I know as an attorney what it pays. We don't
• 49:22
  Speaker 1: need it like a union, so we don't need money.
• 49:25
  Speaker 1: If if this does go on and it does become
• 49:28
  Speaker 1: a thieat and there.
• 49:29
  Speaker 3: You'll be jurors.
• 49:30
  Speaker 1: Yes, it doesn't have to be a jerk. We just
• 49:31
  Speaker 1: like to be extras in some capacity, whether that's in
• 49:34
  Speaker 1: the jury.
• 49:34
  Speaker 4: Jersey just stop. We'll take the jury.
• 49:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, we'll take the we've read the story, We'll take
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: the role.
• 49:40
  Speaker 1: The room.
• 49:41
  Speaker 3: Okay, how about in the gallery. But even then, even then,
• 49:44
  Speaker 3: everybody participates, participates.
• 49:46
  Speaker 1: When you do watch this become a movie, what you'll
• 49:50
  Speaker 1: notice in the background when they show somebody outdoor scenes
• 49:53
  Speaker 1: is there will be a go mart in the background.
• 49:56
  Speaker 1: And that if you have if you have the app,
• 50:01
  Speaker 1: you'll go like, well, wait a second, you can get
• 50:03
  Speaker 1: two hundred bonus rewards points now on airheads, Mentos, Snickers,
• 50:08
  Speaker 1: m and MS, Monster Energy uts, potato chips, and flank
• 50:13
  Speaker 1: steak barbecue stuff. That's four hundred and fifty on those
• 50:17
  Speaker 1: bad boys. So get your go Maart app and begin
• 50:20
  Speaker 1: saving immediately on your food and your fuel. Plus all
• 50:23
  Speaker 1: you gotta do is play a video game. You get
• 50:24
  Speaker 1: twenty cents off a gallon gas, which is really super good. Also,
• 50:28
  Speaker 1: it's peak boating season at lou Wendlow Marine Sales. The
• 50:32
  Speaker 1: selection that they have anything to do from boats to
• 50:37
  Speaker 1: the G three John boats to the literally to the pontoons,
• 50:41
  Speaker 1: from avalon or all the other accouterments. She knows that, Mike,
• 50:44
  Speaker 1: I do know if you know this or not, but
• 50:46
  Speaker 1: heavy accouterments in the boating world. You got anchors, you
• 50:50
  Speaker 1: got life preservers, you got rafts. I mean, you got
• 50:53
  Speaker 1: those little things you got to put on the side
• 50:55
  Speaker 1: of the boat so when you come into the dock
• 50:56
  Speaker 1: you don't bang it and scratch the whole thing up.
• 51:00
  Speaker 1: A lot of stuff and go to lou Wendel Marine Sales.
• 51:02
  Speaker 1: That happened to be the premiere. Pontoon boat dealer in
• 51:03
  Speaker 1: the state of West Virginia have been business for forty years.
• 51:06
  Speaker 1: Lou Wendelmarine Sales dot Com. That's lou Wendel Marine Sales
• 51:09
  Speaker 1: dot Com. You vote all, you vote it all. What
• 51:11
  Speaker 1: do you mean by that?
• 51:13
  Speaker 3: Because if I fell in, I would probably DROWNE.
• 51:15
  Speaker 2: Can you work a lou Wndow marine boat into the.
• 51:18
  Speaker 1: Movie if there's a Pontoon in any of your future movies,
• 51:21
  Speaker 1: we'd like to get a lou Wendell ponttoon boat in.
• 51:23
  Speaker 1: Work on that. Yeah, Aaron Rodgers to the Pittsburgh Steelers.
• 51:28
  Speaker 1: What was your takeaway over the length of the courtship
• 51:32
  Speaker 1: and how do you think it will work?
• 51:34
  Speaker 3: I believe that the courtship was protracted by design. Really,
• 51:40
  Speaker 3: I think that when he visited them. And just imagine
• 51:43
  Speaker 3: this set the scene. It's the Friday of the NCAA tournament. Yeah,
• 51:48
  Speaker 3: first Friday, all day long, games are going on a
• 51:53
  Speaker 3: little bit of a window for the NFL teams. You're working,
• 51:57
  Speaker 3: you're multitasking, watching some tape for the draft, but you
• 52:01
  Speaker 3: got all the games on Friday's gonna be to do it. Thursday,
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: We're gonna do it Friday. Best two sports days of
• 52:06
  Speaker 3: the year, NonStop waterwhall action. Oh, Aaron Rodgers is visiting today.
• 52:10
  Speaker 3: Change of plans, no basketball games, We're gonna spend the
• 52:13
  Speaker 3: day with Aaron Rodgers. That's the day he went that
• 52:15
  Speaker 3: first Friday the NCAA Men's Tournament, And I joked with
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: somebody I know up there about us, like, geez, yeah,
• 52:20
  Speaker 3: I mean, can you come a different day, like maybe
• 52:22
  Speaker 3: Monday when there's not basketball games all day long? So
• 52:25
  Speaker 3: I think the day he was there for more than
• 52:28
  Speaker 3: six hours, there was an understanding as to what was
• 52:31
  Speaker 3: going to happen. He had some issues in his personal
• 52:34
  Speaker 3: life that needed to resolve, and anytime anyone has that
• 52:38
  Speaker 3: fully respect that. I also think, and someone who knows
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: him but didn't know any specifics about this, but knows
• 52:45
  Speaker 3: him well suggested to me a few weeks ago that
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: he's made a calculation here. He's less of a distraction
• 52:52
  Speaker 3: if he's not signed at all and not showing up
• 52:56
  Speaker 3: for offseason voluntary workouts, and if he's under contract and
• 52:59
  Speaker 3: he's not sure up, Because if you're under contract and
• 53:02
  Speaker 3: you're not showing up even though it's voluntary, you're gonna
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: have people like me saying, what are you doing? Why
• 53:07
  Speaker 3: aren't you committed? You're on the team, and you're not
• 53:08
  Speaker 3: gonna be there. You're gonna have players questioned about it
• 53:11
  Speaker 3: constantly any time they're available to the media. He becomes
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: a much bigger presence hovering over the team if he's
• 53:16
  Speaker 3: under contract. He still was, and I think it created
• 53:19
  Speaker 3: a lot of consternation for fans who believe that it
• 53:22
  Speaker 3: is beneath the Steelers to behave this way. First, they
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: give Dk metcalf a market level contract that they've never
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: ever ever, in the fifty two years I've been following
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: the Steelers, they've never given a stranger to the team
• 53:35
  Speaker 3: a market level contract. Ever, they give up a second
• 53:39
  Speaker 3: round pick and thirty million a year on a five
• 53:41
  Speaker 3: year deal. Thirty five million a year in new money
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: puts him like third or fourth among all receivers. He's
• 53:47
  Speaker 3: never played down for them before. Between that and the
• 53:51
  Speaker 3: metaphor I used was, it's the guy who you know,
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: bends the knee and holds the box and pops it open,
• 53:57
  Speaker 3: and he's waiting, and he's waiting, and he's waiting, and
• 54:02
  Speaker 3: he's committed to stay there until he gets an answer,
• 54:04
  Speaker 3: and that's what the Steelers were from the perspective of
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: their fans, and I think it upset a lot of
• 54:08
  Speaker 3: their fans, and I think there are fans that are
• 54:10
  Speaker 3: skeptical about Aaron Rodgers. Cam Hayward put it best early on.
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: You either want to be a Steeler or you don't,
• 54:16
  Speaker 3: and I think it just rubbed a lot of Steelers
• 54:18
  Speaker 3: fans the wrong way. And he's gonna have to He's
• 54:19
  Speaker 3: gonna have to find a way to undo some of
• 54:21
  Speaker 3: that now. Throwing four touchdown passes against the Jets Week one,
• 54:25
  Speaker 3: that will go a long way toward doing it. It
• 54:27
  Speaker 3: puts more pressure on him though that right out of
• 54:28
  Speaker 3: the gates. Think about the pressure that's on it. He's
• 54:30
  Speaker 3: got to prove the Steelers right and the Jets wrong,
• 54:34
  Speaker 3: because the Jets could have had him and he wanted
• 54:36
  Speaker 3: to stay and they said no, thank you. So in
• 54:38
  Speaker 3: one foul swoop, he's either going to, you know, hit
• 54:43
  Speaker 3: both or fail both. And we know what will happen
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: that one game. Even though there's sixteen after that, that
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: one game becomes the biggest thing you can imagine, and
• 54:52
  Speaker 3: there's going to be so much of an overreaction that
• 54:54
  Speaker 3: first game and I wish that game wasn't at one
• 54:56
  Speaker 3: o'clock Eastern. I wish that, not that, not that Baltimore
• 54:58
  Speaker 3: Buffalo is a bad game for Sunday night, But the
• 55:02
  Speaker 3: NFL has said Mike North, who does the scheduling, he
• 55:05
  Speaker 3: said that if they had known that Aaron Rodgers was
• 55:07
  Speaker 3: going to Pittsburgh, that would not have been a one
• 55:09
  Speaker 3: o'clock game.
• 55:10
  Speaker 4: Are they better off though? The Steelers yes, by having him.
• 55:13
  Speaker 3: Well, look at what they've had since Ben Roethlisberger retired,
• 55:17
  Speaker 3: and even Roethlisberger's last year. I believe they didn't want
• 55:20
  Speaker 3: him to come back his last year. I believe that
• 55:22
  Speaker 3: they made him a financial offer they thought was high
• 55:26
  Speaker 3: enough that it wasn't as sign of disrespect, but low
• 55:29
  Speaker 3: enough that he wouldn't take it, and I think they
• 55:31
  Speaker 3: were surprised when he took it. So they had that
• 55:33
  Speaker 3: one extra year with Ben Roethlisberger they didn't expect and
• 55:36
  Speaker 3: it was okay. It wasn't great. Twenty twenty was his
• 55:38
  Speaker 3: last really good year. But then you got Kenny Pickett
• 55:41
  Speaker 3: in twenty two, and it started with Mitch Drew Bisky
• 55:43
  Speaker 3: and then went to Picket that that didn't work out.
• 55:45
  Speaker 3: Twenty three with Picket that didn't work out, twenty four
• 55:47
  Speaker 3: with Justin Fields, and then Russell Wilson that didn't work out.
• 55:50
  Speaker 3: And now Mason ruff who was three and zero late
• 55:53
  Speaker 3: in the regular season when they soft benched Kenny Pickett,
• 55:56
  Speaker 3: he had an ankle injury and he was healed, and
• 55:58
  Speaker 3: it's like, that's fine, We're good. Yeah, you're not healed.
• 56:01
  Speaker 3: We'll sick with Mason Rudolf, and Mason Roff was respectable
• 56:05
  Speaker 3: in a playoff loss to the Bills. Still, Mason Rudolf
• 56:09
  Speaker 3: and Aaron Rodgers are in two different galaxies, and they're
• 56:12
  Speaker 3: much better off with Aaron Rodgers. They will be better
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: with Aaron Rodgers.
• 56:16
  Speaker 2: But I'd defer to you. I defer to you. I
• 56:20
  Speaker 2: would just wonder whether, I mean, when was the last
• 56:22
  Speaker 2: time Rogers had the kinds of season that Steeler fans
• 56:26
  Speaker 2: would expect from their starting quarterback. And at number one
• 56:31
  Speaker 2: and number two the Steelers, this all feels very anti
• 56:34
  Speaker 2: steelersh to me.
• 56:36
  Speaker 3: Yes, everything about this offseason right it speaks to a
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: desperation that I believe the organization has to win a
• 56:43
  Speaker 3: playoff game. It's been nine years as of this year,
• 56:46
  Speaker 3: their last postseason win was the division rounding Kansas City
• 56:51
  Speaker 3: twenty sixteen season early January twenty seventeen. Remember the game
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: was supposed to be at one o'clock, there was an
• 56:55
  Speaker 3: ice storm. It ended up being a night game on
• 56:57
  Speaker 3: NBC that evening. That's the last time the Steelers won
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: a playoff game, and that sparked the drafting of Patrick
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: Mahomes by the Chiefs because they realized Alex Smith is
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: only going to take us so far. So desperation manifests
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: itself in a bunch of different ways. For the Chiefs,
• 57:12
  Speaker 3: it was we got to go get Patrick Mahomes. For
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: the Steelers, it's we got to get Aaron Rodgers. And
• 57:16
  Speaker 3: I think the next move is we got to get
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: ourselves in position to get a young quarterback who we
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: don't whiff on. They whiffed on Kenny Pickett. They loved him,
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: they knew him. He just doesn't have the objective skills.
• 57:27
  Speaker 3: There's nothing he does that's special. Rogers what he does
• 57:31
  Speaker 3: and all the accounts that you hear about Rogers over
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: the years, he throws the ball in a way that
• 57:35
  Speaker 3: creates a sound that people haven't heard before. There's a velocity,
• 57:40
  Speaker 3: there's an intensity, there's just something about it, and it's
• 57:42
  Speaker 3: flick of the wrists. He doesn't have to put his
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: full body into it, which would be harder for him
• 57:45
  Speaker 3: to do it forty one. When you have the arm
• 57:48
  Speaker 3: that he has, you can be dramatically better than what
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: they're used to. He may not be Ben Roethlisberger in
• 57:54
  Speaker 3: his prime, but you don't have to be to be
• 57:56
  Speaker 3: better than what the Steelers have had post Roethlisberger. That's
• 57:59
  Speaker 3: the kid.
• 58:00
  Speaker 1: And they wanted nothing to do with Russell Wilson.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: They were willing to keep justin Fields at the right number.
• 58:05
  Speaker 3: But he got twenty million a year, which used to
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: be like top of the market for an NFL quarterback.
• 58:09
  Speaker 3: Now twenty millions nothing. But that's fair because the teams
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: are making a hell of a lot more than they
• 58:15
  Speaker 3: were when twenty million a year was a lot for
• 58:17
  Speaker 3: a quarterback. But this is going to be an upgrade
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: for them if he stays healthy. If it all clicks,
• 58:22
  Speaker 3: you know that you've just got these There are things
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: about Aaron Rodgers that could create issues with teammates, but
• 58:30
  Speaker 3: I look at Mike Tomlin, who has managed to keep
• 58:35
  Speaker 3: far more difficult players in line. I think Tomlin knows
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: how to get Aaron Rodgers to say and do whatever
• 58:44
  Speaker 3: he needs to say and do to make it work.
• 58:45
  Speaker 3: I think they're committed to making it work this year,
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: and if they don't win a playoff game this year,
• 58:49
  Speaker 3: and I think that's the litmus test. If they win
• 58:50
  Speaker 3: a playoff game, it's a success. If they don't want
• 58:53
  Speaker 3: a playoff game, why'd you do all this same result
• 58:55
  Speaker 3: we've had every year for you know, however long now
• 58:58
  Speaker 3: we can't win a playoff game nine years, so that
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: I think that's the key, and I think they will
• 59:04
  Speaker 3: be better. I just don't know whether they want a
• 59:05
  Speaker 3: playoff game. Look at the competition in the conference. I
• 59:07
  Speaker 3: don't know who they want a playoff game.
• 59:09
  Speaker 4: Is that an impetus to change Tomlin and move on
• 59:12
  Speaker 4: from him if there's no playoff win this year.
• 59:14
  Speaker 3: I was talking to somebody about that recently who isn't
• 59:16
  Speaker 3: with the team but has close ties to the team,
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: And the guy that I said that to started laughing.
• 59:22
  Speaker 3: He said, they're never getting rid of Tomlin because they
• 59:24
  Speaker 3: know that Tomlin has gone a long way toward making
• 59:28
  Speaker 3: a mediocre roster competitive over the years. They're players across
• 59:34
  Speaker 3: the board. I mean, they've got some great players TJ. Watt,
• 59:36
  Speaker 3: They've had Cam Hayward, They've had some high end talent,
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: but they haven't had the collective level of skill that
• 59:44
  Speaker 3: other teams have, and they still find a way to
• 59:47
  Speaker 3: the right side of five hundred. And that's Tomlin. And
• 59:49
  Speaker 3: I still think, even after the past couple of years
• 59:52
  Speaker 3: where it seems like the criticism of Tomlin has intensified,
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: I still think if Tomlin would get fired, there would
• 59:57
  Speaker 3: be teams lining.
• 59:58
  Speaker 1: Absolutely.
• 59:59
  Speaker 3: In fact, teams that otherwise would be happy with the
• 1:00:01
  Speaker 3: coach they have would fire that coach if they thought
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 3: they could.
• 1:00:04
  Speaker 4: Get tom I agree.
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 1: If hypothetical here, if you walked into a tutor's biscuit
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 1: world and there's two cash registers, counter heir counter hair
• 1:00:15
  Speaker 1: casters to casters. Here, you walk in, Roger Goodell walks in,
• 1:00:20
  Speaker 1: there's no one else in the tutor's biscuit. What is
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 1: the conversation between the two of you?
• 1:00:28
  Speaker 2: Which biscuit are you getting?
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 4: You know?
• 1:00:32
  Speaker 3: How are you I'm fine? How you doing I'm good?
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 1: That's it.
• 1:00:35
  Speaker 3: No, I think we would we would have a nice
• 1:00:37
  Speaker 3: little conversation it was just the two of us. I've
• 1:00:39
  Speaker 3: I've spent time with him before I mean, I I
• 1:00:42
  Speaker 3: think at some level, I'd like to think even though
• 1:00:45
  Speaker 3: they're they're no, I understand nobody likes being criticized. Nobody
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 3: likes being called out. Everybody would prefer being praised. Like
• 1:00:52
  Speaker 3: this is a lot more enjoyable today having you guys
• 1:00:54
  Speaker 3: say good things about my fiction than if you were
• 1:00:56
  Speaker 3: telling me how bad it is.
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 1: Right.
• 1:00:58
  Speaker 3: But I think I think they understand that I spend,
• 1:01:03
  Speaker 3: and have spent for almost a quarter century now, most
• 1:01:08
  Speaker 3: of my waking hours promoting their product and causing people
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 3: to engage with their product. And I have emails that
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 3: I could compile and send to them from hundreds of
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 3: people who will tell us that they follow and enjoy
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 3: football more because they watch PFT live and they feel
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 3: invested in the game more because they enjoy the conversations.
• 1:01:34
  Speaker 1: We have about it.
• 1:01:35
  Speaker 3: It helps them understand it more, especially the UK people,
• 1:01:38
  Speaker 3: that they are even more interested. So I'd like to
• 1:01:42
  Speaker 3: think at some level, you know, I don't want I
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 3: don't want a fruit basket. I don't want you know,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 3: I don't want booze, I don't want bread. At some point,
• 1:01:53
  Speaker 3: it would just be nice to hear thank you once
• 1:01:56
  Speaker 3: in a while from them, and I don't know that
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 3: that's ever going to happen. They're very inclined to if
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: there's something I say they don't like, complain to NBC
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: about it. And NBC, to their credit, and I've told
• 1:02:09
  Speaker 3: you guys this before, NBC has always had my back
• 1:02:11
  Speaker 3: and always supported me, and they'll from time to time
• 1:02:13
  Speaker 3: tell me just so I'm aware. I think a lot
• 1:02:16
  Speaker 3: of times they don't even bother to tell me because
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: they don't want it to affect me. But you know,
• 1:02:21
  Speaker 3: I think that at some level he understands, even though
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 3: I can be a thorn in his side and a
• 1:02:27
  Speaker 3: pain in his ass, that that there is a net
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 3: positive that comes from what we do. So so you know,
• 1:02:35
  Speaker 3: i'd let him buy my biscuit if he wanted to.
• 1:02:37
  Speaker 2: That'd be nice.
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 1: Well, right now, at Tutors, what they're doing is they're
• 1:02:40
  Speaker 1: having a contest. You're giving away one hundred dollars each week,
• 1:02:43
  Speaker 1: and all you have to do is go vote on
• 1:02:45
  Speaker 1: what you would like to see them sell in their
• 1:02:47
  Speaker 1: merch this coming fall. Just go to vote tutors merch
• 1:02:51
  Speaker 1: dot com. That's vote Tutors merch dot com and you
• 1:02:54
  Speaker 1: just say, hey, I like that hat I like this shirt.
• 1:02:56
  Speaker 1: Like to see you guys sell this, sell that, and
• 1:02:58
  Speaker 1: you put yourself into the contesting. Each week they give
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 1: away one hundred dollars in Tutor gift cards, which would
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 1: buy Goodell and Florio a lot of Tutor's biscuits.
• 1:03:08
  Speaker 3: I got an idea that someone can steal and submit
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: make a biscuit hat like the cheesehead.
• 1:03:14
  Speaker 2: It is a good idea.
• 1:03:15
  Speaker 1: Tutor's biscuit hit whereto the w games. Let me ask
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 1: you this. You mentioned the UK couple against the Rain.
• 1:03:20
  Speaker 1: You mentioned the UK a couple of times. Let's say
• 1:03:24
  Speaker 1: the book thing goes and you have continued success with
• 1:03:27
  Speaker 1: the book, why don't you go overseas and just kind
• 1:03:30
  Speaker 1: of have a live live thing meet Mike, do a
• 1:03:34
  Speaker 1: meet and greet over in the UK. We have bad
• 1:03:36
  Speaker 1: for a kid from Wheeling.
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: We've been talking about that for a few years now
• 1:03:41
  Speaker 3: when the schedule came out and the Vikings have consecutive games,
• 1:03:45
  Speaker 3: because I ended up becoming a Vikings fan as a kid,
• 1:03:47
  Speaker 3: and I still and I'm open about that because I
• 1:03:49
  Speaker 3: think you're capable of doing this job objectively while also
• 1:03:52
  Speaker 3: acknowledging that there's a team that you rooted for as
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: a kid. I'm at the point now where I really
• 1:03:56
  Speaker 3: don't care. My son is far more invested than I am,
• 1:03:59
  Speaker 3: and I have to hear it all the time, which
• 1:04:00
  Speaker 3: is fine. I'm glad he's all in, although I feel
• 1:04:02
  Speaker 3: bad for him because you know he'll state at times,
• 1:04:04
  Speaker 3: why did you have to pick that? Sorry? But they
• 1:04:09
  Speaker 3: play the Steelers October five and the Browns October twelve,
• 1:04:14
  Speaker 3: first game in Ireland, second game in London, and we
• 1:04:17
  Speaker 3: talked about maybe trying to do it. Then the problem
• 1:04:19
  Speaker 3: is I'd want to do it with Chris Simms, and
• 1:04:21
  Speaker 3: he works college football as well now, so he wouldn't
• 1:04:25
  Speaker 3: be able to leave. Then it's something we'd have to
• 1:04:27
  Speaker 3: do in the off season. But we're going to do it.
• 1:04:29
  Speaker 3: We are going to do it. We're going to go
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: over there for a week and we're going to do
• 1:04:33
  Speaker 3: the tour of the UK and have events, and like
• 1:04:37
  Speaker 3: when we have events here, there will be people there
• 1:04:40
  Speaker 3: from the UK who are there for the Super Bowl
• 1:04:44
  Speaker 3: or whatever, because you usually do something super Bowl week.
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: We did something at the Casino in Las Vegas. We
• 1:04:49
  Speaker 3: did something at what's the place? How do I forget that?
• 1:04:52
  Speaker 3: Pad O'Brien's in New Orleans out in the courtyard the
• 1:04:56
  Speaker 3: home of the Hurricane. We did something there this year
• 1:04:58
  Speaker 3: and people from people from the UK, the UK comps
• 1:05:01
  Speaker 3: your UK is all in.
• 1:05:02
  Speaker 1: Why we had the same thing. Recently I went to
• 1:05:05
  Speaker 1: the motocross event there at high Point over in Mount Morris,
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 1: Hoppy Race. Well, he rode, he rode, and he had
• 1:05:13
  Speaker 1: his own shirt on. It was really nice and he
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 1: did that and people were thrilled. He also led the
• 1:05:19
  Speaker 1: entire group on Friday as the event was opening in
• 1:05:22
  Speaker 1: the National or in the Pledge of Allegiance. Wow, he
• 1:05:25
  Speaker 1: did the Pledge of Allegiance. It was very well.
• 1:05:26
  Speaker 2: We had a great event there at motocross and Tony
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: and I learned a lot about motocross, which has its
• 1:05:31
  Speaker 2: own identity and a tremendous following of it doesn't get
• 1:05:35
  Speaker 2: a lot. I think NBC is in on motocross.
• 1:05:39
  Speaker 4: But senergy.
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 2: Therefore it has a huge following and there's big money,
• 1:05:45
  Speaker 2: especially for the top people.
• 1:05:46
  Speaker 3: They had an event at Mount Morris, but the big,
• 1:05:50
  Speaker 3: the big, the peacock thing they did the they were
• 1:05:52
  Speaker 3: at Akrocher hinz Field.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, they do that, they do all this.
• 1:05:55
  Speaker 3: It's amazing what they do. To transform. They with the
• 1:05:58
  Speaker 3: hills and the.
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 1: Yeah, they got they got two brothers we interviewed while
• 1:06:02
  Speaker 1: we were there. One made approximately every one made ten
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 1: million a year. The other one made six million years. Wow,
• 1:06:08
  Speaker 1: that's not bad.
• 1:06:09
  Speaker 3: Wow, they just tell you that they just.
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 1: No, no, no, no, no. We got that. We had
• 1:06:13
  Speaker 1: to do some circuitous tertiary route.
• 1:06:16
  Speaker 2: Speaking of getting information, and obviously would not ask you
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 2: to reveal your sources. But are your best sources? Are
• 1:06:23
  Speaker 2: they agents? Are they assistant coaches? Are they people in
• 1:06:28
  Speaker 2: the organization? Are they within the league? Who are your
• 1:06:32
  Speaker 2: best sources? And I realize you probably use all, but
• 1:06:35
  Speaker 2: what are your best?
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it's all. And it's more relationship driven. The people
• 1:06:38
  Speaker 3: I've known the longest, the people I trust, the people
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: who I know that what they tell me something.
• 1:06:43
  Speaker 1: Can I interrupt? I think these mics and we told you, yeah,
• 1:06:47
  Speaker 1: they're a unit. Directionally they're not. They're not the right
• 1:06:50
  Speaker 1: microphones for this studio.
• 1:06:51
  Speaker 3: But so it's more driven by I know who I
• 1:06:56
  Speaker 3: can believe. I have one per I've known for a
• 1:07:00
  Speaker 3: long time, and he thinks it's okay to be you know,
• 1:07:04
  Speaker 3: three out of four, this is baseball. You know, Well,
• 1:07:09
  Speaker 3: I got I get a bat a thousand, or I'm
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: gonna look like an idiot, Like why did you use
• 1:07:12
  Speaker 3: that thing? I told you? I ended up being right.
• 1:07:13
  Speaker 3: It's like because I couldn't confirm it, and I'm not
• 1:07:15
  Speaker 3: gonna use it just because you tell me, because one
• 1:07:17
  Speaker 3: of these days you're going to be wrong. And when
• 1:07:19
  Speaker 3: he is wrong, and make sure he knows about it,
• 1:07:20
  Speaker 3: because like this is why I can't. I have to
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: be sure it's right before I do it. And and
• 1:07:25
  Speaker 3: so I I just I know the people I can
• 1:07:28
  Speaker 3: turn to, and I know, like for different angles and
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: different stories and different things I'm pursuing, I know who
• 1:07:35
  Speaker 3: to who to go to. I never like to ask
• 1:07:37
  Speaker 3: people with a team about their own team. I just
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: think that's bad form. And I don't want to put
• 1:07:42
  Speaker 3: him in a tough spot. And sometimes I will. It's like, hey,
• 1:07:44
  Speaker 3: I got no choice here. I need to know what's
• 1:07:46
  Speaker 3: going on, especially when it's you know, NBC driven and
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: this is what we're trying to put together for Football
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: Night in America. I'm more willing to say, hey, I
• 1:07:54
  Speaker 3: like I need to know are is there going to
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: be a coaching change? I need they expect me to
• 1:07:58
  Speaker 3: go on the air and speaking intelligently about this? What
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: can I say? And I like the people I know
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: who are in position to give me things. I always
• 1:08:05
  Speaker 3: do trust them. But twenty five years I'd like to think.
• 1:08:08
  Speaker 3: I like to think, but I may be wrong. I
• 1:08:10
  Speaker 3: have a decent barometer of what's true and what's not
• 1:08:14
  Speaker 3: true and when I can rely on someone and when
• 1:08:16
  Speaker 3: I can't. But yeah, I at this point there's too
• 1:08:20
  Speaker 3: much to lose and incrementally not enough to gain to
• 1:08:23
  Speaker 3: take a swing and a miss on something significant.
• 1:08:25
  Speaker 1: Yeah, Well, what's your final takeaway on the incredible draft
• 1:08:29
  Speaker 1: story regarding Shador Sanders?
• 1:08:33
  Speaker 3: Generally speaking, I have an aversion to any of the
• 1:08:38
  Speaker 3: reporting about a draft prospect pre draft because it is
• 1:08:46
  Speaker 3: a game of multi dimensional chess and a rule of
• 1:08:50
  Speaker 3: thumb that I learned from someone years ago that is
• 1:08:52
  Speaker 3: one hundred percent true. Teams that really like a guy,
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: And let's focus on round one, top prospect. In round one,
• 1:09:02
  Speaker 3: we're picking twentieth. We love this guy. Let's see if
• 1:09:06
  Speaker 3: we can get him to fall. How can we get
• 1:09:10
  Speaker 3: him to fall? We can start spreading some stuff about
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: him that will make him fall. And there's a Machiavellian
• 1:09:19
  Speaker 3: quality to it where we want this guy. It's a
• 1:09:22
  Speaker 3: game that we're playing. We want this guy to be
• 1:09:24
  Speaker 3: on the board at number twenty. So anytime I see
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 3: and we see a proliferation of it prior to the draft,
• 1:09:30
  Speaker 3: the anonymous scout, I don't want to hear what the
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 3: anonymous scout thinks, says. I need to know who the
• 1:09:35
  Speaker 3: anonymous scout is because I'm only believing the anonymous scout
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 3: if his or her team has no stake, no interest,
• 1:09:46
  Speaker 3: no anything in this person. And the flip side is
• 1:09:48
  Speaker 3: if a team really doesn't like someone. And Chris Simms
• 1:09:51
  Speaker 3: told this story on PFT Live this year when he
• 1:09:53
  Speaker 3: spent a year with the Patriots. John Robinson, who would
• 1:09:56
  Speaker 3: go on to be the GM of the Titans, was
• 1:09:58
  Speaker 3: working in the front office there and he told the
• 1:10:02
  Speaker 3: low level scouts, Hey, if you're hanging out with your
• 1:10:07
  Speaker 3: buddies and this guy's name comes up, talk him up.
• 1:10:10
  Speaker 3: We want someone to take him before we pick, because
• 1:10:14
  Speaker 3: that's a flip side. If you don't like a guy,
• 1:10:17
  Speaker 3: oh he's oh he's awesome, Please let somebody else take
• 1:10:20
  Speaker 3: him and push down the board the guys we want.
• 1:10:22
  Speaker 3: So that made me just concerned that somebody was trashing
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: shador Sanders in the hopes of getting Shadar Sanders low
• 1:10:32
  Speaker 3: in round one. After the fact, when he ends up
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: all the way in round five and everybody's had multiple
• 1:10:39
  Speaker 3: shots at him, it's clear it was something more than just,
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: you know, playing the board and trying to get a
• 1:10:45
  Speaker 3: guy at a lower spot. So I started then to
• 1:10:48
  Speaker 3: ask people who would be in a position to know
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: what happened. And then it's different to me because the
• 1:10:53
  Speaker 3: game's over, then this is just a let's rebuild this
• 1:10:56
  Speaker 3: and figure out why it went the way it did.
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: My understanding is Shadur Sanders approached the draft process as
• 1:11:05
  Speaker 3: if he was being recruited, not as if he was
• 1:11:09
  Speaker 3: being interviewed. And when you come to the table with
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: the attitude of you need to be catering to me,
• 1:11:15
  Speaker 3: you need to be making me want you, that's far
• 1:11:18
  Speaker 3: different from the guys who are all in putting in
• 1:11:21
  Speaker 3: the time, showing up for meetings where they've been given
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: a package of plays ahead of time and expected to
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: know them, and they get up on the whiteboard and
• 1:11:27
  Speaker 3: they show what they've mastered. That's what the teams expect,
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: unless you are an off the charts incredible talent. And
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: this is where I think his dad's experience hurt him
• 1:11:37
  Speaker 3: because his dad was that kind of an alternate recount
• 1:11:41
  Speaker 3: and the great Deon Sanders story from nineteen eighty nine
• 1:11:44
  Speaker 3: when he went into meet with the giants, and he's
• 1:11:46
  Speaker 3: told this story on the record. He went to meet
• 1:11:48
  Speaker 3: with the giants and they dropped this binder in front
• 1:11:50
  Speaker 3: of him that was this lengthy test that they had
• 1:11:54
  Speaker 3: every prospect take. And he looked at and he said,
• 1:11:57
  Speaker 3: when do you pick? And they said, we picked eighteenth.
• 1:12:01
  Speaker 3: I'll be gone by then. I don't have time for this,
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: and he got up and left. If you're Deon Sanders,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: you can do that. If you're you know, everybody else,
• 1:12:09
  Speaker 3: you can't do that because you're still gonna get taken
• 1:12:13
  Speaker 3: in the top five. Think about that nineteen eighty nine draft.
• 1:12:15
  Speaker 3: I mean four Hall of Famers in the top five picks,
• 1:12:17
  Speaker 3: Troy Aikman, Emmett Smith, not Emitt Smith, Barry Sanders, Derek Thomas,
• 1:12:23
  Speaker 3: and Deon Sanders in and Tony Manders was the only
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: bust in that top five. But yeah, you're still gonna
• 1:12:30
  Speaker 3: be taken high and you're gonna have a great career
• 1:12:32
  Speaker 3: because you just physically, you are so good that they
• 1:12:36
  Speaker 3: won't care about that. But for a quarterback position, especially
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: in today's NFL, where so much time and effort is
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: put in by the quarterback and you have to be
• 1:12:42
  Speaker 3: plugged in and locked in, and you have to be
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: the guy that sets the tone and shows up early
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: and stays late and is working and working and working
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: and mastering the offense and always ahead of the defense
• 1:12:51
  Speaker 3: and just committed to it, if you show an attitude
• 1:12:54
  Speaker 3: of hey, you know, this is a benefit for you,
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: not for me. I'm you know, I'm gonna go through
• 1:13:01
  Speaker 3: the motions here, I'm gonna and I don't know how
• 1:13:03
  Speaker 3: bad it was, but someone who was looking for a quarterback,
• 1:13:06
  Speaker 3: who had reason to carefully scout all the quarterbacks said
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 3: he acted as if he was being recruited and not interviewed. You.
• 1:13:12
  Speaker 1: That makes total sense. Makes it makes me go like, okay,
• 1:13:15
  Speaker 1: I get that because that kind of falls in line
• 1:13:18
  Speaker 1: with what you had heard.
• 1:13:19
  Speaker 3: And now the Browns, I you know, the saying goes,
• 1:13:23
  Speaker 3: if you have two quarterbacks, you have none. If you
• 1:13:24
  Speaker 3: have five quarterbacks of the Browns, that's where, because what
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 3: are they gonna do?
• 1:13:28
  Speaker 2: That's where That's where quarterbacks going to die.
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: Well, and how do you get how do you get
• 1:13:32
  Speaker 3: these guys out? They're putting out the idea now that
• 1:13:34
  Speaker 3: they may keep four quarterbacks on the fifty three man
• 1:13:36
  Speaker 3: roster all the way through the season, which I think
• 1:13:38
  Speaker 3: is just aimed at trying to trade one of them.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 3: I think they'd love to trade Kenny Pickett. I think
• 1:13:42
  Speaker 3: they'd love to go into the season with Joe Flacco
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 3: as the starter, and they work on getting Dylan Gabriel
• 1:13:46
  Speaker 3: and Shaudur Sanders ready and one of those two and
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 3: maybe both will play at some point this year, and
• 1:13:51
  Speaker 3: that's the competition to see who becomes the guy over
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: the long haul.
• 1:13:55
  Speaker 1: But they'll look.
• 1:13:56
  Speaker 3: Their history tells us they'll find a way to screw
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 3: it up, because they have over and over and over again.
• 1:14:01
  Speaker 1: One thing they're consistent. Yeah, what do you think?
• 1:14:04
  Speaker 2: I'm sorry, I was going to say, how do you
• 1:14:07
  Speaker 2: what's your take on rich Rod coming back?
• 1:14:10
  Speaker 3: Didn't we do this on Sports Life? You did?
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 4: Yes?
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 3: An answered?
• 1:14:13
  Speaker 2: Never mind, move on.
• 1:14:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, it's interesting.
• 1:14:15
  Speaker 3: Hey, Hey, I'm wearing the colors right. I'm supportive. At
• 1:14:18
  Speaker 3: the end of the day, we got to we've got
• 1:14:20
  Speaker 3: to come together and we've got to try to make
• 1:14:21
  Speaker 3: it work. Will it work? It's a different era than
• 1:14:23
  Speaker 3: it was twenty years ago. Everything is different, and will
• 1:14:29
  Speaker 3: he be able to attract, recruit and retain. That's the problem,
• 1:14:35
  Speaker 3: retaining the talented players, because now we're in this age
• 1:14:38
  Speaker 3: where you have a star player who develops. Do you
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 3: really think Pat White would have been here four years
• 1:14:45
  Speaker 3: in this climate?
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 1: Would have been hard?
• 1:14:46
  Speaker 3: Do you think Steve Slayton would have been here his
• 1:14:48
  Speaker 3: full career in this climate? Do you think the Mage
• 1:14:51
  Speaker 3: would have been here in this climate?
• 1:14:54
  Speaker 4: No?
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 1: Different?
• 1:14:55
  Speaker 3: Now, I know that's pre right. Retention. Their retention is
• 1:14:58
  Speaker 3: going to become the biggest star player star player. This
• 1:15:02
  Speaker 3: is great, He's gone. That's what we have to accept
• 1:15:06
  Speaker 3: unless unless And this is such a conflict for me
• 1:15:09
  Speaker 3: because I believe that the universities and the NCAAA should
• 1:15:14
  Speaker 3: be required to clean up their own mess. Their current
• 1:15:16
  Speaker 3: mess is the product of years of corruption where they
• 1:15:19
  Speaker 3: used anti trust violations. I don't want to get you
• 1:15:21
  Speaker 3: in trouble, but I'm speaking my mind. Go well, I mean,
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: but this is the reality. Because I know there may
• 1:15:25
  Speaker 3: be people at WU that don't want to hear this,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: but it's years of corruption. They deny. They came together
• 1:15:32
  Speaker 3: with a system that not only denied direct payment to
• 1:15:35
  Speaker 3: the players, but denied them the opportunity to use their names,
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: their fame to make anything. They couldn't make a dime
• 1:15:43
  Speaker 3: for decades payment And now the dam is broken and
• 1:15:47
  Speaker 3: they want Congress to save their ass. And my position is, hey,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: why why does the federal government need to bail out
• 1:15:55
  Speaker 3: college football? You made this mess, you clean it up.
• 1:15:59
  Speaker 3: What they don't want to do. We talked about the
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: CBA earlier. They don't want to have a union. They
• 1:16:04
  Speaker 3: want to have the benefits of having a union because
• 1:16:07
  Speaker 3: for the NFL, the NFL is able to have salary
• 1:16:10
  Speaker 3: cap and all the rules that apply to player movement
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: because they're in what's called a multi employer bargaining unit.
• 1:16:17
  Speaker 3: So they get an anti trust exemption that allows them
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: to make a mass set of rules that covers all
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: thirty two teams, even though they are thirty two independent businesses,
• 1:16:26
  Speaker 3: just like the one hundred plus called universities are independent businesses.
• 1:16:30
  Speaker 3: But they don't want to have a union. You know
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: why they don't have a union because they want those
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: guys not just here everywhere. How much time do they
• 1:16:37
  Speaker 3: get off then they're working out all year long, nominal
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: beat the hell out of them in pads all year long.
• 1:16:42
  Speaker 3: The moment you have a union, whoa whoa, whoa ho ho.
• 1:16:44
  Speaker 3: Wait wait a minute, we got we gotta do something
• 1:16:45
  Speaker 3: about these practice rules. You got these guys in full
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 3: pads two a days, you've got the You've got them
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 3: doing conditioning, voluntary conditioning, not voluntary voluntary conditioning all the time.
• 1:16:56
  Speaker 3: They don't get time. There would be so many rules,
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: work rules that the schools would have to deal with.
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: It would make it harder, in the opinion of the coach,
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: it's harder to get my team ready. So they don't
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: want a union because they don't want to lose the
• 1:17:11
  Speaker 3: ability to put the thumb on the team and have
• 1:17:13
  Speaker 3: them do as much as they want them to.
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 1: They want a hybrid. They want a collective bargaining agreement
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 1: with with With a hybrid.
• 1:17:18
  Speaker 3: They want to be able. They want to be able
• 1:17:20
  Speaker 3: to impose rules on the players without having rules imposed
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: on the schools. And they're hoping that the Congress will
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: give them that. And Congress might.
• 1:17:29
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: So, but all that said, I I remain optimistic, and
• 1:17:39
  Speaker 3: we'll see what happens.
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 2: Hopeful.
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: Why are we playing at Ohio University. I was talking
• 1:17:45
  Speaker 3: to somebody about that. But how much money is Ohio
• 1:17:49
  Speaker 3: University paying?
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 4: Because the rates for Ohio us of the world to
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 4: come in have gotten so exorbitant and so outrageous that
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 4: in order to bring that back down, you've got to
• 1:18:00
  Speaker 4: give something back instead of paying that rate for Ohio
• 1:18:02
  Speaker 4: only to come here. You throw a game one and
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 4: that limits Now you're not just paying exorbitant.
• 1:18:10
  Speaker 1: Big is their stadium thirty eight thousand.
• 1:18:13
  Speaker 3: It's gonna be an interesting ticket.
• 1:18:14
  Speaker 1: Oh yeah, people will eat those things up. People will
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 1: bother their season tickets and just go to the game.
• 1:18:18
  Speaker 3: Yeah, my son's already planning. I got him working for
• 1:18:21
  Speaker 3: me now. But he's he's he was up in Connecticut
• 1:18:24
  Speaker 3: last season, but he's going to be here this year
• 1:18:25
  Speaker 3: and he's already planning in the pit game in Ohio University.
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: And he's got his he's got his list of all
• 1:18:29
  Speaker 3: the games he wants to get to.
• 1:18:31
  Speaker 1: Does your son tell you that you go too fast?
• 1:18:34
  Speaker 1: He's a little bit high strung that you could back
• 1:18:36
  Speaker 1: it down a little bit. No, No, he doesn't know,
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 1: mind you.
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: I'm pumping up his inheritance why would I mean, it's
• 1:18:43
  Speaker 3: it's a it's a it's a it's a double it's
• 1:18:45
  Speaker 3: a double whammy for him. Number one, it's more money
• 1:18:47
  Speaker 3: for him, and number two, I'll probably die sooner. Oh jeez,
• 1:18:51
  Speaker 3: keep going, Hey, morbid morbid humor is also a sign
• 1:18:54
  Speaker 3: of highway. Should have just ended that profanity profanity.
• 1:18:58
  Speaker 2: And uh for you, you're checking a lot of boxes
• 1:19:01
  Speaker 2: over there, high intelligence.
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: No. But but I'm trying to show him because you know,
• 1:19:07
  Speaker 3: in this day and age and and there's so much
• 1:19:09
  Speaker 3: focus on and criticism of the NEPO baby right right,
• 1:19:14
  Speaker 3: and he's very very sensitive to that. And it's like
• 1:19:18
  Speaker 3: it's like, dude, like I build a business and I'm
• 1:19:24
  Speaker 3: gonna die one day and you're gonna have to figure
• 1:19:27
  Speaker 3: out what to do with it. That's not nepotism. That's fact.
• 1:19:31
  Speaker 3: Like if we had a pizza shop, you'd have to
• 1:19:34
  Speaker 3: be ready to run the pizza shop. If we had
• 1:19:35
  Speaker 3: dry cleaner, you had to be ready. If I had
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: you know, a Carla, you gotta be ready to Like
• 1:19:39
  Speaker 3: this is a family business, exactly, you gotta be you
• 1:19:43
  Speaker 3: gotta be ready to do it. It's not it's not
• 1:19:45
  Speaker 3: it's not nepotism, it's just reality. And so he's getting there.
• 1:19:49
  Speaker 3: He's getting there, and I'm trying to I'm trying to
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: show him the ropes and trying to instill the same
• 1:19:55
  Speaker 3: work ethic in him that you know, he didn't have
• 1:19:59
  Speaker 3: a great school foot coach who planted his foot his
• 1:20:02
  Speaker 3: ass on a regular basis to create that impetus.
• 1:20:07
  Speaker 2: My son got to start in this business because of you, right, Tony.
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 1:20:14
  Speaker 3: I called as a long time ago.
• 1:20:15
  Speaker 1: I called him. I said, hey, this college sports, just
• 1:20:19
  Speaker 1: college sports, football, college football talk dot com. You got
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 1: any internships? And goes, yeah, what do you got? I
• 1:20:25
  Speaker 1: gave him Ben. He took care of it. John was
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 1: a gentleman's name, John Taylor, John Smith, John Taylor, John Taylor.
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: That Ben worked lives in West Virginia. Now, oh yes,
• 1:20:35
  Speaker 3: he moved to like Clarksburg down here, Glenville.
• 1:20:38
  Speaker 1: That's freaking wild. And so that started Ben. Now Ben's
• 1:20:42
  Speaker 1: at CBS Sports.
• 1:20:43
  Speaker 3: Thank you for telling that story about how easy it
• 1:20:46
  Speaker 3: is to contact me and get someone an internship.
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 2: Thank you.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 3: I really appreciate you telling that story.
• 1:20:52
  Speaker 2: I thought we were saying something nice about well.
• 1:20:55
  Speaker 3: I appreciate that part of it. What I don't appreciate
• 1:20:59
  Speaker 3: in advance chants is that I'll hear from everyone I know.
• 1:21:03
  Speaker 1: Hey, well here's a good news. Hey, here's a good news.
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 1: You don't have college football talk truck. I'm sorry he's gone.
• 1:21:11
  Speaker 1: The only thing that lasted was how many people work
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 1: at pro football.
• 1:21:15
  Speaker 3: We've got four in addition to me and my son.
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 2: So it is just a somebody contacts. You said, well,
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 2: I've talked to NBC. There that's it.
• 1:21:25
  Speaker 3: But that's the reality. The NBC does all the hiring.
• 1:21:27
  Speaker 3: I get the best of both worlds. They pay us
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: a fee to license our content, but they provide the staffing,
• 1:21:33
  Speaker 3: they pay the employees, they handle all the expenses. I
• 1:21:37
  Speaker 3: have one of the rare businesses in the world that
• 1:21:40
  Speaker 3: is all revenue and hardly any expense.
• 1:21:43
  Speaker 2: Well done, here's what But going back to what you
• 1:21:46
  Speaker 2: said earlier, that's a good business model.
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 1: So look, with that deal that he has, he quote
• 1:21:51
  Speaker 1: unquote made it right, but his but your passion, Like
• 1:21:55
  Speaker 1: you just said, Hey, before I came in today, I
• 1:21:58
  Speaker 1: cut podcast, I did this, I did death this week
• 1:22:00
  Speaker 1: to keep the content. Like he could have. He could
• 1:22:03
  Speaker 1: just go like, I don't care. I'm getting my money
• 1:22:05
  Speaker 1: I'm good, but you still have that owner's absolutely burning
• 1:22:10
  Speaker 1: flame within you to keep that thing going to where
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 1: you started it well.
• 1:22:14
  Speaker 3: And ultimately, I know this sounds hokey, but when you're
• 1:22:18
  Speaker 3: serving an audience and they expect it, you've got to
• 1:22:24
  Speaker 3: be shoveling coal into the into the furnace, the beast,
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 3: So you have to keep you have to keep doing it.
• 1:22:30
  Speaker 3: And I mentioned earlier the emails I've gotten from people
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 3: who enjoy football more because of what they get from
• 1:22:38
  Speaker 3: our content. I get emails from people and it's hard
• 1:22:42
  Speaker 3: for me to even say it because it makes me emotional,
• 1:22:44
  Speaker 3: but people who are going through some really tough times
• 1:22:48
  Speaker 3: in their life, personal issues, And I'm sure you guys
• 1:22:50
  Speaker 3: hear this too, because we become part of their routine
• 1:22:54
  Speaker 3: and it is the it is the shelter in the
• 1:22:57
  Speaker 3: storm for a couple of hours every morning. And I
• 1:23:00
  Speaker 3: get those all the time, and I'll send them my
• 1:23:01
  Speaker 3: wife and always like, oh, you should send them a book.
• 1:23:03
  Speaker 3: It's like, you know, I get my books. Ain't free, Like,
• 1:23:05
  Speaker 3: oh you should send them a ball, that's nice, sus.
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 3: Just send them a book, Hey, send them a book,
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 3: Send them books. Like we're trying I'm trying to make
• 1:23:10
  Speaker 3: up to this, like this is a this is supposed
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 3: to be a profit center at some.
• 1:23:13
  Speaker 1: Point, Yeah, you're charging ninety nine cents.
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah, but but yeah, you know, I send them a
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 3: hard copy and you know. And so it's that part
• 1:23:20
  Speaker 3: of it too. Like just yesterday and the day before,
• 1:23:26
  Speaker 3: I wasn't able to do the PFTPM podcast, right, and
• 1:23:29
  Speaker 3: I mean, hey, hey, what's going on here? I thought
• 1:23:31
  Speaker 3: you didn't take any days off? Hey, where's my PFTPM podcast.
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: So part of it for me now is just you
• 1:23:36
  Speaker 3: have a relationship with your audience and and you feel
• 1:23:39
  Speaker 3: indebted to them. They've helped get me to the point
• 1:23:43
  Speaker 3: where I am. Now I owe it to them to
• 1:23:46
  Speaker 3: keep going as long as I can.
• 1:23:47
  Speaker 2: Will you ever retire?
• 1:23:48
  Speaker 3: No? No, I came to terms. I turned sixty ten
• 1:23:53
  Speaker 3: days ago, and at some point in the run up
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: to that, the epiphany was, I'm never gonna stop doing
• 1:23:59
  Speaker 3: what I do. I'm just gonna keep doing it until
• 1:24:00
  Speaker 3: I dropped own.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 1: Italian Italians don't retire.
• 1:24:04
  Speaker 3: What what else?
• 1:24:05
  Speaker 2: You just retired?
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 3: What else would I?
• 1:24:07
  Speaker 1: I mean, I didn't what else would I do?
• 1:24:09
  Speaker 2: Semi retired? No?
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 1: I didn't. Why would you say that, well.
• 1:24:12
  Speaker 2: Because you made the formal announcement.
• 1:24:14
  Speaker 1: I stopped doing my talk show at night.
• 1:24:17
  Speaker 3: Didn't he do the same thing?
• 1:24:19
  Speaker 1: Yeah, okay, he's having a horrible time in it. You can't.
• 1:24:22
  Speaker 1: I mean, he keeps wandering around the freaking building, brings
• 1:24:25
  Speaker 1: to the freaking luncheon. People say, you don't have an
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 1: office here, go away. It's sad to see it.
• 1:24:31
  Speaker 3: I just know so many people have jobs that they hate,
• 1:24:34
  Speaker 3: and I had jobs that I didn't hate, practicing law,
• 1:24:38
  Speaker 3: but man, it was stressful and it was you know,
• 1:24:42
  Speaker 3: you're fighting with people all the time. You're constantly worried, like,
• 1:24:45
  Speaker 3: am I gonna say the wrong thing at the wrong time?
• 1:24:47
  Speaker 3: And it's somebody else's interest not I move on to
• 1:24:49
  Speaker 3: the next case. For this person, this is their only
• 1:24:51
  Speaker 3: shot at the justice system. This is the only experience
• 1:24:53
  Speaker 3: with Are they gonna have a good experience? Bad experience?
• 1:24:55
  Speaker 3: Am I gonna? Am I gonna carry the day? Am
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 3: I gonna screw it? Like? That's just where on you.
• 1:25:00
  Speaker 3: And to have a job that doesn't feel like work,
• 1:25:04
  Speaker 3: that is only stressful on those eighteen days of the
• 1:25:09
  Speaker 3: NFL regular season Sunday when I'm expected to synthesize ten
• 1:25:14
  Speaker 3: games of football into the sound bites and the hits
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 3: in Football Night in America. I mean that's stressfulcause there's
• 1:25:19
  Speaker 3: a lot that goes into that, and and it's a
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 3: you know, it's it's it's a it's a high wire
• 1:25:25
  Speaker 3: with no net, it's and and so other than that,
• 1:25:28
  Speaker 3: every day is a good day. So what else would
• 1:25:31
  Speaker 3: I do?
• 1:25:32
  Speaker 1: Here? You go? Hop there's your answer. I don't know why.
• 1:25:34
  Speaker 1: I don't know why you had to retire. Florio is
• 1:25:36
  Speaker 1: not retiring. I'm not retiring. Brad's and I am.
• 1:25:44
  Speaker 2: I'm semi retired.
• 1:25:45
  Speaker 1: Okay, that's what you want to say. It is sure
• 1:25:49
  Speaker 1: been a good visit.
• 1:25:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, you're here.
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 1: It's been a good visit of it.
• 1:25:53
  Speaker 3: As my god, we've been we're doing this a long time.
• 1:25:55
  Speaker 3: I just looked at the clock. I haven't looked at
• 1:25:56
  Speaker 3: the cal It's been a great conversation because it's the first.
• 1:25:58
  Speaker 1: Time I've looked at the clock. Buck twenty six, that's
• 1:26:01
  Speaker 1: pretty long. Do you take a lot of hate on
• 1:26:03
  Speaker 1: your message boards and stuff like that? You still get
• 1:26:06
  Speaker 1: people take shots at you.
• 1:26:07
  Speaker 3: We used to have comments on the website and we
• 1:26:11
  Speaker 3: got rid of them. A couple of years ago. It's
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 3: just so it's so hard to police it. And then
• 1:26:19
  Speaker 3: you get people who get indignant, oh oh, what about
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 3: my First Amendment rights. It's like, I'm not required to
• 1:26:23
  Speaker 3: give you a platform to spew your hate. They'll do
• 1:26:25
  Speaker 3: it somewhere else, right exactly. And I remember when we
• 1:26:30
  Speaker 3: first had comments. My wife is like, do you see
• 1:26:32
  Speaker 3: what they say about you? And and I tell her
• 1:26:36
  Speaker 3: it's fine. That passion that they have to call me
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 3: bad names is the passion that brings them to the
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 3: website every day. So we dealt with it for a
• 1:26:44
  Speaker 3: long time, and then it just got to the point
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: where it was just it was just too much. You know,
• 1:26:48
  Speaker 3: the discourse took a turn that I wasn't comfortable with.
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: So if you want to call me, yeah, whatever you
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: want to call me, do it on social media, and
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: they do it. I if that's worse that I got
• 1:27:00
  Speaker 3: to deal with. You know, when you practice law and
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 3: you're litigating, half the people you deal with in theory
• 1:27:07
  Speaker 3: love you, and the other half the people you do
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: with hate you. Right, so I can deal with fifty percent.
• 1:27:12
  Speaker 2: I'm load.
• 1:27:14
  Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm WITHO. We like you.
• 1:27:16
  Speaker 2: We're one hundred percent here.
• 1:27:18
  Speaker 1: We're Mike Florio fans give it up. Three guys before
• 1:27:21
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• 1:27:24
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  Speaker 1: And by Tutor's Biscuit World. Start your day the Mike
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 1: Florio way with a Tutor's Biscuit. He'll get two. He
• 1:27:55
  Speaker 1: takes two.
• 1:27:56
  Speaker 3: Soon to be in a movie near you.
• 1:27:58
  Speaker 1: Year. Yeah, enjoy that. Enjoy that bread.
• 1:28:01
  Speaker 3: Oh, I can't wait. I'll probably start on it on.
• 1:28:04
  Speaker 1: The We're out. Thanks for being with us. Thanks to
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 1: producer Jake C. Y'all.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: H