Keyshawn Johnson UNFILTERED: Fox Firing, Super Bowl Secrets & LeBron’s Last Run

00:00:00
Speaker 1: Man, someone I watched as a little kid in college and obviously through the pros and some when I became a friend of a handfully of years ago. Welcome back to the show, Keith shan Johnson. Yeah for sure, I'll wap you up. I know you're a little you beat up right now. You old old.

00:00:14
Speaker 2: I'm getting old, so I got a little little hand issue going over. It'll be taking care of. Next time I see you, I'll be fully ready to go. How's life?

00:00:21
Speaker 1: What's going on? I mean, this is the first time you're not working on TV. I mean I've been seeing you on TV since you stopped playing, So it's been about twenty years since I ain't seen you on thirty years.

00:00:30
Speaker 2: You know what, Matt Man, It's it's been a minute. This is the first so it's amazing. But this is the first football season, if you go all the way back to college, this is the first football season I have not been on national team.

00:00:46
Speaker 1: Right, whether working or talking, talking anything.

00:00:50
Speaker 2: So it's been a long it's been a long time, but it was refreshing to be able to take off. I guess you could call it them. Six months with Fox FS one made the decision to counsel all the shows for whatever reason that they felt they needed to.

00:01:03
Speaker 3: There was opportunities out there.

00:01:05
Speaker 2: People wanted me to dive right in immediately, but I'm like, good, let me just take a break because I know the opportunity is gonna be there, you know what I'm saying. So I'm not really like, what's in a rush to do anything, because it got to be the right situation. I've been doing this media thing for a long time, man, and at the top of my game, the best for our unclecern the best to do it.

00:01:26
Speaker 3: Cause I don't come.

00:01:27
Speaker 2: With no for gazy bullshit like a lot of these other dudes that be out there talking. Mind, be real, to the point, true assessment, whether it's on the hardwood or whether it's on the football field, whether it's on a baseball diamond. This is what I truly see. I understand because I played all three sports. And so I sat back with my agent and we, you know, strategize, Okay, what are we gonna do right now? So my thing was, let's just sit tight, wait till the beginning of the year, and then let's take our meetings and make sure we getting a strategic partner a life partner for a long time. I don't want to be doing the whole every two years with a different network or different and I'm not doing that no more, you know, I'm not. I'm just not gonna do it no more. Never mind, Because if you don't see the talent and understand what the talent is all the way around, not just the talent talking about football or sport, but the talent in life in general, because it ain't just about Some people just be thinking about the sports, but I can talk to you about anything in the world that's going on. And if you don't see that as the executive or the producer, then you go ahead and go deal with some old suckers.

00:02:33
Speaker 3: That's the way.

00:02:34
Speaker 2: That's how man, that's how I look at it.

00:02:37
Speaker 1: What do you mind? What kind of happened over at Fox, Man? You know what, to be honest with your dog, they was good to me. They was just like they was good to me.

00:02:49
Speaker 2: But I think, you know, a lot of people think it had to falling out, had to do with the Joy situation, and that's not true. That's not that's not true at all. Whatever happened, I've been with my girl Joy and the rumors and all of those sort of things. That's not why they got rid of the shows. Because they got rid of all the shows. They didn't just get rid of speak, they got rid of everything. And so I go back and I look at it. I say to myself, well, they gave me a deal. So I really wasn't, you know, in that position where it was like, well they don't like me. No, they was cool with me, all of them, man, whether it was whether it was Shanks, whether it was it was with you know, all them dudes. Was always cool, even the dude Charlie Dixon that brought me in that wind up. You know, whatever getting fired or whatever the situation happened with him, ain't nothing to do with me. I wasn't there when all that stuff went down. So when they made the decision to part ways, it's so funny because I tend to go to gatherings with the crew, like I take all the production crews. We all get together do all.

00:03:54
Speaker 3: Sorts of stuff.

00:03:54
Speaker 2: So the night before it's so crazy because the night before I was going on vacation in Mexico the next day with my family, and uh, we had this big giant Christmas dinner. No, I'm sorry, end of the year dinner. Uh, you know, before we go on summer break and a bunch of the executives didn't show up, so you know, you start peeping in. You like, okay, so they not gonna take the invitation. Something main't happening. But I thought that something happening meant like they're not gonna renew joy, They're gonna.

00:04:28
Speaker 3: Do this, do that, do this, do that.

00:04:31
Speaker 2: I figured I was cool, you know, because they we were always doing things accordingly, moving forward, right, We would never like worried about anything.

00:04:43
Speaker 3: We were just chilling everything.

00:04:44
Speaker 2: They was ordering our suits and just our clothes. Everything was rolling. So I was like, maybe they got some different plans. And then the next day, I'm I'm uh in Mexico and my phone it's.

00:04:59
Speaker 1: Buzzing the worst kind of ring.

00:05:02
Speaker 2: But I'm not a social media dude, right, so I ain't looking at social media like I'm just not. I don't have the ship on my on my phone.

00:05:11
Speaker 3: And so I got a couple of call you heard what happened?

00:05:12
Speaker 2: You heard what happened? Said? Oh, what happened? Man? Said? Man. They just called called us all in and told us this is our last day. And we got thirty days and this, and I'm like, who They said, everybody, Dad, They wiped out the whole you know, everybody in the production, from from digital to to graphics, to wardrobe, the makeup. I'm like, damn for real. So then I'm flying. I wasn't even in Mexico. That's right. I'm flying and I'm texting and I'm texting the dude. So then the boss with text me. He tried to call me.

00:05:45
Speaker 1: He said, hey, ah, so before you're thinking, this is all the behind the scenes people, yeah, wiped out.

00:05:49
Speaker 3: Yeah, so he texted me.

00:05:51
Speaker 2: I'm on the plane. He texted me, and I'm like, but I had already got the information from somebody else that it was going down, So I'm playing dumb, you know. I'm like, oh, yeah, cool, I moved. I land in thirty minutes. Just hit me in thirty So I touched down. As soon as I land, my phone ring, like on point twelve thirty. I'm like, damn you problem, man, I ain't got my bags yet. He's like, oh yeah, you know, I wanted to get to you before it hit the media. You know, we're gonna make a change, We're going in a different direction. I was like already know, I said, the people don't already told me it's cool. You ain't got to come on, man, you know I'm not I'm not tripping at all. But you know, at the end, I was just like, damn, y'all. So y'all just gonna wipe out everything. He was like, yeah, it was a decision. The ratings we was good.

00:06:36
Speaker 3: Even though I know the ratings was fine.

00:06:37
Speaker 2: You know, I just was playing along more I'm gonna play the corporate game and you you playing it with me, I'm gona play it back with you, and uh that was kind of that was it, and I just was like damn. So you know, once I got down, I called my agent. I'm like, you heard what just happened? And he's like, yeah, I heard. And then we went into contract stuff and I was like, okay.

00:06:58
Speaker 1: We're cool, and you got to guarantee you g up.

00:07:00
Speaker 2: Look we cool. I ain't even tripping, you know, let's figure it out. And so I guess his phone started ringing when it hit the press. But if you ever notice, they never ever said that I was gone.

00:07:15
Speaker 3: They never said I was gone. They just said the show's counselor. Because I was still in.

00:07:18
Speaker 1: The contract, so you know, still getting your money. I ain't complaining you had enough. The Super Bowl, I will go out.

00:07:27
Speaker 2: Not going to the game, and I haven't been to a Super Bowl game other than one I played there. So I'll go out for two days Wednesday and Thursday. I got a bunch of meetings, some dinner meetings, and then I'm back in LA on Friday to watch the game on Sunday.

00:07:41
Speaker 1: What have you kind of been filling your time with since not being in the mix the whole time?

00:07:46
Speaker 2: You know? So my buddy, I don't know if you know, Jordan Schultz. Yeah, Jordan Sho is a friend of mine, a friend of mine, and he has a podcast called The Schultz Report. So what I what I've committed to do with him is appear on his his show once a week do a football season. So I go on with him on like Tuesday for like thirty minutes, you know, and put that in there, put that work in for him. And that's really really all it's being. And I've been watching, you know, obviously watching the games on TV and sports and that's it.

00:08:23
Speaker 1: Man.

00:08:25
Speaker 2: Like I said to you earlier, Matt, I've been working every weekend since college. People don't understand that because they don't know how things work for us, right, But if you look at it, when you go to college, you play on Saturday, you watch film on Sunday, you work out on Monday before you start practice on Tuesday for the beginning of the week.

00:08:44
Speaker 1: And some people got to go to school. I don't know how you got down, but some people on Monday, they also got to go to school.

00:08:48
Speaker 2: Oh well, yeah, I didn't put the school part of there, but yeah, I got two degrees. But yeah, you know, yeah, you got to go to school as part of it. But then when you leave that football season, you get drafted. You playing on the weekend. Then when I retired, I went right into Sunday and Money Night Countdown.

00:09:07
Speaker 3: So my weekends was done.

00:09:09
Speaker 2: So when I left, when I left the Weekend show with Tom Jackson and Boomer and everybody over at ESPN, that was the first time I ever had a weekend. Even though I was still at ESPN, I was working only during the week. It was first time I ever had a chance to watch a football game in the sports boar.

00:09:27
Speaker 1: But also too from another standpoint, and just I think that family time. Yeah, oh, a full commitment to playing and then transitioning right into media. Like people don't understand, especially when you have kids. Those weekends are always games, praying something you had to miss, cat to that right now or what's Yeah.

00:09:43
Speaker 2: Myself played basketball. So I'm I'm one week over in Orange County over here. The next day I'm over here, I'm in the valley over there. Oh, We're going to Arizona over here, Like we're going to Faace.

00:09:55
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, everywhere aau stuff crazy. I'm in it mix. I'm heavy. The side of the Super Bowl levi Stadium. It's been a central controversy with the electrical substation that sits next to the field and the Prass facility. They lost a ton of stars this year, Bosa Warner Kittle, have you heard about that? I know you're not a social media guy, but have you heard about the conspiracies and what has kind of been your take on just not I named three of the guys, but I want to say they lost like nine or ten of their key guys to season. Any injuries.

00:10:30
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess what they're trying to say, the electrical plant next to it is affecting their body or something like that. Yeah, some sort of raise coming.

00:10:38
Speaker 1: You don't believe it.

00:10:39
Speaker 2: I'm not a conspiracy dude, though, What about the other teams that don't have electrical plant next to their.

00:10:47
Speaker 1: But I will say, being a Niner fan, we have a lot more injuries than other teams do. Yeah you yeah, season ending like big boy.

00:10:55
Speaker 2: But you know, as a professional athlete, maybe that comes down to your strength, conditioning long.

00:11:00
Speaker 1: So that's my question is is there a different part than maybe just a casual fan is not seeing to your point, the pt the weightlifting, they took a lot of hit too. But then now this conspiracy theory about the electrical plan, but it could be more than that's what you're saying.

00:11:15
Speaker 2: Then, sometimes dudes working too hard or don't work you enough. See they look good, and these coaches get to hire these dudes. They got traps and swollen. They don't know nothing about what it really takes for you.

00:11:28
Speaker 3: As a professional athlete.

00:11:30
Speaker 2: They don't pump faked on the coaches, see because the coaches are the ones usually hiring these dudes. The coaches don't know anything about the nutritional side, the PTS, They just don't.

00:11:40
Speaker 3: I don't give it.

00:11:41
Speaker 2: Damn what nobody say these coaches don't know nothing about no medical and so they hire somebody based on what somebody else tells themod They hire somebody based on the relationship that they may have had at another spot with this individual who was a junior sniff and then all of a sudden he gets pushed up. You know what I'm just saying.

00:11:58
Speaker 1: You know what's funny is I talk to one of my homeboys that I met, who's that trains guys in the off season, professional athletes in the off season. He said, the reason why none of these professional trainers never go into these pro organizations because everything is so outdated. They don't understand how the training and the nutrition has changed over the years, and they're sticking to the old script and that was more of the reason for the injuries we're seeing.

00:12:20
Speaker 2: Then that could and that could be the case, But what happens a lot of the times again is even though their strength and conditioning coaches on multi million dollar athletes at a facility that you would think was billion dollar business, that they would have the right people in place. Some of these dudes, man, even when I was playing please, I can't.

00:12:42
Speaker 1: And you doing and the pay isn't what we think it should be either. The pay is really low too, So it's just like you pay for what you get for what you get what you pay for.

00:12:51
Speaker 2: Some of them dudes though, they just but I don't believe in the San Francisco forty nine is freeding to be honest, I just can't come home and be mad everybody falling the part? Well what about five or six dudes fall apart? But you got fifty three sixty dudes on the team.

00:13:05
Speaker 1: Yeah, we got coaches and we used every last one too. They hit me up and heard I used to play in high school and see if I wanted to play in Philly. But I was just like, nah, my shit is a little beat up super Bowl week? Yeah, something you participated in with the Bucks and No. Three, Correct me if I'm wrong. That's the first year that Gruden came from the Raiders after the Bucks, right, Yeah, walk us through that. What is that two weeks after winning your AFC championship like leading up to the Super Bowl.

00:13:28
Speaker 2: You know, you asked a good question. That was the last time that there were not two weeks?

00:13:35
Speaker 1: It was only a week before it was No, it.

00:13:36
Speaker 2: Was yeah, a week before we went straight from the NFC Championship game from Philly directly to Tampa Bay. I mean we locked and loaded. I feel like I got off the plane and I rushed home to get whatever I needed to get and loaded back up and we took back off. So we touched down, loaded up, boom, back off, and we was in San Diego. You know, so we played that week. We didn't have the week.

00:14:03
Speaker 1: In between, you know, so you were right to work. So so you grabbed your stuff. Excuse me, I'm a NFC Championship You grab your stuff. You get to San Diego? What's that? So you get there Monday or Tuesday?

00:14:13
Speaker 2: No, we got there. Yeah, we got that Monday, Monday evening.

00:14:16
Speaker 1: So what's to walk us through what that week is like?

00:14:19
Speaker 2: Man, we we didn't practice I think for the first day or two. We had like a normal week of practice because it was you know, we didn't need to have a separation because we didn't have that time off. So we went on the normal schedule. So I can remember where we didn't practice on a Monday and Tuesday, but we practiced on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday, and leading up into the game, we didn't have pads on anything like that. We were in T shirts and shorts and a lot of media stuff. I didn't even really do nothing. Man, I chilled the whole time.

00:14:56
Speaker 1: You know.

00:14:57
Speaker 2: I obviously have a bunch of family and friends come up from La doing the course of the week, and we hung out at the local uh in the inside the hotel. We just hung out.

00:15:06
Speaker 3: Around there and talking and that was it. I went out one.

00:15:10
Speaker 2: Night, which was probably like Tuesday night or something like that, maybe even Monday, Tuesday, Monday or Tuesday, I went out, had dinner, but I was basically locked up in the hotel. I didn't do shit.

00:15:20
Speaker 1: Now was that because you were vet you knew? Was that over that team rules? No?

00:15:24
Speaker 3: That was no, no, no, you could do what you want to do.

00:15:26
Speaker 2: I just like my mind was focused with like, you know, I don't need to call up no bra, I could do you know what I'm saying, Like that's easy. I ain't. That's easy work all that type of stuff. Getting there and most of the crowd wouldn't come in until Thursday anyway, So by Thursday you won't shut down. You on lockdown by Thursday anyway. So Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, if you want to get out, there was some guys that went out and partied and stuff.

00:15:49
Speaker 3: But I wouldn't.

00:15:50
Speaker 2: I'm like, I'm cool. You know, if you think about Baron Robbins, the center.

00:15:54
Speaker 1: From the way disappeared in Mexico. He had I think he had like some mental did he He missed the game right like a motherfucker. How you missed this? He went to Mexico and started a trip. I remember, I was he went to Tijuana and never came. Yeah, I was just getting I remember. I think that was my senior year of college. And I remember hearing about because I remember Jerry Rice on the other team. I was always a big fan of jer Rice. I'm hearing about the center just disappeared. I'm just like, what the fun? Yeah?

00:16:21
Speaker 2: He you know he had I think he was had some medication type situations that he didn't take or left back and uh yeah he.

00:16:29
Speaker 1: Went he tried to get it for the low down down.

00:16:32
Speaker 2: He went down to Mexico. It was like beers and whatever else. He just had a ball.

00:16:40
Speaker 1: How was that situation? How was Grooden? That was your guy's first year with gruten You know, from the outside looking in, he's he looks like a character. Yeah, so what was that, like, you know.

00:16:51
Speaker 2: For me, I just tried to play, Matt, right, I tried to get into the tit for tat. You know, I ain't got time for all that. I'm grown, I've been in this game. I didn't play for some of the best to ever coach it. I just you know, it was a character.

00:17:06
Speaker 1: You knew what it was, right Like, you just knew what it was.

00:17:09
Speaker 2: You know, some people didn't know what it was, so they fell for it. Me on the flip side, I'm like, I'm just here to play ball. But I know who you are, and I see, yeah, I see you a mile away.

00:17:20
Speaker 1: You know what I mean.

00:17:21
Speaker 2: You ain't gonna get me like you get everybody else.

00:17:24
Speaker 1: So six catches sixty nine yards when that final clock tick in your Super Bowl, champ, what does that mean to you? Man?

00:17:31
Speaker 2: You know I didn't even let the clock tick though, Matt. So, growing up as a kid, you always watch a Super Bowl and you always saw a player or two or whoever go up in the stands and get their family. So I think I think white Face has scored the white Smith has scored like the final touchdown as soon as he picked it and scored the final touchdown I went straight to the stand.

00:17:53
Speaker 1: You knew it was over.

00:17:54
Speaker 3: Oh, I knew it was over.

00:17:55
Speaker 2: It was like a minute something left in the game. I went, let's start getting They trying to tell me. They were trying to tell me I couldn't go in the stands. This is the security was seeing. I couldn't go on in the stands and get my friend. I told the dude, I said, if you don't, get your mother fucking hands off me and then my brother you know, you know, all live right there. So they like, it's getting ready to turn in this up. So I'm like, come on, come on, I got my kids and stuff. And it was just one of those deals. It was so crazy because Gruten actually came over and picked up my son and was playing, you know, a hold of my son and stuff. It was just one of them. It was just a moment that it's like graduating from it like graduating from college when you come from the inner city and you grew up a certain way in poverty and then you get a degree from the University of Southern California. That's what it's like winning the Super Bowl. As a player that participated in the Super Bowl, it's cool to participate the way to Jersey. But I got minutes and I put up numbers. So it was like, they can't never take that away. There's two things they can't take away, or actually three. They can't take away the number one overall pick. They can't take away graduation. They can't take away Super Bowl. You know, you gotta live with that, the hate.

00:19:06
Speaker 3: You just gotta live with it.

00:19:09
Speaker 2: Live with it, think about it. You with it.

00:19:12
Speaker 1: You can do about it. You can do about it. NFC Championship has some wide receivers showing out Pookah JSN put on a show both over one hundred fifty yards in the touch two of the better receivers young guys in the league. Who are some other guys that you look at, you know, Saint Brown, Jamar Chase, Justin Jefferson AJ. Who are some of the younger Who are some other guys in the league that you think have a chance to really be special?

00:19:34
Speaker 3: Well, I mean you mentioned basically the top guys, right.

00:19:39
Speaker 2: Uh, you know, I always throw T Higgins in there because I like T Higgins. Uh, he don't get enough of the notoriety that he deserves because he's obviously the opposite the Chase, and so every all the focuses on Jamar Chase. When you go in the second round and another dude go in the top five, yeah, you know they gonna get all the recognition.

00:19:57
Speaker 3: But you named him, I mean, I don't you know, we'll he would.

00:20:02
Speaker 2: The kid at Tampa, Rebecca he said, his name Mecca and Becca, whatever you call it. The receiver in Tampa, Mecca Buka. He got an opportunity to chance. I'm trying to think who else that's young. If Chris Olive could ever get healthy and stay healthy, he got a chance. You know, it's probably like three maybe three guys that's young. They got a chance to get into that area. But you name the.

00:20:28
Speaker 3: Guys, that's pretty much the guys, the core guys.

00:20:30
Speaker 1: Brady said of JSN, he's like a nice skater. His shoulders never dip hard for any dB to really get a read on him. He said, that's one of his best attributes. What do you think about that assessment of him.

00:20:43
Speaker 2: He's like an ice skater.

00:20:44
Speaker 1: Yeah, just the way he moves his shoulders never gets hard to get a read on him.

00:20:48
Speaker 2: He's ridiculous. And here's how I assess wide receivers. Different than many other people, right, Matt, because the first thing you see is w R. So the first thing you said, oh, he's a receiver. It's like basketball U SEPG. The first thing you think is he's a point guard, when he might not really be a point that may just be the label. So with JSN, he can play all the spots. Everybody can't play.

00:21:16
Speaker 1: All the spots. You know.

00:21:18
Speaker 2: You say, well what about a guy that's inside, Well that's probably where he's gonna stay because he can't play outside.

00:21:25
Speaker 3: With the big boys, JSN and pooking.

00:21:27
Speaker 2: Them can go inside, outside, play on the perimeter, block all of those sort of things. That is important to me. So Tom Brady's assessment as a route runner. He's wicked as a route runner, there's no question about it. But he does it inside, outside, all the way around. That to me is big time. He ran a route yesterday in the NFC Championship game. He ran a pump seven, which is a corner back to the post. And that was like one of my favorite things because when I get inside in the slot where he was at, most people thought I was running the corner route. They just they just assumed because I ran I ran the seventh round a lot. And when you put that when you turn that head and you you look to your left and you and that DV is going there, you put that foot in the ground and come back across like he did yesterday.

00:22:13
Speaker 3: And man, that thing was a thing.

00:22:15
Speaker 2: I was I was talking on the phone from you know, he was all in group group conversation watching the game, and I'm like, Man, that ship right there, that's the thing. That's how you draw it up. I mean, he could have he if Sam would have led him a little further up the field into the right, he'd have walked in, you know, but he kind of kind of he kind of threw it more toward the more toward his left side than pulling him all away to the right. But it was beautiful, No, it was beautiful. It was a big of beauty. It was the way they drew it up. It worked perfectly.

00:22:46
Speaker 1: What is your thoughts on Brady in the booth man?

00:22:49
Speaker 2: You know, Tom is learning. Tom is learning. Let's just Tom is learning. He's got you know, he's his second year on the job. Could he get better? Yeah?

00:22:58
Speaker 3: Will he get better?

00:22:59
Speaker 2: Most likely? Uh, But what happens a lot of times is you know in in in a game or sport, or even in the workforce. Your initial reaction to somebody is what you think about them. So early on in his career he started off, it was really rocky. So people in their mind ain't gonna never really give him the benefit of the doubt, right, They're gonna hold onto every little word that may not make sense. Oh, I don't understand why Brady even said that. You know, you you gotta let him grow in the position. You know he's learning. Now. If you ask me this three years from now and he's still saying the same way and he's got off, they gotta take him off the air.

00:23:40
Speaker 1: No, it's true.

00:23:41
Speaker 2: You know what I'm saying. It's true. If he's just two years from now, you cannot continue to force me him up on me because at that point, you know what I'm saying, I'm gonna be like, man, Brady ain't no good, but he's but he's learning. Think about what is fucking John Madden sound like when he first got.

00:24:03
Speaker 3: I don't we wasn't around.

00:24:04
Speaker 1: Yeah, you got to give some time. Did you have you ever called the game from the book?

00:24:07
Speaker 2: Man? I did not.

00:24:09
Speaker 3: I did a couple uh.

00:24:12
Speaker 2: Like a like a couple of serious is of the USCPN State Game, Kirk hurrs Street and Brent Musburger. But it was moving fast. It was it was you know, could I do it? Yeah? But I would be scared that I would get up there and say some ship that I have. Everybody on social media go crazy because I you know, as a as a competitor, you know, I might you know, just and I'm on national TV in front of millions of people. Different than when I'm hosting shows. Hosting show is different than when I'm calling the game because when I'm calling the game and I'm assessing something, I'm looking at it and it's hard for me to sit down. I'm like a nervous nelly. Even though I don't play no more, I'm I'm a stress case. Uh.

00:24:59
Speaker 1: You know.

00:24:59
Speaker 2: I go the games because I'm obviously I'm a Laker fan, Dodger fan, you know, all of those sort of things. And I dive deep into the game that I'm at. So if I go to a game like let's say, for instance, I go.

00:25:12
Speaker 3: To the the to the.

00:25:14
Speaker 2: New England Patriots game. I never played for New England or anything, but my relationship with Mr Kraft is such that I'm gonna be in his box and I'm gonna be pulling for them.

00:25:25
Speaker 3: You see what I'm saying.

00:25:26
Speaker 2: And so now I'm like, what the you know, I'm like, So I couldn't even do that if I was on the air, because if I'm on the air, I'm gonna be too real.

00:25:35
Speaker 3: You know, I'm not gonna be up there. And I know I can see.

00:25:38
Speaker 2: I know I could do it if I wanted to, because when I'm watching the game, I'm gonna tell you what's gonna happen before it even happened, because I know what I'm looking at.

00:25:47
Speaker 1: The Raiders got a big decision with the number one pick. Is it? Is it? In your opinion?

00:25:51
Speaker 2: Is it?

00:25:52
Speaker 1: Is it Mendoza? Is it? Is it someone else?

00:25:54
Speaker 2: Okay, So now I got to put my GM hat on. So if I'm needing a quarterback, I'm certainly looking at him. Okay, Right, I need a face, I need an identity. But I also got to break down the film and most people think that he's the number one overall pick. But here's what I would say to you about that. You gotta follow me here. When the season takes place in September to the end of the season, nobody's evaluating that quarterback except his coaches in the scouts. The general manager peaks and take a look On a Saturday riding the bus to the game, he might look at him, he might sit down. As the season gets to the back end, he may start doing his research. Right, But there's a long period of time from September to the end of the season. The quarterback coach is fucking trying to keep a job with the NFL team. The head coach of that NFL team is trying to keep a job, right. The offensive coordinators trying to keep a job. They're decision makers. They're extremely important in the decision to draft somebody. Yeah, the general manager's important and president is important, but the coaches got to coach him up. The coach has got to look at me and go I could work with him. So they really haven't had a chance to lay their eyes on him quite yet because they're in the course of the season. Once the season is over and them dudes is out of the playoffs and going on about their business, now they finally get a chance to lay eyes on him. But they also get a chance to lay eyes on everybody else that may not be a quarterback that they look at and go, not really like that defensive end, I'm mother fucking six y five two seventy five, you run a full three.

00:27:45
Speaker 3: I really like him. And people really have.

00:27:48
Speaker 2: A hard time of really understanding that because they've already been poisoning in the mind to believe that he's gonna be the number one pick because of his success that he had and winning the national title. But the Raiders got to hire somebody, and who they hire, it's gonna look at it and go, man, I really might like Malik Willis a little bit better for us, and we don't have to this, this, and this, So we could take that number one overall pick and we can move it and we can go spend two year sixty billion on Elik Willis rather than on Mendoza. Well, you're gonna miss on a franchise player. Well do we know he's a franchise player because we thought Ryan Leaf was a franchise player, and we thought we thought Zach Wilson was a franchise player. So you gotta be you gotta guard it with caution in jumping out just because what you heard, but you heard, you gotta break it all the way down.

00:28:43
Speaker 1: I feel like in basketball, and obviously you're a number one pick, you can speak to this where you go to the franchise, starting at the top has a lot to do with how your career turned out, unless you're just a cold motherfucker. But particularly quarterbacks to go into systems were currently it's no coach, they had a rough they have no O line, Like, what are your thoughts to that? For number one picks that are going into because normally the number one pick means you're going to a bad team.

00:29:08
Speaker 2: You are going to a bad team, and everybody thinks that Tom Brady's gonna solve their problem.

00:29:12
Speaker 3: No, tom Brady at the quarterback.

00:29:14
Speaker 2: And he can make a bad decision helping select the quarterback. So when you know that you have an opportunity to maybe resurrect a franchise and go in there like a Mendoza, to try to do some things, and you feel that you could be the number one pick, you probably should, you know, focus in on that. But the coach that's getting hired has got to sign off on you regardless he just because his ask gonna be on the line if he picks the wrong guy. Now, Mandoza might be the right guy. Man, he might be the right guy. But then what if the kid out of old Miss Chambers decides that he wants to come out not go back.

00:30:01
Speaker 3: His measurables is pretty good.

00:30:03
Speaker 2: He's a six six one and a half six two dude, you know, over two hundred pounds. He can spin it, he can run it, he can spit it out. But a coach might come and say, I like him better. Now you got those issues. I see it every year, matt Man. Dudes think people are gonna go high, and all of a sudden, you look up and you go, whoa man, They.

00:30:25
Speaker 3: Didn't take you.

00:30:26
Speaker 2: They took this dude instead. The biggest mistakes in the NFL, in my opinion, this quarterback. It makes some of the biggest mistakes, good or bad. They just do they they look up and they give up on them. Really, we just watched the dude go to the super Bowl last night. It's Sam Donald. I told the New York Jets. I told them literally, trade to pick don Zach, don't don't draft Zach Wilson. Bring in a new fucking coach that know what he's doing, and not Adam Gaze. Keep Sam Donald. Okay, I understand it. It hadn't been in the last three years. You got a financial decision that you need to make. Believe him, get rid of those picks, get some players, put him around them, get him a JSSN. You know he was out there working with me and you at forty something.

00:31:14
Speaker 3: To fifty years old. Man, think about that.

00:31:17
Speaker 2: And they gave up on him, and he goes to Carolina, has a little bit of a couple of game success, but people got hurt, and then all of a sudden it didn't go well. He goes he comes out to San Francisco. He sits tight for a minute, but he finally gets his shit together when he goes to Minnesota because they had pieces in play. What if he'd had Jefferson and Addison and all them in New York, we wouldn't even talking about him. Say I'm doing a little Seattle but exactly, but that didn't work out that way. He goes to Seattle. He got ballers right, whether it's it's Charmonnade, whether it's it's JC. And he got players that he get the football too, and he going to super Bowl.

00:32:00
Speaker 3: Now I'm for going to the super Bowl.

00:32:01
Speaker 1: I think you bring up an interesting point about development because when you came in the game, and I know on the basketball side, top picks used to have time to develop, and now there's I think there's just so much money involved that you get thrown in the fire right away. What is your thoughts on that.

00:32:13
Speaker 2: Well, we always I got thrown the fire right away. Most of the guys that was drafted high with me, all of us got thrown in the fire right away. If you have the right circumstances and the surroundings, you going to succeed.

00:32:25
Speaker 3: That's what it's about.

00:32:26
Speaker 2: It's about the sun, the circumstances, and the surroundings. If your circumstance and your surroundings.

00:32:31
Speaker 1: Are right, you're going to an organization.

00:32:34
Speaker 2: It could be the organization, it could be the coach, it could be the situation. Do we have veterans in the locker room? Is it a bunch of just twenty two year olds. It's trying to get to Miami Beach tomorrow night? Like what do we have in our locker room? And that's an important thing, and I think many people forget about that, right They just think because you're a high picked that they're going to throw you on the field and it's going to.

00:32:58
Speaker 3: Be successful work.

00:32:59
Speaker 2: But if you number one picking, you go into a ship organization, it don't matter, and you might get out and you might be good. But somebody what you're gonna be afterthought? You know, God God blessed me because I was able to get Bill Parcels on my second year. My first year, I mean I still called I don't know what it was out of seventy brocks whatever, eight nine touchdowns. I mean, I still did what I needed to do as a rookie. But when I got Bill Parcells, he saved me. He saved me working at ups. Shit.

00:33:31
Speaker 1: But what does that mean? And how instrumental was that for it? Because he's one of the greatest coaches of all time. But what he for a casual fan? What does that mean? And what did he instilling you?

00:33:39
Speaker 2: The Well, one of the first things he told me thought matter. He said, I want you to be a giraffe and not a gazelle. Don't try to be something you not. Okay, So what that told me is he understood exactly what type of player I could be. Right, they had me doing shit that the little dudes do. Yeah, you know, I'm supposed to be doing some other stuff. They got me. You know, I'm I'm I'm a dude that really got knocked down threes from every corner, but you got me down on the block. You know, I'm just saying I CA three, But you know what I'm saying, it's just you got me doing something different. But when he got there, he recognized and he realized. He goes, you know, I need you to be the same guy that you were in USC. I don't need to be I don't need you to be that guy that I just played against in New England, even though I torched him.

00:34:28
Speaker 3: You know, I get what he's saying.

00:34:29
Speaker 2: And so that saved everything for me because it was the right situation.

00:34:35
Speaker 3: You see what I'm saying.

00:34:35
Speaker 2: Originally, the circumstances wasn't great because I had Richie Kole type were one of fifteen as a rookie. And then I get the big tuna, Big Tuna come in. You know what I'm saying, Big Tuna come in.

00:34:45
Speaker 3: It's a different you could just tell us different.

00:34:48
Speaker 2: Motherfucker got the air conditioned on and the whole building freezing coats so nobody fall asleep. He took all the computers out so people wasn't on the computers, you know. It was just a different way of men. The dude fired the security guard at the front desk at the front gate that had been there with the Jets since like the sixties. Let me get this dude out of here. It put in the keypad because he felt like this is unnecessary. I don't want this hanging around here. So we got rid of dude, got rid of Harry.

00:35:20
Speaker 3: That was the dude.

00:35:20
Speaker 2: Nay har. Harry used to just sit there at the gate in the car and let everybody hit it out.

00:35:25
Speaker 1: Judes.

00:35:26
Speaker 2: We have a girls and shitty market lot, but yeah, but different organization with it.

00:35:31
Speaker 1: Absolutely. Super Bowl prediction. Seahawks are favored, very underrated team this year that had one of the best regular seasons ever. Darnald versus May What are some positives you see with both? And then some negatives you see with both?

00:35:46
Speaker 2: Well, I think both of them could get a ball to the other team at times, right, Sam has Sam did a good job of protecting the football. But what again, what happens is when you are Sam, for instance, and I got seven interceptions in three games, people act like I'm a turnover machine. That's not really it's just three games out of seventeen. It's fourteen more games. So most of the focus is gonna be on his turnovers, right, because he had a three game probably a three game stretch where he just gave the ball away and people like, ah, look at you, the same guy, like come on, man, stop. Then you look at Drake May who's young, but he's in the right situation in the right surroundings because of Rabel and because of Josh mcdames, so they know what to do with him to keep him out of horns away. The difference is they gotta go up against Seattle's defense in that front. In that front, they don't come and pin their ears back and come and get you. Will he be able to, you know, flourishing that we couldn't really tell in the last two games.

00:36:57
Speaker 3: And here's why you couldn't tell.

00:36:59
Speaker 2: If you meet, you couldn't tell because number one Houston has a really good defense.

00:37:05
Speaker 3: But they played the Pittsburgh.

00:37:06
Speaker 2: Steelers and Aaron Rodgers who's like a thousand years old, so they can pin their years back and do whatever they want to do. Then they played against a Denver team and the snow that you know Denver team was snowing off, so you really couldn't get a real true assessment of what their offense would be like against a Denver team on a neutral field, solid ground without all the snow. So when I look at that, I say, okay, so now we're on a neutral field. We get Seattle. Seattle's defense is coming to play. You know what they have. You got Stepan Diggs, you have Hollins, but you don't have you know, Stefan's still good, but he ain't step Fan a four years ago. Right That defense is gonna try to take him away. Now you got to figure out what to do with everybody else. Now they got two weeks to figure all that out. And I think their experience on the offensive side as a coordinator Josh McDaniels probably will benefit him.

00:38:04
Speaker 3: But I don't think they've beaten Seattle.

00:38:06
Speaker 2: No, I'm taking Seattle, and I'll take Seattle on the four and a half right now.

00:38:10
Speaker 1: Too many unanswered questions for you, sounds like for that team.

00:38:13
Speaker 3: No, it's just Seattle.

00:38:15
Speaker 2: Good.

00:38:16
Speaker 1: Yeah.

00:38:17
Speaker 2: I picked Seattle to go to Super Bowl six weeks ago, maybe seven weeks ago, and I should have put my money into my man. My man kept saying that the odds was my favorite. I just you know, I just was scared to do it.

00:38:30
Speaker 1: At the beginning of the season, they were picked to both win eight and a half games. Yeah, Brandon Nyuk. Take a listen to this clip from Lynch and Shanahan blockhead.

00:38:40
Speaker 4: I had a follow up on Brandon just it's a guy that you guys made a big investment into. And I know, Kyle you said that after his injury it was tough to get him in here and get involved, but it's kind of an unprecedented move for him to four or fifth that kind of money. Have you been able to determine why he was so upset, why he wasn't showing up in just any background you can give on that.

00:39:01
Speaker 1: I wish I knew.

00:39:02
Speaker 2: I can't help you there, Sorry, Yeah, is there a line of communication with him? There was that anymore? That snap?

00:39:16
Speaker 5: Well, when I'm coaching, I don't I don't hang out in the training room at all, so I don't see guys much that way. But I'd say it officially stopped for me when last time I tried to get a hold of him and cut it, and then tried a couple more times and still cudn't, and then that matched to everyone else that was trying to get a hold of him and cut it. And eventually there's not much of an explanation because it's really hard for us and anyone else to understand and why. It's something I've never seen in twenty two years of coaching, So just it's unfortunate, and that's it's confusing because it's confusing for all of us. So but it eventually becomes it is what it is, and you try as hard as you can to fix something that you don't understand, but it's not like we understand it very well still, but eventually understand that it's not going to change, and you got to move on with your football team, which is always the most important thing.

00:40:15
Speaker 1: So he gets a four year with it. One twenty injured early in the season, and it's just kind of been in a sense as a formercy what should take on that man?

00:40:26
Speaker 2: You know, Matt they took his money from him though, oh did they? Yeah, he something happened and they avoided out his rest of his guaranteed money. So it was like thirty close to thirty million dollars guaranteed money. So I don't know all the ins and outs about everything, but you would have to think if you take it thirty million dollars from me, fuck you, period period. I'm not going to answer your phone call, nor am I going to speak to you. They. I'm sure that the NFLPA will try to come to some sort of resolution with them on a grievance or something to get it taken care of.

00:40:58
Speaker 1: Yeah, so they avoided twenty seven million dollars of it guaranteed.

00:41:00
Speaker 2: This past summer. Yep, So we didn't report to rehab last year and then this summer they avoided twenty seven million in guaranteed money.

00:41:08
Speaker 1: That's definitely a fuck you. I might throw eggs at your car too.

00:41:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, you're taking twenty seven million dollars on my money though. So okay, let's play the blame game, right, Well, whose fault is it? Right?

00:41:20
Speaker 3: That's the that's the whole thing. It's the blame game.

00:41:22
Speaker 1: Now.

00:41:22
Speaker 2: So, as a professional athlete, when an organization stands up there at the press conference and puts everything on you, you become the bad guy. But the devils are in the details. What are the details? We don't know what the details are. So only thing we know is what he ain't saying, he ain't speaking, he ain't said nothing yet. So it's just funny, man, when you when you look at the situation, because I know how these coaches be.

00:41:49
Speaker 3: Man, these coaches are dirty. Man, They're dirty.

00:41:51
Speaker 2: They scaleless. They like coyotes. You know, coyotes is some scalless animals. They gonna steal your dogs, your chickens. They gonna do everything they can, you know. And that's how coaches can be. They can be scanless. And so they got everybody out there thinking something really wrong with this dude. And it may just be I'm not fucking with you, you see what I'm saying, and I don't want to be around you. So therefore the best way for me to get away from this situation is not deal with you. But they took the onus up on themselves based on the rules. I'm sure to go ahead and boid out his money, you know what I'm saying. And now his agent and everybody got to try to uncover it and figure it out.

00:42:27
Speaker 3: But it's just it's just funny, man.

00:42:29
Speaker 1: Is he still in the contract?

00:42:31
Speaker 3: No?

00:42:32
Speaker 2: No, he probably still is under contract, but they're gonna either cut him or trade him in that contract on the guaranteed money side is no Moss. So whatever he got initially is his. But that other twenty eight, twenty seven, he won't even see that.

00:42:50
Speaker 1: He coming off a fresh knee injury, looking for a deal.

00:42:53
Speaker 2: A home. It's somebody, look, somebody, he can play football. Somebody's gonna take you.

00:42:57
Speaker 4: He's under contract through twenty twenty eight, and then this past summer.

00:43:00
Speaker 3: To your point, they.

00:43:01
Speaker 4: Avoided all of the remaining guaranteed money, so he has to play and hid incentives.

00:43:06
Speaker 2: I as seem to make any money now, No, but I'm not. But I'm not going to you unless I get my money back. At the end of the day, You're.

00:43:15
Speaker 3: Not gonna give me a pay for play contract.

00:43:16
Speaker 2: That's not gonna happen. So if you're trading for me, Matt, we need to figure out how to make up this twenty seven million. I need a new deal. It's just the reality.

00:43:25
Speaker 1: Does he have the deleverage, deleverage the credentials to go in and say something like that to a new team, to a new.

00:43:31
Speaker 2: Team everybody, every everybody has the credentials as long as you want me, true, So if you want me, you see what I'm saying, now, all of a suddenly, think if the Buffalo Bills, for instance, that probably needs another receiver, and Brandon being a general manager, Buffalo wants to make a trade for Brandon Ayuk, and let's say they give up a fourth round pick. Brandon Ayuk and his agent can say say, man, I need to get my money back, and they can figure out how to get him back to that twenty seven million to guarantee you money. They can figure it out. It's not that difficult, Schador. Can you grade this season?

00:44:07
Speaker 1: I'm gonna give you a little bit of seven stars, three and four, thirteen hundred yards, seven touches, ten picks. Browns were two and eight without him and Judy as his receiver. One what did you make of his season? How it started, how he took the high road, how he played, and what is he looking at coming in the next season.

00:44:25
Speaker 2: Man, I really didn't have a problem when he finally took over what he looked like, because I expected for him to look like that young Yeah, I don't expect for him. I wasn't expected for him to be looking like Drake May because he didn't have a Drake May situation, right, a young quarterback he didn't have that. He talked about it, and so I expect for him to turn the ball over. I expect for him to fumble in the snow through a pit.

00:44:46
Speaker 3: Expect that.

00:44:47
Speaker 2: What the hell you want him to do? You rushed him into the lineup and you're trying to figure out what he is and you're trying to coach you, but he's trying to understand what the NFL is all about. Again, talk to me in two years. If you talk to me in two years and say, look what you think about you doing right now, I can really truly give you a real evaluation. The evaluation I'm giving you right now is based on a three and four record as a rookie. That was the third quarterback that was forced into the lineup, and so he did what he could do in a short period of time.

00:45:20
Speaker 1: Did he show you any flashes of hope?

00:45:21
Speaker 2: Yeah?

00:45:22
Speaker 3: Yeah, for sure.

00:45:23
Speaker 2: Gotta get rid of football, though, I'm a fucker hold on to the ball too long? God, No, I told Prime, I ain't got no problem. I told I told his daddy. I said, man, he gotta get rid of the ball. You know, he gotta eat. But he's not.

00:45:37
Speaker 3: Used to the NFL yet the speed of the game.

00:45:40
Speaker 2: Right, So you know you say, well, that's been him the whole way. Yeah, you could do that in college because you got a seventeen year old kid out there that just got off the prom playing against you. Now you got some grown ass men with full beards with car seats to the back that need to get a check. So it's gonna be different. But I think he I think whoever comes in and Cleveland has to give him a real opportunity and fair chance to be the starting quarterback, a real one, not playing games, but a real one because he deserves.

00:46:10
Speaker 1: Speaking of playing games, there was a lot of games, and and and to our previous conversations, some of these coaches are coyotes.

00:46:17
Speaker 3: Let me start using my ship.

00:46:18
Speaker 1: That's a good one. Next season, Deshan Watson will be fully healthy. I mean they've invested money. And what is your thoughts on that situation with him?

00:46:26
Speaker 3: We got to see what he is, you know.

00:46:29
Speaker 1: So in your mind to those two compete for the starting job next.

00:46:31
Speaker 2: Year, I would think if Dashaun is healthy, I would think Dashaw would be the better quarterback if he's healthy. But what happens to us is we get so uh enamored apphixiated on what happened off the field, So we can't let that go on the field, right, I mean, that's just so we're not giving him an on.

00:46:56
Speaker 3: Field assessment, We're giving him off the field.

00:47:01
Speaker 2: You see what I'm saying, Because think about it, if he never ever.

00:47:07
Speaker 3: Had these issues, that he had.

00:47:09
Speaker 1: The best quarterbacks in the game at one point.

00:47:11
Speaker 2: One of the better quarterbacks in the game. But hear me out though, So if he never had these issues, right, Matt, and he just was injured for three straight years, we wouldn't be talking about oh well you know still, no, we would do that. We would say when he gets healthy, you know, he may be a different guy, that he's going to slow down a little bit because he's missed some time. But because we can't erase what happened off the field, he ain't gonna necessarily.

00:47:37
Speaker 3: Get the benefit of the doubt.

00:47:39
Speaker 1: Now, obviously, you and I have never been through what he's gone through the last two or three years off the field, But does that wear on your mental and your your ability on the field in your opinion at all?

00:47:48
Speaker 2: You know, the only thing that I've ever dealt with that had during the season where I had some stress, was getting divorced.

00:47:58
Speaker 1: Too, in the middle of the season. That'sul in the middle of seat.

00:48:00
Speaker 2: But that was on my Super Bowl run, So you know, I really you know, I hate to disrespect it, but fuck that bitch man. I wasn't tripping on her. I was gonna go with the Super Bowl regardless, regardless, you know what I mean. I wasn't. You wasn't getting it bought when I when I went into the building, it was a different situation. But when I was at home and I'm sitting there in my my crib on the water, I'm sitting there and I'm like, damn, I can't believe I'm getting divorced.

00:48:24
Speaker 1: Shit.

00:48:25
Speaker 2: But when I go to the building, I knew I had to separate the two so and I'm sure he could do the same, but it's harder for him, even though it's funny. It's hard and funny about what I was about to tell you, but because he's going everywhere with signs and stuff, people idiots.

00:48:42
Speaker 1: It's crazy.

00:48:44
Speaker 2: What happened with me is we played the Philadelphia Eagles that year, and so I was getting divorced. In the entire Philly stadium was screaming Keyshine, Where is your wife? All I can do that, all I can do is laugh. I couldn't even be back. I was laughing. We were sitting on the bitch laughing our ass off because it was funny, you know. But he's got to deal with something a little bit different.

00:49:10
Speaker 1: Yeah. Absolutely. Last time we spoke, Lamar Jackson was in the midst of an MVP run and you were one to say that he should be the face of the league, but the league won't make him the face of the league. Uh, what was your take? What was your take on kind of what's of late? Obviously hardball's out, he's been a little up and down. Uh, what'sh what's your take on on on on where Lamar stands currently.

00:49:35
Speaker 2: Well, he's had a bumping a roll this year and he's got to get it fixed. You just got to get it fixed. That's just the bottom line. Put him on the trading block and see what happens. If you don't like him, put him on the trade block and see what happens. If you got a problem with the way that he's played the last couple of seasons, why don't you just put him on.

00:49:59
Speaker 3: The trade block.

00:50:00
Speaker 2: See what happens.

00:50:01
Speaker 3: See who lines up at the door.

00:50:02
Speaker 2: For his services.

00:50:03
Speaker 1: Probably everybody, but three or four teams.

00:50:06
Speaker 2: Wasn't he available though, like two years ago a free agency and nobody seemed to Yeah, but that was a it was That was a weird That was one of those collusion bullshit.

00:50:16
Speaker 3: It was a weird deal. It wasn't that we don't want him as a player.

00:50:20
Speaker 2: It's more about don't interfere in what we're doing type stuff.

00:50:26
Speaker 3: Yeah, it was a little bit different. Don't get involved in our negotiations.

00:50:31
Speaker 1: Before we get into the coaching hires and vacancies. I really thought this year with Buffalo and Josh Allen that this was his chance to make a run because the AFC, the big Lamar was out, Borrow was out. What is it? Is it? The team? I mean, obviously the blame's gonna fall on him because he's the star quarterback.

00:50:50
Speaker 3: Then he did everything. Yeah, I mean they they had the receivers.

00:50:54
Speaker 2: Is just guys, right, him and Cook really you know, Dalt schultzon in not Doug shows, but Dalk Kinkaid and those guys showed up to some degree. But if he couldn't get it done this year, and I told I told you know, I got friends as Bill fans, and I told him, I said, you know, Sean mcnermy gonna get fired if they don't get to the AFC Championship game.

00:51:17
Speaker 3: His ass gonna get fired.

00:51:19
Speaker 2: And he got fired, you know, because you could only waste Josh Allen's career for so long and then you have to start to build on and figure it out.

00:51:30
Speaker 1: So is it putting? Obviously it sounds like more putting pieces around him that he could work with.

00:51:35
Speaker 2: Okay, So you go back to his couple first couple of years in the league, they didn't have anything. Brandon, being the general manager who's now been kicked up the president's slash general manager, went out and traded for Stefan Diggs. All of a sudden, Josh Allen became Josh Allen. You took Stepan Diggs away from him, and he's just like, Okay, he's still really great MVP, but he's send that alpha dog at the receiver position. All great quarterbacks got alpha dogs and receiver every last one.

00:52:08
Speaker 3: People be like Tom Brady didn't have anything.

00:52:10
Speaker 2: Oh, he had fucking Julian Edelman in the slot, and he had Grinkowski and he had.

00:52:14
Speaker 3: Hernandez, and he had and he had a year.

00:52:18
Speaker 2: He had Randy for a year. And when you look at the system, the strength of the New England system was the slot receiver. So he had all those dudes. Those dudes were good for that position. You look at any quarterback. Look at Sam Darnold, you got JSN. You see what I'm saying. You look at Matthew Staff. He got Pooka and Davante Adams. When you're making a run, you gotta have. It's just like when you was playing basketball, if you had a big that could go, he probably.

00:52:49
Speaker 1: Was going, probably, yeah, you got shock. You probably got a chi ranked these hires who you liked the most to the least.

00:52:58
Speaker 2: Like well, at least likely for me gott to be Robert Sala for the Titans. All right, the best hires the Giants and John Harball. The second best hire would be Mike McCarthy to the Steelers. Other than that, I don't really care about the Falcons and the Dolphins and all them. They already had their mind made up. They already had their mind made up on what they wanted to do.

00:53:24
Speaker 3: You see what I'm saying.

00:53:25
Speaker 2: The Falcons without hiring Matt Ryan and next thing you know, he's blinking highre Kevin Stefanski.

00:53:29
Speaker 3: So that was already in the plans and the works.

00:53:32
Speaker 2: Mike McCarthy is a really good coach who deserves the opportunity to chance. And he's got to find a quarterback. And I don't know if it'll be Aaron Rodgers again or not. I don't know the Jeff Hatley due halflee dude, other than he was a d C at at the Green Bay Packers and apparently he did a good job with green Bay's defense. Didn't seem that way to me, but you know what do I know? They hired him? And then Kevin Stefanski is just a reheat Michael. They threw a microwave, pushed one and gonna reheat him up and let him go around a couple of times and get some money.

00:54:10
Speaker 1: So one is what one minute?

00:54:12
Speaker 2: Yeah, they gonna hit him in the one minute boom out of here as soon as it don't go right.

00:54:17
Speaker 3: It's a good he's a good offensive mind.

00:54:20
Speaker 1: Basketball talk pivoting a little bit starting with the Lakers, uh last week, and again, you're not a huge social media guy, but I'm sure you probably heard the Genie Buss Lebron. I read it Rich Paul stuff floating around with Rich on the podcast. What are your thoughts on just the outside noise of the Lakers of Lake.

00:54:39
Speaker 2: Well, that's always been the case, though right outside noise Lakers whatnot? Is it interesting because I read it, I read it from top to bottom, the story on ESPN. I read the whole thing in the middle of the night, like four am in the morning. Interesting because there's there's there's some nuance to it to the degree, you know, with Jeanie and her surrounding friends that you know, the rambuses and all those people. You know, it's a little of that going on. As far as the Rich Paul and Lebron situation go, I think Rich Paul and Lebron know at this point in time it's probably the end of the line as a Laker. So they taking the gloves off for the most part, you know, because they had they had control for six years maybe six years or so.

00:55:26
Speaker 3: That ain't the.

00:55:26
Speaker 2: Case no more. And Genie ain't really even though she's governor, she ain't really in control like that no more.

00:55:34
Speaker 3: And the people that's now in.

00:55:35
Speaker 2: Control ain't partners, aren't partners with Rich and Lebron like that.

00:55:40
Speaker 3: You know. So, yeah, I don't think we win in no championship no time soon.

00:55:45
Speaker 2: But we'll see.

00:55:47
Speaker 1: Obviously, everyone having pods and shows, et cetera. Riches every different. Now when you hear and again, it's a conversation, and I see both sides of it. When you hear someone like a Rich say what he's saying about Austin reason the Lakers should be like you said, they had some control there. But at one point going after and targeting, is it different coming from him or is it just talk like it's talk from every other podcast is out there.

00:56:10
Speaker 3: Okay, so pull me up to speed.

00:56:13
Speaker 1: So he him and Max Kelluman have their show and they sat down and spoke on if I'm the Lakers, I'm targeting Triple J Jared Jackson from Memphis and I'm giving up possibly Austin Reeves for that. And then people went crazy with that one, I think because obviously Rich being an agent, but people also know, like you and I know how much power Rich and how much pool Rich has had in the past in the league, and people kind of had a problem with that by itself, him kind of saying what we were thinking out loud.

00:56:45
Speaker 3: No, I don't have a problem with it at all.

00:56:47
Speaker 2: I mean, if he thinks that that that Jane Jack is the guy and they should move on off for Reeves, just opinion. This is an opinion, right. He didn't say we're going to move on from him like we did a d he'd say that, you know, he didn't say that nothing.

00:57:08
Speaker 1: You're right, You're right.

00:57:10
Speaker 2: He should answer, bro, No, I'm saying, this is what they said, right, Damn should I answer it's a d facetiming us.

00:57:20
Speaker 1: That's crazy.

00:57:22
Speaker 2: No. But but I don't have a problem.

00:57:25
Speaker 3: With it at all.

00:57:26
Speaker 1: So you feel this is Lebron's last run with the Lakers this year?

00:57:29
Speaker 2: Man, it certainly feels that way now. Whether or not it's his end of the Lebron NBA era.

00:57:35
Speaker 3: That's a different story.

00:57:36
Speaker 2: But as far as the Lakers go, Like when I'm reading an article, I.

00:57:39
Speaker 1: Think the number has to come down if he's going to stay right his his.

00:57:43
Speaker 2: But I ain't. But but but no, the number ain't got a cop you mean for the Lakers.

00:57:46
Speaker 1: For the Lakers, his number has to come down if he wants to stay.

00:57:49
Speaker 2: Yeah. But but even if it even if I played for the minimum, the league minimum. It's my relationship fracture. Do I feel good walking into Elsagonda, into the building?

00:58:01
Speaker 3: That's it? Ain't even the money that matter.

00:58:03
Speaker 2: I got so fucking much money, I don't. I'm Lebron James, I got I got plenty of money. I got more money than THEMN owners. So it's like, you know, it's more about do I want to deal with.

00:58:15
Speaker 3: This organization and plague for the Lakers?

00:58:18
Speaker 2: Or do I want to go to Golden State or do I want to go to somewhere else?

00:58:24
Speaker 1: You know, and let me flip that up. I need to play devio advocate. What if what you just said about Lebron wanting to does the organization want to deal with him?

00:58:31
Speaker 2: I mean, it's hard not to deal with a dude like that, though I just watched him last two nights ago.

00:58:37
Speaker 1: It's just hard. He's taking a lot of heat, but his numbers are still numbers.

00:58:40
Speaker 3: When they taking heat, because people just that's just.

00:58:44
Speaker 1: There's twenty four to seven, Matt.

00:58:49
Speaker 2: I've never I've experienced it to some degree in my own career, but I ain't never witnessed the amount of for.

00:58:57
Speaker 1: Him and hate for him.

00:59:00
Speaker 2: Stop hating all the motherfucking time. Just give him his due. He's good.

00:59:05
Speaker 3: He's one of the best to ever do it.

00:59:06
Speaker 1: He's great, he's one.

00:59:07
Speaker 2: Of the greatest to ever do it. He's like, just accept it and leave it alone instead of always trying to poke holes in this man's resume.

00:59:17
Speaker 3: I just saw a dude the other day talk about.

00:59:20
Speaker 2: His ability to be a nature freaking nature and the way he looks it all. Listen to dude, like, just put it out on the table to where everybody is like, well, Lebron on steroids.

00:59:33
Speaker 3: I'm like, why would this dude.

00:59:34
Speaker 1: Even say this just because everyone got a voice? Shouldn't have a voice. And I'm also thinking too, I said this a while ago, so fucking stupid. The stars of games, the stars of our game, whether it be basketball, football, Like you don't get the age gracefully no more because of shit like that. There's too much media access. Everyone is is a part of the media now.

00:59:52
Speaker 2: But I think if it was me and if I was Lebron and you were asking me what I would do at the end of the day, man, I'd.

00:59:58
Speaker 1: Probably be done twenty three years.

01:00:01
Speaker 2: I mean, like, what more? What more? No matter how much I love the game, what more is it that I have to do, Like, I'm never going to convince half the room that I'm him because the other half gonna say no. So I'm never gonna convince half the room. So it's like, what is the ultimate goal? What's left? You know, my own career when I I ain't Jerry Rice, but I wouldn't trade my career for nobody's. But it's a whole lot of people that would trade their for mine, both on and off the field and post career. So when I look at that, I say, what is there left to do? If I got championships? He's a billion dollars. I'm the face of this. I'm the guy when I walk away, I'm gonna be on everybody's McDonald's commercials of that like he's but maybe he just loves the game and I want to shoot baskets all day. I don't know.

01:00:55
Speaker 1: Is Luca as a Laker fan? Now? Is Luca the guy that's gonna take this team to the name and.

01:01:01
Speaker 2: Absolutely absolutely, Because what we're gonna do, We're gonna go get either Matt Bournes won't put him over there, We're gonna go.

01:01:07
Speaker 3: Get him with Jack put him over there.

01:01:09
Speaker 1: You know, We're gonna get us some pieces and put him some guys around him, and he'll be the guy.

01:01:14
Speaker 3: He's only been here a season and a half. We'll actually a full season.

01:01:17
Speaker 2: Now, right, because if you count so basically a full season. So when you look at it, we always had and I say we are speaking the third person as a Laker, as we have always had two guys, always two dogs, and then we got guys that contribute that are still really good. And I think that that's what they're gonna get to, right, they got the one guy because Lebron. Let's assume Lebron's gone, so you got Luca. I'm not putting Austin Reves in that category. Austin Reeves is good. It's a surprise us, but he ain't there yet. We can make him Robin if we want to, just for media purposes, but no, so getting a y honest wish for thinking that type of thing. You know, you you go get you one of them dudes, because I don't even think Jared Jack would be enough, to be honest with you.

01:02:15
Speaker 1: I don't.

01:02:16
Speaker 2: I don't think so, right, I don't think it's enough.

01:02:19
Speaker 1: Clippers, one of the hottest teams in the league obviously started the season off with the Kawhi plant conspiracy, but since then, Kawhi has played over seventy percent of the games thirty three plus minutes and having one of the best seasons at twenty eight points fifty forty ninety four splits in your opinion, I know you're a diehard Laker fan, So don't give me this answer with your heart. Give it to me with your with your with your analysis, in your analysts mind. Clippers A Lakers are gonna make it further this year. Lakers, Lakers.

01:02:48
Speaker 2: Lakers have been more consistent in my opinion than the Clippers.

01:02:50
Speaker 1: Okay, you know, Clippers just the top of my head, hot, yeah.

01:02:54
Speaker 2: You know, just off the top of my head, because at any moment, Kawhi, you know over here with us, do we sit down at any moment, you know, And it ain't because he got It ain't necessarily because he getting hurt. It's just they want to rest, tee, but they want to you know, they try to hold onto something. But I watched them lose the other night to somebody, I'm like, man, toront was it Toronto? It might have been like Toronto, So I'm like, man, please, man, it's shit here watching the Clippers spent all this money, and I don't like the way they did CP three.

01:03:27
Speaker 3: Boy, I don't like the way they did CP three.

01:03:29
Speaker 1: That was nasty. I didn't like that either. I didn't like the way they did Blake. They signed Blake to us, they moved him, Yeah, they moved Yeah. I mean two of your best players in the franchises. I definitely didn't like those most. Before we get you out of here, you already said you have the Seahawks. Give me a score.

01:03:45
Speaker 2: I'm gonna say Seahawks twenty four in New England seventeen.

01:03:54
Speaker 1: I ain't meant at that.

01:03:56
Speaker 2: Sam Donald, Sam Donald VP.

01:03:59
Speaker 3: Sam Donald, gotta.

01:04:00
Speaker 1: Get a big quarter back, big for him.

01:04:02
Speaker 2: It's either gonna be Sam Donal or js Hen.

01:04:04
Speaker 1: It's gotta be big for him. With key Man, I appreciate your time. They can find you weekly. On Schultz, you're still doing stuff.

01:04:10
Speaker 2: Yeah, I'm there with Scholtz too.

01:04:12
Speaker 1: And besides that, you can't see him until he signed this new deal. I can't see and you've seen it, you've seen him here. But besides that, you can't see it's coming.

01:04:20
Speaker 3: It's coming. It's coming to you.

01:04:21
Speaker 2: It's coming.

01:04:21
Speaker 3: As they say, it's coming to.

01:04:22
Speaker 2: A near you.

01:04:23
Speaker 1: There you got man, I appreciate you man. Best of luck with with your next journey in life, and thanks for coming. That's a wrap, Key Shawn Johnson. You can catch us on all the Smoke Productions YouTube and the Draft Kings Network. See y'all next week.