[SPEAKER_01]: Hello, welcome to the end of the QB and I feel fine cast time is done where there's Albert Premier, he's seen a teller, he's now there's a literal Detroit lion in the background, so I know that he's in the Allen Park, Michigan.
[SPEAKER_01]: Real quick, we're going to talk to Albert just a little bit about his training camp tour off the top.
[SPEAKER_01]: and then we have an interview with a legendary figure in the NFL.
[SPEAKER_02]: I was going to meet him when it was going on and I had to miss it and I feel so guilty when you guys see who it is.
[SPEAKER_02]: You'll know what.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm just saying that Albert will go and this is long running and anyone listens to the pod knows.
[SPEAKER_01]: Albert I'll go I'll go on vacation for two days and then Albert is scared of the shit out of me and say oh, I brought in Tom Brady to co-host the pod this week, you know, like, or Brady Quinn or one year it was, um, oh God, who was it, um, I did an interview with series one year like yeah, so we've been creative with that.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who's the, who's the, Brian Hoyer, I think was one so like these, these people actually like accomplished NFL figures and so Albert was like, Hey, you know, I'm going to be in and out doing my training camp stuff, doing my interviews.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was like, All right, how about the literal guy who hired us.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's who I'm bringing in the guy who created the MMQB.
[SPEAKER_01]: I went right to the top of the CEO food chain.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter's got a new book right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: The couldn't show up.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's right.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter's got a new book coming out called The Game.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk about some of his unique viewpoints on the history of the NFL.
[SPEAKER_01]: He actually went back and re-reported some of the biggest stories in NFL history.
[SPEAKER_01]: Over the last few or decades, you have to buy this book.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's phenomenal and Peter's great.
[SPEAKER_01]: We talk a little bit about his teams that he likes for the Super Bowl this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: But Albert catches up real quick.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on in your training camp tour?
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'm 11 in now.
[SPEAKER_02]: So how's the family?
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_02]: We're going to birthday coming up on Sunday.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'll be with the bears for that birthday.
[SPEAKER_02]: So happy birthday Drew.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to make up for it.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like in a pretty cool way.
[SPEAKER_02]: But yes, so I've been to the sea ox, the Cardinals.
[SPEAKER_02]: The Niners, the Cowboys, the Rams, the Chargers, the Raiders, the Broncos, the Chiefs, the Texans, and now I'm at the Lions.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then this is the part of the trip that I actually enjoy most, which is when I get to drive.
[SPEAKER_02]: Yes, it allows me to make my own schedule.
[SPEAKER_02]: As any parent who's got school aged kids, would understand, there is a peace and quiet to two and three hour drives by yourself that is, you find a new level
[SPEAKER_02]: When you get to a certain age.
[SPEAKER_02]: So we're looking forward to that for sure.
[SPEAKER_01]: Check out Albert on social media went into the
[SPEAKER_01]: By the way, so check out Albert on social media.
[SPEAKER_01]: He did a quick video from the Texans cooling zone, which David and Omar love you guys.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was down there a couple weeks ago, roasting my ass off and no one told me about the goddamn cooling zone.
[SPEAKER_01]: And how about, yeah, so Albert walks off the field into a 35 degree space age cooling zone.
[SPEAKER_01]: A lot of cool stuff from Albert's trip.
[SPEAKER_01]: It feels so cool.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm gonna say that.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm sure it did, I'm sure it did, I'm sure it did, real quick though, tell me like so we we have to do, we're going to do a full debrief as I told the audience next week, but out of all these other stops, you know, last time we talked with Arizona, what's something that totally blew your mind over the last time?
[SPEAKER_02]: I mean, maybe I give you guys a give everybody one thought from every camp, and then you guys can get the Peter, maybe that makes hell stuff.
[SPEAKER_02]: Let's go.
[SPEAKER_02]: So I'd say C-Hox is just the overall talent and the balance of the roster and that it looks like it was no fluke would happen last year.
[SPEAKER_02]: Arizona, I think the big thing is the second and third and fourth year guys have to develop.
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, they had 29 draft takes over that period from 23 to 25.
[SPEAKER_02]: 14 of those picks were in the first three rounds.
[SPEAKER_02]: Those guys, you know, your Paris Johnson's your Marvin Harrison's, your Max Melton's, your Darius Robinson's, your Walter Nolan's, those guys have to develop.
[SPEAKER_02]: San Francisco, you know, obviously, I think, you know, the Kyle Shanahan story is a big one, but I think it's, as, as much as people have been saying, the Niners are all in all in all in.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, you know, or the Rams are all in all and all and the Niners are almost more so because the age of their roster, um, and that really sticks out when you're there, um, you know, it's kind of a thin path that they're walking now to try to compete for a championship with a group players they have now.
[SPEAKER_02]: uh... the cowboys i would say the expectations are sky high and they're not afraid to talk about that uh... i think i really good uh... really good starting twenty two which can afford to many injuries i don't know the depth is quite where you'd want to be but the front line players are really really good
[SPEAKER_02]: The Rams, you know, I think Aaron Donald's going to be back soon, you know, I, I've, I've said this a few different places now.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it's when they break camp at Loyola, which I think might be today or tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_02]: I think it really gets into play.
[SPEAKER_02]: People made the mistake of thinking that workout was at training camp.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't think it was.
[SPEAKER_02]: I believe it was up at their practice facility, which is about an hour away.
[SPEAKER_02]: But obviously, you know, that's a, you know,
[SPEAKER_02]: Everybody's got every reason to be excited about them.
[SPEAKER_02]: And that's all justified.
[SPEAKER_02]: Chargers, they get their identity back.
[SPEAKER_02]: That is a big football team.
[SPEAKER_02]: The two tackles coming back.
[SPEAKER_02]: I they believe Justin Herbert's going to have an MVP season.
[SPEAKER_02]: Based on the reestablishment of the offensive line, the young receivers coming along Maconkey Harris, those guys.
[SPEAKER_02]: The young fast guys they have, the Andre Lambert Smith, Brandon Thompson.
[SPEAKER_02]: I would just tell you, there's going to be bumps, for sure, there's a lot of excitement over the work that Fernando Mendoza has done.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm going to have some cool stories to tell on him.
[SPEAKER_02]: I, he is probably not going to play early on, but they're very, very optimistic about where he is.
[SPEAKER_02]: Broncos, Salad across the board, just they don't wow you, you know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_02]: Like, there's not super start talent all over the place.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like you have.
[SPEAKER_02]: I'm like,
[SPEAKER_02]: You know, on the Rams or, you know, some of these other teams, but I, you know, I, there's just no holes and there's they're very deep everywhere, you know, they go for deep it with, with pass rushers, they go deep at corner, they're deep at receiver, they're just a lot of depth there, the only true super starts say they have is probably certain.
[SPEAKER_02]: And then Kansas City, a different looking team.
[SPEAKER_02]: The run game is going to be a big part of what they do.
[SPEAKER_02]: Keep it running back, offensive line.
[SPEAKER_02]: Josh Simmons coming back off the injury, or off of a weird first year, I would say, in general.
[SPEAKER_02]: If they get the right tag, I'll spot a figured out, like I think the offense is going to be more under center.
[SPEAKER_02]: And the development of young guys on defense is big there.
[SPEAKER_02]: But my home looks like I'm self for sure.
[SPEAKER_02]: Um, and then Houston, which makes it ten, um, if the offense, the offense is starting to fight back, Connor, I know you've spent some time with them, the offense is starting to fight back.
[SPEAKER_02]: Oh, yeah.
[SPEAKER_02]: This kid that they drafted out of Georgia at Georgia Tech, Kiel and Rutledge, um, as a part is apparently been like, has like started fights and training, I feel like.
[SPEAKER_02]: Like this guy, I can't remember the last time I was as excited about an offensive lineman coming out of a training camp But they I piece of people told me like keep an eye on this kid at practice and then they almost apologize to me when he wasn't involved in an altercation
[SPEAKER_02]: So, but I think the offense is starting to, you know, I think the whole thing when they deconstruct the offensive line room a couple of years ago was they felt like they had a culture problem in there and they wanted to establish a sort of identity they already had on defense for their offense and I think they're starting to get there on that and CJ's had a really good off season.
[SPEAKER_02]: So that would be kind of no, it gets from the 10 camps I've been to.
[SPEAKER_01]: Before we let you go, I'm wondering if you got a special treatment in Detroit because I picked the lines to go 14 and three this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: And as we send you out Albert, I just want you to hear this.
[SPEAKER_02]: I have not gotten special treatment here.
[SPEAKER_02]: And I look like I'm on my dad's side.
[SPEAKER_02]: This is home.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if people realize that so where I went to school, but this is sort of for my family, this is home.
[SPEAKER_01]: We'll get to Peter, but I just want Albert to hear about how the people of Detroit are talking about me, Shelby, can you just play this real quick?
[SPEAKER_01]: This is from Detroit Sports Radio.
[SPEAKER_01]: This is what the people are saying right now.
[SPEAKER_02]: Conor or is a Savot?
[SPEAKER_02]: Savot, baby.
[SPEAKER_02]: Conor or is a Savot?
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_02]: That sounds like like an AI-generated voice.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if I can trust that.
[SPEAKER_02]: I don't know if Shubba's gonna give the audience cleaner audio, but what I heard sounded like, that was very suspicious, Connor.
[SPEAKER_02]: That sounded like a robot to me.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, you can check it out yourself.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'll drop you the link, Albert here on 97, one, the ticket, but the people are starting to know, pass that along to Dan Campbell for me, tell him I said hello, and let's get to my interview with the big boss man, Peter King.
[SPEAKER_01]: we have this competition whenever I'm gone.
[SPEAKER_01]: Albert tries to get the best looking and most famous people in the world to replace me.
[SPEAKER_01]: I've won up the one up.
[SPEAKER_01]: I got the guy that hired both of us.
[SPEAKER_01]: Peter King is here.
[SPEAKER_01]: The legend, the creator of the MMQB.
[SPEAKER_01]: And yes, the one time higher of Connor and Albert Peter.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's going on?
[SPEAKER_00]: Hey Connor, great to see you.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's cool to see you guys or do in such a good job continuing the tradition.
[SPEAKER_00]: The great tradition of the MMQB.
[SPEAKER_01]: How does it feel as it like walking back into the house that you sold and like you're wondering what they did with the kitchen and the like why they decided to put wallpaper up there?
[SPEAKER_00]: No, I mean, I see your podcast a lot.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I listen to it more than I see it because I have very long walks with Chuck the Dog.
[SPEAKER_00]: So it's on my playlist of podcast to listen to.
[SPEAKER_00]: But it's kind of weird Connor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I, I, you know, people will say, I mean, now it's been two and a half years since I retired and people say, wow, do you miss it?
[SPEAKER_00]: And there are really certain things that I do miss.
[SPEAKER_00]: I really miss training camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think training camps the best part of the job, honestly.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because you get to see people when they're all oh and oh and they all have hope.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yes, the bad teams have hope, you know, so so it's good.
[SPEAKER_00]: But, you know, sometimes I look at the headlines.
[SPEAKER_00]: And some guy for the Falcons yesterday got lost for the year where the torn ACL and I said, man, I never heard of that guy.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I just say, and like, I count how many coaches and how many GMs I've never met.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, like I never met the Jets GM.
[SPEAKER_00]: I never met the Jaguar's coach.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, there's a button.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I never met the dolphins coach, halfway.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, so it really is true that when you're out, you're out.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you know, it's I still have some people who I pick up the phone occasionally and call Not all the time do they pick up the phone, but I Just to say hey, why is this happening?
[SPEAKER_00]: What what like the other day?
[SPEAKER_00]: I texted Eric DeCosta and I said hey, how's Lamar taking the new coaching?
[SPEAKER_00]: You know the new
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, the new coach and he said very well, but you know, most often I am just on the sidelines not wanting to bother people who really have a job to do now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, I want your thoughts on this season.
[SPEAKER_01]: You and I had had a phone call a couple of days ago, and we talked about our shared love of one team that we'll get to later.
[SPEAKER_01]: But what I want to ask you about first is about your book, the Game by Peter King, and you know,
[SPEAKER_01]: It's about your 40 years of covering the NFL.
[SPEAKER_01]: I was lucky enough to ride with you on the bus over to your final Super Bowl, which is cool because I don't know if you know this, but the legendary Jerry Eisenberg of the Newark Star Ledger, who was there as a columnist Emeritus when I was there.
[SPEAKER_01]: I drove him
[SPEAKER_01]: to his final Belmont stakes, and so I rode next to you to your final Super Bowl on the bus.
[SPEAKER_01]: I drove Jerry to his final Belmont stakes.
[SPEAKER_01]: So I feel like I'm an ownership of just a very unique little part of football.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, except I'm not saying these six.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, whatever.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't even know what Jerry is, but Jerry's is generation older than I am.
[SPEAKER_00]: So amazing.
[SPEAKER_00]: Still doing it.
[SPEAKER_01]: A little bit here
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm curious what, when you finish the book, and if, you know, I guess here's my first question.
[SPEAKER_01]: When I finish a story and we just put the football preview issue to bed a couple of weeks ago, and there's something in my mind that's like, man, I can't wait until someone opens the magazine and gets to this part in the story.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I'm sure that you love everything in that book, but is there something that in your mind, you're like, I can't wait until they get to this part of the game?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, there's actually a few things, Connor.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think,
[SPEAKER_00]: I think people will be surprised at exactly how far the game has come.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I write in my first chapter when I covered the Cincinnati Bengals in 1984, I write about how a Harris poll right around that time or a Gallup poll, one of the two.
[SPEAKER_00]: had football when they asked Americans what's your favorite sport to watch and the NFL was one percentage point ahead of baseball.
[SPEAKER_00]: That that season the weekend that the Detroit San Diego
[SPEAKER_00]: Dallas in Washington in a big Sunday game.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so imagine the tigers and pod rays out drawing the cowboys and at the time your red skins by a lot.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I just try to say, I mean, in the, you know, in 1984, Mel Kipers first year at ESPN when they paid him for the year, $400.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I mean, you'll just, you'll just see, holy.
[SPEAKER_00]: crap.
[SPEAKER_00]: What has happened to this game?
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, there's that.
[SPEAKER_00]: There's, uh, you know, the weirdness and, you know, you'll get a real you are there sense of what Pete Rosell was like.
[SPEAKER_00]: When I did my one and only long interview with him in 1985, when he was really kind of dragging, he was near the end.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of my favorite chapters is the Strike Chapter of 1987, which was just an amazing time to be covering football, how weird it was and how strange it was to see the teamsters and circle veteran stadium and physically keep fans away from
[SPEAKER_00]: a game.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, there are just a lot of things that I think people will say, holy crap, that really happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think you'll be surprised that how close Bill Walsh was in his last year to sort of teetering on ruination about how close Reggie White came to actually not picking the Green Bay Packers.
[SPEAKER_00]: in 1993 and how, I mean, you'll read, he really did not want to pick Green Bay.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: At the end, he did, at the last moment, he thought it was sort of God's will, but
[SPEAKER_00]: There's just a lot in the book that when I went back and and look, I think people might get the wrong wrong idea, a little bit Connor that I opened up my notebook and look back at my clip file and just rewrote all the stuff that I ever wrote, that's not I went back and re reported I didn't know this stuff about Reggie White.
[SPEAKER_00]: in 1990.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you're I didn't know this stuff about Bill Walsh being really mentally beat up in that last year he coach.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know any of this.
[SPEAKER_00]: So
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I really enjoyed going back and now that it's over, like Jimmy Sexton, the agent for Reggie White, he said to me at one point, he said, you know, I'm glad somebody is really going back on this story and reporting what actually happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, there's a lot of stuff in the book that I think people will enjoy and not just because they'll be able to go back, oh yeah, yeah, I remember when this happened.
[SPEAKER_00]: I remember when that happened, but you know, finding out really a lot of stuff you didn't know about the greatest show on turf in 99.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that is what really got me excited over the year and a half that I
[SPEAKER_01]: I think too, there's such a value in still in taking a trained reporter's eye and going back to the past because like you said, sometimes a book that comes out after a career, a remembrance is just with what
[SPEAKER_01]: I'm saying it is, it's a remembrance, it's one person's thoughts on a situation and then over time that gets warped and we get further and further away from the truth, but like for the Reggie White thing, for example.
[SPEAKER_01]: revisiting that as Peter King, the reporter now, I think is extraordinarily valuable because it can serve as kind of the North Pole for that situation.
[SPEAKER_01]: And I imagine we'll be talking about that for years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reggie White just came up when we were talking about Miles Garrett.
[SPEAKER_01]: Reggie White will come up constantly when we're talking about the greatest past rushers in NFL history.
[SPEAKER_01]: And so I think doing that is extraordinarily valuable and it's not just like, okay, this is my
[SPEAKER_01]: and I'm pretty sure this is what happened.
[SPEAKER_01]: No.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, that's not exactly what we need right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I was on the plane with Reggie White when he started his tour, flying from Tennessee to
[SPEAKER_00]: Cleveland, his first stop on his tour was the Browns in which Art Modell promised him the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said he'd help him build the church because Reggie was convinced that part of what he was going to do in this was to start the ministry that he would continue for the rest of his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now, he already was ministering to people, but he wanted brick and mortar
[SPEAKER_00]: Um, he asked Jerry Glennville.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, Hey, if I went to Atlanta, Dion says it'll help me get a, get a church built in Atlanta.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, so there's all this stuff.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, Connor, it's so interesting.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a really good imagination.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have a great sense for stories.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'll always remember the story you did about Steve Bellachick and Bill Bellachick at the height of the powers of the Patriots when you took Steve Bellachick's book, which he wrote, the first really good thorough book, ever written about football scouting.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it was so good, in fact, that Paul Brown, not only wrote the introduction, but thought that Steve Bellachek was the smartest, quote, football scout in the universe.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so you understand sometimes that stories are not exactly going to be what you think they are and you've never taken a lazy way out, the easy way out.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that's one of the things I really wanted to approach these stories with, I wanted to call Sean Payton and say, what was it like to play quarterback in an NFL game in veteran stadium and with Terry Bradshaw at the mic?
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, Sean, it's not so much, I did a lot of research before I talked to him about that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I talked to a bunch of people about the strike here, but there are just so many things honestly that you forget over the years and going back, it's not only fun to do, but it's also educational to do.
[SPEAKER_01]: What was something that shocked you about the NFL strike year?
[SPEAKER_01]: And something that upon going back and upon doing your research, what was like kind of a lightning strike moment for you when you, when you, not unearthed, but it came across your, your purview again.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I had covered that strike.
[SPEAKER_00]: I was covering the New York Giants for a paper news day at the time
[SPEAKER_00]: and it was just the weirdest thing.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, I tell a story about sitting in George Young's office at the metal lands in the old giant stadium.
[SPEAKER_00]: In George Young's office, literally he could open the curtains and he could see everybody walking in and out the front door.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one day I was sitting there with him.
[SPEAKER_00]: This is not the most shocking thing, but I'll just tell you what it was kind of like.
[SPEAKER_00]: And these two guys
[SPEAKER_00]: had come to the front desk of the giant's offices and said they wanted to try out.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they said, no, we're not given tryouts, but thanks for coming.
[SPEAKER_00]: They walked out and literally George Young had his back against the windows of his office and these guys saw it was George Young and they went, started pounding on the windows.
[SPEAKER_00]: George's office begging for a try out and George got up very rationally closed the curtain to the window and basically said, you know, kind of this is what I'm going through.
[SPEAKER_00]: But I think the biggest thing about the strike that surprised me is, you know, the fact that
[SPEAKER_00]: that the NFL got three weeks of games that they figured were going to count.
[SPEAKER_00]: So they told teams, they told the teams, these games are gonna count.
[SPEAKER_00]: So you had better be ready to play.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the strike here, ruined the strike games, ruined the New York giant season.
[SPEAKER_00]: In 1987, they're coming off a Super Bowl win.
[SPEAKER_00]: They lose their first two games.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they basically now probably went to out of three of the strike here to save their season.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's really honestly why for the last game, they were going for the last game, Lawrence Taylor came back across the picket line and look, everybody was crossing by week three, Joe Martinez crossed, everybody crossed.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were tired of losing, and he laughed about this, but Lawrence Taylor was tired of losing $62,000 a week.
[SPEAKER_00]: which, you know, that was a fortune, I mean, I still is a lot of money, but in those days that was a fortune, but I think seeing what happened in that year and how the NFL was so so preposterously,
[SPEAKER_00]: One in these players to all come back because the games we're going to count and Connor you fast forward this
[SPEAKER_00]: to, you know, 2010, 2011 when the NFL basically Jerry Richardson, the owner of the Carolina Panthers, basically threatened the players that if you don't give us a 17th game, we'll go out and find players who will give us a 17th game.
[SPEAKER_00]: And all the guys like Dominique Fox worth and Jeff Saturday and all those guys are saying are you kidding me actually with threatened to bring back straight football.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I can tell you, because I know this, because I was working for a network at the time, they wouldn't have shown the games.
[SPEAKER_00]: They wouldn't have shown strike games.
[SPEAKER_00]: Like they had to, they were forced to do it in 1987.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, the one other crazy thing about the strike here,
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, NFL owners, one of the things that I really have over the years just been amazed at.
[SPEAKER_00]: They're, they're a group of men who are practiced at falling out of tall trees and landing on their feet.
[SPEAKER_00]: Because it's incredible to think this, but the teams in the NFL made money like multiple millions.
[SPEAKER_00]: by the strike in the strike year, by playing the games and forcing the networks to play and keeping the money that the veteran players didn't make and spending nickels on strike teams, you know, to fill it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously, if you're a player on one of these strike teams, all you care about, ah, I get to play in the NFL.
[SPEAKER_00]: I get to be on Monday night football.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you're thrilled for them, even though it was obviously jaundiced football, there's a lot that I learned about that year.
[SPEAKER_01]: Did it give you a unique perspective on, because you and I have talked about this before.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think it's easy for, and I thought that you were always great when we would meet, and you would go get shake-shack.
[SPEAKER_01]: You purchased my first ever shake-shack.
[SPEAKER_01]: I'd never had shake-shack for, we'll be used to have it in the MMQB office at protecting us from sort of a cynicism that can bake in,
[SPEAKER_01]: about the league and where it's going and how much more corporatize it's become all that kind of stuff and I'm wondering if going back in literally thinking about
[SPEAKER_01]: regular humans being able to get close enough to the GM's office of the New York giants.
[SPEAKER_01]: And now, if you were within 300 yards of, you know, Nick Casario, you'd probably get thrown in a Turkish prison, you know, if you were just in Houston and you wanted to say something to the general manager.
[SPEAKER_01]: Is it all bad in terms of how far away the NFL kind of the stakeholders got from their fans or do you think that there's something about the way that the game grew up that that actually makes it better?
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I'm really not cynical about the game.
[SPEAKER_00]: at all.
[SPEAKER_00]: I love watching the games.
[SPEAKER_00]: I told Scott Hansen last year that, you know, he's my seven hours every Sunday.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I love, I love red zone.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, I love watching the games.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm still totally absolutely into it.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm just not really into the minutia, the way I used to be.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, when I used to go to training camps, I would every camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: I would ask you either the coach or if I really respected the PR guy, it's a give me a guy on your team who's really going to be good this year, who's really going to attack the, you know, who's going to be so much better this year than we all think.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I'd find two or three guys and meet them for the first time and get to know them.
[SPEAKER_00]: And quite honestly, that's how I, you know, developed a relationship with a lot of different players in the league because if you get them in the first year, they kind of remember you.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, you get Kirk cousins in that first year when nobody is thinking about Kirk cousins.
[SPEAKER_00]: And you know, maybe down the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: He remembers that you talked to him in his first training camp.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, but I think one of the things Connor that I believe about our jobs is that we're the representative of
[SPEAKER_00]: millions and millions of people, you know, behind the curtain, or they shouldn't say all together behind the curtain, but near the curtain.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they can't be there.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I once had a journalism professor said your job is to is basically to tell people what they don't know and take them where they can't go.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that's how I always treated this job.
[SPEAKER_00]: And so I am unhappy about a few things with the game, which I write about, very unhappy with this thing about constantly adding to the number of games, and it felt as hell bent on playing an 18th game.
[SPEAKER_00]: mean, and then they say, well, we're taking away one of the preseason games.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the most disingenuous pile of crap I've ever heard in my life.
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: Everybody knows it.
[SPEAKER_00]: The fans, the commissioner, the owners.
[SPEAKER_00]: They all know it.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, and so I don't like that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't like this.
[SPEAKER_00]: getting into bed with gambling.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, it is going to ruin so many lives in 10 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: There will be more people going to GA than going to then we'll go to AA.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: I just think that sometimes the NFL really loses its conscience.
[SPEAKER_00]: But that doesn't mean, and I mean, obviously, the thing about head trauma is bothersome.
[SPEAKER_00]: You have to make peace with that if you're going to watch the games.
[SPEAKER_00]: And one of the reasons I hate the concept of the 18th game is that players already, I write in my book, you got to read what I write about, Creed Humphrey versus Mike Webster.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, an entry apart, but I mean, Connor Creed Humphrey is playing about, I'm just going to say, he's playing not double the amount of snaps that Mike Webster played, but hundreds, hundreds, more snaps in a season.
[SPEAKER_00]: and you know so don't go telling me that you know that you know the helmets are better which they are the helmets are significantly better don't go telling me we've taken a lot of a contact out and they have which is great but don't go telling me that you care all that much about the players when you're adding games adding snaps and listen Connor last say I'll say about this
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, look, in 2020, I think it was the last year when there were 16 games.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think that's right, 2020, you know, basically if you go from 16 games to 18 games, you're asking starters.
[SPEAKER_00]: on average per year to play 125 more snaps.
[SPEAKER_02]: Wow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And don't tell me that doesn't count.
[SPEAKER_00]: That doesn't.
[SPEAKER_00]: That counts.
[SPEAKER_00]: That is detrimental to the long-term health of players.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's interesting too, because you, and this is an example, like a very small potato's example.
[SPEAKER_01]: But last year, we did a coverage story on special teams went completely bonkers.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were double the amount of blocked field goal kicks.
[SPEAKER_01]: There were X amount more kick return touchdowns.
[SPEAKER_01]: Like everything about special teams that became a true third of the game.
[SPEAKER_01]: And when Roger Gidell was in London addressing fans,
[SPEAKER_01]: And then something else happens that you don't expect.
[SPEAKER_01]: It's sort of a cascading effect that's interesting to us and we get to see it in real time.
[SPEAKER_01]: And what's shocking to me is that like the NFL doesn't know
[SPEAKER_01]: like it knows what it wants, but it ultimately will never know the full consequences until they play the scenario out, which is wild to me, right?
[SPEAKER_01]: It's like adding a game and then adding another game.
[SPEAKER_01]: You know, there's the conservative thought that, okay, it's not going to be that bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: There's the disastrous thought and then there's whatever ends up happening.
[SPEAKER_01]: bringing gambling into sports.
[SPEAKER_01]: Well, maybe it won't be that bad.
[SPEAKER_01]: Maybe it'll be Tim Donigy in the NFL.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, dear people at the wheel of the Titanic, essentially.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's just like, well, we really don't know where this is going.
[SPEAKER_01]: Even though it's one of, it's this monolith sports industry.
[SPEAKER_01]: And it's like, from large to small.
[SPEAKER_01]: The ramifications of all these decisions, it's fascinating to me that like, well, just in real time they're along for the right.
[SPEAKER_00]: The thing is Connor.
[SPEAKER_00]: you're not going to know, especially about the head trauma part of it, you're not going to know for 15, 20, 25, 30 years.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's all there is to it because, you know, look, some guys have heated the call of people like Ian McKee, like Chris Borland, he retired after one year, and there are others who clearly have left the game before their time.
[SPEAKER_00]: part of the reason, at least part, maybe most, if not all, is because they've got a good deal of money in the bank and they want to be able to make sure they enjoy that money in the bank.
[SPEAKER_00]: So, so I think the fact that the NFL can make all these decisions,
[SPEAKER_00]: and say, hey, look, we're doing position-specific helmets.
[SPEAKER_00]: We're doing a lot for the players.
[SPEAKER_00]: And listen, don't get me wrong.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the NFL is doing some good things, okay?
[SPEAKER_00]: In taking away two-a-days, taking away a lot of the contact in practices, and all that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think the NFL's doing a lot of good things.
[SPEAKER_00]: But you know, you're fooling yourself if you think that it isn't just adding to the danger and the potential mayhem down the road.
[SPEAKER_00]: If you think, hey, man, we want another game.
[SPEAKER_00]: Let's have an 18th game, man.
[SPEAKER_00]: Now we can play all over the world.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can do this.
[SPEAKER_00]: We can do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: Listen, the 17th game was supposed to allow the NFL to be able to have the freedom
[SPEAKER_00]: of having, in essence, 16 of the 32 teams every year.
[SPEAKER_00]: having ninth home game.
[SPEAKER_00]: And that ninth game and play it somewhere else, whether you want to play it in Abu Dhabi or Beijing or Australia or wherever.
[SPEAKER_00]: You already have the ability to do that.
[SPEAKER_00]: And the fact that now they say, well, if we go to an 18th game, we have more ability to play games everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know, the rules changes people go along.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's one moment where you thought, and I think we all have it, where you, and maybe it came out of this process for writing the book, where you thought, like, I can't believe I'm here doing this, and I know you've had a lot of those over your 40 years.
[SPEAKER_01]: Certainly one of mine was getting to go with you to Philadelphia to watch Doug Peterson show us how they beat the Patriots and the Super Bowl.
[SPEAKER_01]: Uh, the other one of mine was being the poor reporter, uh, the one year that I did it for the Kansas City Chiefs and just watching them kind of run around and skip around and thinking that there's no one else in the world is here that's allowed to see this right now.
[SPEAKER_01]: Um, what are some of the stories that kind of unearthed for you during that process of writing the book where you're like, I can't believe I freaking saw that.
[SPEAKER_01]: That's ridiculous.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, I mean, I would say I'd pick out three going behind the curtain with an officiating crew in 2013.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, for the entire week being free to go to Dino Paganelli's, one of the best back judges in the league.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing him teach his AP social studies class in a suburb of Grand Rapids, Michigan.
[SPEAKER_00]: Seeing Mr. Paganelli there, it was really...
[SPEAKER_00]: a cool thing and then going home and seeing Mr. Paganelli a single dad to his three children and I asked him about the pressure of making his calls.
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, because obviously the back judge makes some of the most decisive calls on passing your parents.
[SPEAKER_00]: There could be.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he said, oh, that's not pressure.
[SPEAKER_00]: He said, I'll tell you what pressure is.
[SPEAKER_00]: Pressure is getting home from a game at night at midnight on a Sunday and walking in the house and wondering, do I have milk for breakfast tomorrow?
[SPEAKER_00]: And are all the kids close,
[SPEAKER_00]: that story was a lot of fun.
[SPEAKER_00]: One of the stories that I just, I said throughout the whole part of it was being on the bus with John Madden, you know, in 1990, writing from Pleasanton,
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, he's Yoko Ono's neighbor, and being on that vossic across the United States with him, and hearing him wax eloquently about what a wonderful country this is, and I'd never have known that if
[SPEAKER_00]: I had just gotten in planes and flown everywhere.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see the country.
[SPEAKER_00]: I see Grandpaus steakhouse in Carney, Nebraska.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's one of my favorite restaurants in the United States.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, you know, it's just seeing things like that was fun and and I'll go way back in time, you know, Bill Parcells in their huge year of 1986.
[SPEAKER_00]: Bill Parcells let me ride to work with him one day, and the way he rode to work was right by the places of his youth, where he grew up.
[SPEAKER_00]: And if you wonder why winning the Super Bowl,
[SPEAKER_00]: twice was such a gigantic thing in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: Just think that he was, he worked in a bowling alley, called Eclipse Bowl, about 1.8 miles from the 50 yard line of giant stadium.
[SPEAKER_00]: And he was a pin-setter.
[SPEAKER_00]: And for those of you who don't know what pin-setter is, before, I mean, a lot of people probably have never bold.
[SPEAKER_00]: But to be a pin-setter, you have to stand at the edge of the alley, and when all the pins go down, then you have to play some there by hand, one by one.
[SPEAKER_00]: That was his job.
[SPEAKER_00]: So I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, I'm seeing a lot of these things and being in cars with Jimmy Johnson when he's saying F my legacy.
[SPEAKER_00]: I mean, he was so unhappy after that second Super Bowl.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, about, you know, Jerry Jones.
[SPEAKER_00]: Look,
[SPEAKER_00]: I set out to try to be behind the curtain in a lot of places and that's one of the things about my career that I was proud of that
[SPEAKER_00]: I was able to go behind the curtain and in a lot of places and for every one that I did, there were 20 times that people said no.
[SPEAKER_00]: But what is the Wayne Gratzky thing, you miss a hundred percent of the shots that you don't take and so you just try it, I mean, kind of one of the funniest stories in this book is about
[SPEAKER_00]: Convincing Sam White to dress up in a top hat and Tuxedo.
[SPEAKER_00]: First game with the Bengals and Polar Rabbit out of a hat.
[SPEAKER_00]: Which I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I don't know some of the things that I ever covered.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_01]: That was for a cover shoot.
[SPEAKER_01]: The same question.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah, yeah, you'll see, you'll see that in the book.
[SPEAKER_00]: Oh, I mean, there's some of the things that I did.
[SPEAKER_00]: It was just, I don't know, I, and I was fortunate in a lot of ways, too, because
[SPEAKER_00]: you know, look, I always tried to impress on people on our staff that, you know, you never know the seed you plant today, whether it might bear fruit tomorrow.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I remember having a conversation with Andy Reed when he was tied in's coach of the Packers in 1995, and he was telling me that he
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, he, when he went to Brigham Young, he wrote a column for the school paper, and he was attack on the football team protecting Jim McMahon.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, and he really wanted to be a sports writer.
[SPEAKER_00]: And obviously his career took him in a different direction, but
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think that the last couple of years?
[SPEAKER_00]: Why do you think the last couple of years I was able to go and spend time with Andy Reed, so many times in his office after big games?
[SPEAKER_00]: Because he thought that was the cool thing to have huge moments in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know, basically have those huge moments in his life, you know, illustrated in sports illustrated.
[SPEAKER_01]: And, you know, when I was working for NBC as well, the story about the journal and Andy Reed writing in the journal as I was one of my favorites.
[SPEAKER_01]: And hearing you talk about that is always one that I go back to and I think about.
[SPEAKER_01]: I wanted to, uh, before we had to break, um, you and I had, had a little phone conversation the other day about our shared love of the Houston Texans, um,
[SPEAKER_01]: readers of Sports Illustrated, uh, hang on.
[SPEAKER_01]: We got something fun coming for you in the next couple weeks on that front, but uh, just to spin it forward to this year.
[SPEAKER_01]: I know we both like Houston.
[SPEAKER_01]: Do you have the Rams are obviously a built in a way that, you know, I can't remember a preseason team garnering this much hype in the last decade.
[SPEAKER_01]: Who do you like this year?
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm like everybody else.
[SPEAKER_00]: I like the rams, but yeah, you know, it's easy to like the rams.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: It's not easy to like the Texans after watching the quarterback in the playoff last year.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: But the Texans remind me a little bit of what the red socks are right now.
[SPEAKER_00]: and for people who follow baseball, the Red Sox were down for the count.
[SPEAKER_00]: They were horrible six weeks ago.
[SPEAKER_00]: They had 15.
[SPEAKER_00]: I think I'm right in saying they were 15 losses worse than the New York Yankees.
[SPEAKER_00]: And as we record this this morning, they're tied with the Yankees in the
[SPEAKER_00]: The Red Sox survived because they could pitch.
[SPEAKER_00]: The Houston Texans survived last year when CJ Straub was terrible down the stretch of the seas and in the playoffs.
[SPEAKER_00]: They survived because of Will Anderson and because of that terrific defense.
[SPEAKER_00]: And, you know, I'm going to, I mean, this is not entirely accurate, but good defense doesn't slump like a quarterback does sometime.
[SPEAKER_00]: Right.
[SPEAKER_00]: Yeah.
[SPEAKER_00]: And they will be in games, and I think CJ Strauss is going to figure it out.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know how good CJ Strauss will be this year, but I do know that
[SPEAKER_00]: that Houston has a young top five defense and they will be in every game at every game and will Anderson to me like I said to you on the phone I was so happy you really explored will Anderson and what makes them tick because and it's a great art of his story as the fact
[SPEAKER_00]: are a such a big part of his story in his life.
[SPEAKER_00]: So that's that's great.
[SPEAKER_00]: But everybody's told the story of his sisters.
[SPEAKER_00]: You told the story, the real story of what makes Willie Anderson tick, and that's one of the things I like about that story.
[SPEAKER_00]: And it's one of the things in my opinion that I believe that is going to make him
[SPEAKER_00]: you know a great player for a long time.
[SPEAKER_00]: The guy just wants it.
[SPEAKER_00]: He wants it bad.
[SPEAKER_00]: I'm a big, big willy Anderson fan.
[SPEAKER_00]: And I'm a guy who thought it was a dumb trade on the next area traded his next year's one to move up to be able to not only take CJ Stroud in that draft, but to take Willy Anderson.
[SPEAKER_00]: I thought it was a huge overpay.
[SPEAKER_00]: Exactly, leave any huge underpay.
[SPEAKER_01]: What's so funny about that one too is you had been working at NBC at the time and I, on draft night was text and a bunch of people, you know coaches and executives and stuff and everyone to a man was like, what?
[SPEAKER_01]: the Texans doing and I wrote something about it and you had called me the next morning and you're like, I think, you know, I think you were right on that and that made me feel so much better and it just goes to show that like, you know, in the moment, you know, we just, we don't know, we don't know how it's going to turn out and I think that's what, I think ultimately that's what I love about it.
[SPEAKER_01]: I think sometimes people will turn the turn the gut on you and say, well, that just shows you don't know anything.
[SPEAKER_01]: I mean, I'm willing to say that at the time a lot of
[SPEAKER_01]: But I can go back and and write about how great it is now, you know, and I can acknowledge the fact that at the time that it didn't seem right, but I think that that's I don't know that's what I think I get the most out of this job just fun, you know, there's never really no anything and if as long as you're okay with that that's fine, you know, yeah totally agree totally agree
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, Peter, I can't thank you enough.
[SPEAKER_00]: So the game coming out, mid-October 13, sorry, got five stars on Goodreads, Peter.
[SPEAKER_00]: Five stars?
[SPEAKER_01]: Yes.
[SPEAKER_00]: I didn't know that.
[SPEAKER_00]: I should look.
[SPEAKER_00]: I guess I should look.
[SPEAKER_00]: I don't know.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's the Bible for readers.
[SPEAKER_00]: Five stars are on Goodreads.
[SPEAKER_00]: That's really, really nice.
[SPEAKER_00]: Well, look, it was fun to do, and I originally didn't want to do it because I knew it was going to be a tremendous I mean, Connor's 18 months of owning my life after when I retired, I said, man, I really want to not do anything for a while That's about three months, and then I wanted to do something again.
[SPEAKER_00]: You know what I mean?
[SPEAKER_00]: So anyway, no I'm was really happy to do it.
[SPEAKER_01]: Hopefully we'll be able to talk about it a little bit further down the road But I was really really fun to do any time and you're welcome here Like you said your names on the building so you get to walk back in whenever you want So if you just want to come in I'm in the middle of the podcast one day just come on in in the middle of the podcast one day Much much appreciated.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks a million.
[SPEAKER_00]: Thanks Peter