← Bulwark Takes
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- [00:00]
Seth Wickersham
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Tim Miller
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Tim Miller
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Seth Wickersham
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- [00:11]
Tim Miller
And save up to $1,500. Book now@vrbo.com hey everybody, it's Tim Miller from the Bulwark. Happy Thanksgiving. We've got. It's Thanksgiving, so we're gonna do a little football and politics content. And I've got Seth Wickersham of ESPN with me. He's got a new book out called American Kings, a biography of the quarterback. We're gonna get into that there. Quarterback politics overlap, believe it or not. And Seth, I appreciate you doing it. This is kind of a no Kings podcast. We're going to do American Kings book for you. I love it.
- [00:42]
Seth Wickersham
And yeah, it's been an interesting time to have a book with that title. It's been an interesting year to have it, but fortunately, everything's turned out okay.
- [00:51]
Tim Miller
Well, for the book, yes, we'll see how things turn out for the rest of us. So I want to get into the book, but first we'll just do a little bit of, you know, football and politics and where these things intersect, I guess, just first, like, what's, what's it like for you being a football that's. You always got to be working on Thanksgiving. Like, do you, are you just like away from family?
- [01:14]
Seth Wickersham
Yeah, it's, you know, not every year, but it's a lot of that. I think that, like one of the most interesting kind of turns that football has taken, especially the past 10 years or so. But even moving more, you know, is, you know, to own holidays. And so that means long days for a lot of people who, you know, end up covering things that are directly tied to the games or even adjacent to the games. But, you know, that's okay. That's, that's just kind of how it goes. But it's been an interesting twist. What used to be reserved for like the NBA and other, you know, the NBA All Star game, like the NFL is just moving into those territories pretty ambitiously and ruthlessly.
- [01:53]
Tim Miller
Where are you at on this question of like, you know, mixing the politics and football and turkey and all together and jumbling it all up. Is that just like part of American life now? Because that's another thing that I feel like has gone on hyperdrive lately versus the old days.
- [02:08]
Seth Wickersham
I mean, I think it's all mixed. I think that, like, you know, when people tiptoe around politics, you know, that's exactly what they're doing, is they're tiptoeing around it. And it's always easy to step on it if you want to. You know, it's been an interesting time. I mean, I think that, like, you know, my job is to write profiles about interesting people and investigate the NFL about certain topics and issues. And, you know, at times, you know, politics, especially President Trump, have overlapped with those things. And those have been really, really fascinating times to cover.
- [02:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, one of those times I just kind of. The overlap of all this has been kind of interesting. Like, in a way, NFL has been a kind of microcosm of the political vibe shift in the country from left to right. And I was thinking, you know, you go back to during COVID and after the Black Lives Matter protests that you have like, end racism in the end zones, which I want to end racism, but I found that kind of silly to my. Is the end zone paint really going to do anything? It felt a little bit like, you know, not really a substantive effort to end racism, but, you know, it's on the helmets, too. And he had that. And now like four years later, you know, we were having flyovers for Charlie Kirk and kind of like very over the top honorifics for him and, you know, Trump going to the games and, you know, and like, as somebody who's been covering that, you know, does that say to you that, like, the NFL team owners are, like, showing their true colors now? Does it say to you that, like, these guys are going to jump on whatever the hot fat is of the moment and, you know, if the next four fad as Bernie and aoc, they'll pretend like they're socialists, like, what do you think's happening?
- [03:55]
Seth Wickersham
Well, they are socialists in one very important regard, and that's the NFL because it's run incredibly like a socialist organization where, you know, really you have some of the most ruthless capitalists, you know, that our country's produced, who adhere to a very socialistic structure. And so that, of course, is very interesting. But I think that one thing I've learned covering the NFL for a couple decades now is that it's never proactive necessarily about these items. I think that for better or for worse, it's usually reactionary. And I think that I covered in depth with my colleague Don Van Natta when President Trump came after the kneelers in 2017, and that really threw the league and the ownership, which had really kind of enjoyed a status that was almost like above the political fray. It really threw them into a Lot of debate. There was a lot of sharp elbows thrown. There was a lot of hard feelings, and there was a lot of discussion that really lasted over the course of a month about how to handle this particular issue. And it brought out some interesting colors in people. Like when we reported that Bob McNair, the owner of the Texan, said, we can't have the inmates running the prison. Which is. Of all the pieces of reporting that I've had over the years, that was one of them that we reported on that really transcended the sports world. I think what we're seeing now is the league trying to do its thing, trying to remain above the fray. But obviously, when moments call for it to intersect with the president, they do it, and they do it pretty respectfully. But we'll see how that goes. I think that Trump really hasn't concerned himself too much with the NFL. Obviously, he was really critical of the kickoff rule, which the special teams coach for the Kansas City Chiefs ended up saying this week. Had some pretty pointed comments about that. My colleagues, Don Van Atten, was he pro.
- [06:04]
Tim Miller
Was he on the Trump side of it or on the other side?
- [06:07]
Seth Wickersham
To paraphrase, he said the president has no idea what he's looking at.
- [06:11]
Tim Miller
That's true.
- [06:12]
Seth Wickersham
But, you know, my colleagues Don Van Natta and Adam Schefter reported that, you know, Trump wants the new Washington Commander Stadium to be named after him. But, you know, and then there was the bad bunny stuff that kind of came up and disappeared. So I think that, like, you know, I'm loathe to, like, say that the NFL has, like, some sort of sophisticated plan about how to deal with the president, who can be, you know, let's just say atypical and impulsive at times in terms of who he picks to comment about. But, you know, so far, it seems like it's worked for the, for the league.
- [06:45]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, you do see it, like, and the owners are malleable. I mean, look, I worked with Woody Johnson for a while, the jets owner who was a Bush guy that, who. Who got. Went all in with Trump, like, you know, which I saw no sign. Signs of, besides him being a Republican. He had nothing nice to say about Trump. Let's just say when me and him were hanging out during the campaign and, and you see Harris, the Redskins owner, who'd been a Democratic donor, who was, you know, at the MBS ball, I guess, because, you know, he's part of the deal with the new stadium, need Trump. So, like, a lot of this stuff is just transactionalism I think from a lot of these owners. More than ideology.
- [07:21]
Seth Wickersham
Yes.
- [07:21]
Tim Miller
And that.
- [07:21]
Seth Wickersham
That encapsulates NFL owners better than anything.
- [07:24]
Tim Miller
Yeah, right.
- [07:25]
Seth Wickersham
Like transactional over ideology. Ideological. That's it.
- [07:29]
Tim Miller
I did just want to highlight your point about the NFL being socialist. It is such a true point. And as a kind of former Republican and somebody who's on the free market, I'm like always on this against the owners. And I feel like it's because I recognize this. Like, it's like it's kind of like a bad. Well, some might say all types of socialism are bad, but in this case, this is a particularly bad type of socialism because you get like all the benefits of it without any of the responsibilities to the community. I guess, like for years the Nuggets and Avalanches out of your sports league, like, did not. Their games weren't on TV in Denver and because they're in some pissing match with the TV networks Comcast. And I was like, this is insane. I was like, you guys have an obligation to the city. Like, you get this. This is not a free market. Like, you're not in a. You're not in a free market. Like, There are only 30 teams. You get gifted one of them, you get these huge profits on the back end. You need to have an obligation to give it back to the city and not just to do, you know, like these. Whatever. Have a couple of charity functions with the boys and Girls Club and call it good. Like, you have a bigger obligation than that. And it does feel like a lot of times the owners don't, don't. Don't feel that way. Don't demonstrate that.
- [08:40]
Seth Wickersham
Yeah. Or they feel like they've done enough. I mean, again, it's like owners are kind of. NFL owners are kind of a strange and fascinating breed. Like, in one sense, like, if you look at the votes that they take on issues concerning the league, not political votes, but like, you know, whether to change, replay or whatever it might be. You know, almost all of the votes end up being like, you know, 31 to 1 with, you know, the Bengals abstaining. They're almost always like, we think about these guys as being kind of kings of their own castle and very independent thinkers when in fact, like, groupthink usually prevails over league initiatives. It's very odd. It's very rare that they end up, you know, that these votes are actually really, really close. And, you know, knowing a lot of owners, I think that, like, when it comes to the community aspect, there's some of them that take it you know, so seriously that it's like, you know, part of who they are as an owner. And then I think there's others who feel like that no matter what they do, no matter how much money they spend, you know, it's never enough. And they're easy targets and they get kind of turned off by it all. And so, you know, sometimes I can see both sides of it. But you know, generally speaking, you know, like you said, I mean, the owners are more transactional than anything else in every way.
- [10:00]
Tim Miller
Good community minded owners, just not. Not the Cronky family. Okay, the. I want to get to, I guess, give us the big pitch for the book then. I have a couple things I want to talk about.
- [10:13]
Seth Wickersham
Well, you know, so it actually kind of was rooted in a little bit of politics. Like I remember seeing photos, you know, when you'd see presidents together. And I know that this seems really foreign to some of your younger listeners, but you know, like President Bush 43, when Obama was being inaugurated, had every president over. And you know, you look at them sitting around a table and it's like they know something specific about each other's life, even if they don't discuss it because they've shared this kind of very unique experience. Experience. And being a little bit of a high school quarterback as I was, I try not to come off like the. The Uncle Rico of Anchorage, Alaska. But being a little bit of a high school quarterback as I was, I realized that like, there's something different about this job. It is different than anything else in really global sports in that you have to wear all of these different hats. And so many hopes are kind of ascribed to it. And it's not a job you, you play. It's, you know, you don't play quarterback. You are one. And so it takes over the identity of these guys. And I really wanted to take a look at like what it's like to do it in high school now and throughout history, college and now and throughout history. The NFL now and throughout history. And then finally like what it's like to be retired and kind of having hardwired yourself to survive a certain winnowing and ringer and, and live with that the rest of your life. I mean, those are the things that kind of fascinated me with it.
- [11:35]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I do wonder the quarterback thing. The best example, I think of how it is different and how it's a specialized knowledge that some of us who are on the outside are trying to understand and translate as the Mannings. And obviously these guys are really in my face living in uptown New Orleans. But at some level, like, you know, and Peyton, like, for me, I've familiar. I have pretty good familiarity with all of them being a non sports person. Peyton played for the Broncos, my team. Eli was the roommate or not roommate, next door neighbor of my best friend at Ole Miss. And, and I now live in uptown New Orleans. So I see them all around and like none of them are physical specimens. You know, I like, none of them look like. Oh, you know, it's not like you get it when you see them and you see some people, like, think of them like you see Aaron Gordon on the street. You're like, that dude is like, that dude is an athlete. I remember seeing like some of the Broncos guys. Carl Mecklenburg, I got the, you know, walking around town, it's like that dude has legs that are like tree trunks. It's. None of the Mannings look like physical specimens, particularly Arch, not, Not, you know, any different. And now, you know, you have this three generation thing happening where now Arch is going into Texas and he seems to kind of figure things out after a rough start. And now Peyton's kid is 14 years old or whatever, and I'm already seeing clips of him going around and it's like that the fact that this family has some secret sauce leads you to think that it's some. There's something there that's more than just like raw physical talent.
- [13:03]
Seth Wickersham
Totally. And I think that like, is it nature or nurture? Like, that's the most interesting question. And I think that, like, there's a lot of mystery to it, but it just, it isn't a coincidence that this is the hardest thing to do in sports and that one family has seemed to do it at a level that, you know, few individuals can do, to say nothing of a collective. And you know, I wrote about Arch. I spent a lot of time with Arch and his high school when he was at Easter, Isidore Newman, his last year. And I wanted to write about his recruitment because first of all, like, his recruitment was the most intense of any player in history, definitely since, you know, the social media age. And so I wanted to like, get into this and all the symbolic value that it, that it displayed, but also just like try to use him as a window to show the Manning family and to try to get out, like, why these guys are so good at this thing. That is so difficult. And I think you're right. Like, you know, look, they're blessed with some genes clearly, but like, you know, like, Peyton Manning is lucky in the sense that he's 6 5. But you know, everything else, you know, I think that like there was an aspect of being obsessed and seeing where it could take it. But in the same sense, like there is some sort of natural ability, like you have to be able to throw naturally at a certain level to play that well in the NFL as Archie and Peyton and Eli did. And that to me was so fascinating about Arch because he was kind of the reciprocate of all of this knowledge accumulated over decades. Almost like bionically built in that regard.
- [14:41]
Tim Miller
Yeah, I mean, Peyton won his last super bowl at the Broncos. Like a noodle arm. He had a dead arm. He's basically like me. Like, what do you think talking to all these guys, what do they say? What is the intangible aspect of it? The other thing that is interesting is like at some level, you know, look, Caleb Williams Arch. Like people saw early on that they were going to be elite, but like when you get really down into the details and like, look at, look at how many just misses there are in the NFL draft or like how bad, you know, like you would think that like with all of the attention, all the resources, all the money, all the analysis that goes into this, you could like look at a 21 year old and say, that guy's going to be good in the NFL. And it's still kind of 50, 50, it feels like, is even with the first round, first and second round picks. So what are the people who are experts at that? Like, what do they say? Why is that? What is the intangible element of it?
- [15:31]
Seth Wickersham
I mean, NFL teams know more about the quarterbacks that they look at drafting than the American public knows about presidential candidates, which is insane, but it's true. I mean, they have more information than anybody else could ever need for a job interview. And yet, you know, yet they're wrong. I mean, you could walk into a draft room, look at 10 quarterbacks and pick one, and your success rate would be as good as just about anyone ever who's done this. And so like, why is that the case? I think that like, there's a couple of things. Number one is that like the college game is kind of played differently than the NFL in the sense that like the hash marks, the little lines in the middle of the field are differently spaced. So because of that, there are some really smart coaches who can create windows that are open in college that aren't open in the NFL. So in a real way, you can't. Like it juices statistics. Like, you're a Denver fan. I mean, you're looking, you're used to looking at the Rockies and wondering, like, you know, how good are these players? Because the altitude makes the hitters look better than they might be and the pitchers look worse. Like, college is the same sort of thing where it's like grade inflation, only for quarterbacks when it comes to statistics. And then so when they get to the NFL, you simply don't know whether they can make the throws into the windows that you need to in the NFL. And then I think the other thing is, like, context matters and we don't, we don't like to think about that. Like, we like to think that a quarterback, like a great center, you know, can kind of scotch tape over everything and make everyone look better. But, like, going to bad teams is a problem and it ruins a lot of players that could be really good. I look at when I wrote about Caleb Williams in the book, a lot of this news has gotten out, but, like, it was about him and his dad and how they were weighing blowing up the draft like John and Jack Elway did and like Archie and Eli Manning did because they didn't want to go to a team that had a horrible track record for offensive play and developing and drafting quarterbacks. And, you know, so a lot of the arc with him gets into that question of, like, the fact that, like, even though we don't want to admit it, you know, luck matters, employment matters, and context matters when we're evaluating quarterbacks.
- [17:43]
Commercial Narrator
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- [19:14]
Tim Miller
Coaching and scheme matters. And you mentioned in the book. Totally. Elway stuff is a great example. I mean like, he's just, he is a unique physical specimen in a way that the Mannings kind of weren't in a lot of ways. And yet still he just does so much better. When I, when I'm growing up with Shanahan, then like, then previously with Dan Reeves is more of a defensive minded guy. So like that stuff does, does matter.
- [19:36]
Seth Wickersham
Totally. And like, I think that like, look, I grew up some of my life in Boulder and I was a huge Broncos fan, you know, during that time. And like, you know, we use the, the term and this is like even applicable in politics. You know, it's like, but you know, the system quarterback idea, which is like, it's about the infrastructure more than it's the player. And it's kind of a backhanded compliment when like every quarterback is a system quarterback. Look at John Elway's statistics under Dan Reeves and under Wade Phillips and Mike Shanahan. It's obviously there's a system component to it all. And so I think like, you know, again, this doesn't lead us any closer to, you know, knowing how, you know, what that magic bullet is for drafting and developing quarterbacks. If I knew what it was, I would have flown down to New Orleans on my private jet, done this podcast in person and then flown home. But, you know, I think that like all of those factors matter a lot more than we think they do.
- [20:27]
Tim Miller
What other Just come back to the quarterback stuff and the cultural political element that we were talking about at the beginning. You know, I, when I was growing up, shoot up to not that long ago, like black quarterbacks really slandered and it was like in this context, the American, like the quarterback position, it takes something special. It's like physical, but it's also cerebral. And there's intangibles and you have to be able to have the intangibles to do well. And there's a, you know, just like a common slander in sports talk radio and in the ether and in the ether that like black, black guys could not do that as well, it was like one of the last, maybe the last sports role where that was really the case. There are other places in society you still hear that now and some of the discourse from folks on the MAGA ride about various things, having black pilots or whatever. But what, like, what happened? Like, what was the evolution of that? Were there any, like, key inflection points and kind of where do you think is that totally go from the public perception, do you think, at this point?
- [21:28]
Seth Wickersham
I mean, I think it's mostly gone among NFL decision makers. I can't speak for like all fans, but I think that, like, it, you know, it's interesting because, I mean, the NFL and the draft process was one of the few places where that kind of discourse was still allowed, which, you know, is really kind of embarrassing to think about. But, like, that's where a lot of that stuff came from. There was one moment that I think is really important and I wrote about this in the book, and it actually happened in Louisiana. There was this great quarterback at Grambling named James Shaq Harris, and he was there in the late 60s. So he's coming out for the 1968 draft and he's seriously considering not playing professional football because he doesn't think he'll get a chance to play quarterback and what's the point? And he meets with Eddie Robinson, who's the head coach at Grambling. Brilliant man, very influential coach, one of the all time, you know, college greats. And Eddie tells him, like, you know, if you don't do this, you know, you're going to be making it more difficult for people who come along later. But if you do do it, you also can't blame the system because you know what that is going in. So you've just got to be better than all of this. And so Shaq goes. He got drafted by the Buffalo Bills. Their starter was Jack Camp at Kemp at the time, and he still didn't know if he wanted to go. Like they were going to put him in the ymca, whereas the rest of the quarterbacks were in a team hotel for training camp. And he goes to a park and he blindfolded himself and he. The big throw that the NFL wanted to see college quarterbacks make was the deep out. So he picked a tree that was about 20 yards downfield and he blindfolded himself and he was like, I'm going to throw at this tree and if I hit it, I think I'm ready. If not, you know, maybe not. So he blindfolds himself, he throws, and he doesn't hear Anything. So he lifts up the blindfold and he sees the ball past the tree. So he says, well, maybe two out of the three here. But he goes and gets the ball. He drops back again, he blindfolds himself, he throws. And, you know, as he's telling me this story that the hair on my arm is standing up because I'm so. I'm just. I couldn't believe, you know, how much was at stake here. He hit the tree and he feels like I'm ready. And he goes in the NFL. And it wasn't like a direct path to success, but he ended up having some really good years. And he really, more than anyone, helped open the door for Doug Williams and Warren Moon and these trendsetters like Randall Cunningham, who came later, Vince Evans and even people like Patrick Mahomes. Talk about Shaq Harris as one of those guys that history is mostly forgotten, but was one of the most pivotal quarterbacks when it came to, you know, introducing the idea that black athletes could play quarterback at elite levels.
- [24:17]
Tim Miller
Yeah, and definitely Mahomes has sort of, I think, incinerated any. Any concerns at this point or Lamar Jackson and the folks we see in the NFL now. Jaden Daniels, my boy, Jaden Daniels, lsu. Unfortunately, we that talk about a system. We gave him a good system for the offense, but the worst defense in the. Of lsu, what he deserved, which is a chance to be in the. In the playoffs. All right, well, I guess that's a good transition to how we're going to fix that. So LSU doesn't do that for our next great quarterback. We're without a coach. Politics is getting involved in that right now. As the governor, Jeff Landry keeps interfering in the coaching search, and he's trying to recruit Lane Kiffin, who's the Ole Miss coach that is in the middle of the season here, which is ongoing, which is just a quick aside. I know you're more of an NFL man, but the way the NCAA is doing this is so stupid. Is there any way they can fix this? I like the idea that no other league has this. Where you have this stuff happening in the middle of the year. They should just make a rule so you. So the recruiting and the coaching changes and all this stuff happens after the season's over. Like, what is the. Why are we doing?
- [25:30]
Seth Wickersham
Well, I mean, I think that, like, to do that, you would have to, like, you know, admit, you know, look, I think that what we've seen in. In college sports the past four years or so is that like a lot of the facades that were up there for the longest time that this is amateur sports, that this isn't professional, that these are true student athletes. All of these things have all kind of come crumbling down. I think the final one would be, you know, admitting that this is professional sports and that, you know, they need to be governed by a set of rules that are uniform across the country. And college sports used to kind of have an association like that. I think it disbanded, I want to say, in 1997, if I remember right. But they used to have something like that. And now I think you see calls for that again, because, you know, look, there's a lot of things to love about college sports. There's a lot of things to really be disgusted by. But I think that, like, one of the biggest ones is the fact that you can recruit players and actively be taking another job during the season while those guys have real careers and real futures and real livelihoods based on you. I think that, like, that is really abhorrent.
- [26:43]
Tim Miller
Yeah. And that's really where we are right now. And that's why this stuff is so. It's so stupid. Right? It's like. And I feel bad for the Ole Miss folks that are like, well, they're in the middle of this great season, and their coach, Link Kiffin, is like, coach of the season. And yet I kind of understand Lane's perspective a little bit. And some of the old Miss people are mad at him and saying, like, why would you abandon us at this time? But it's like, because of the way this dumb system is set up, all the other good jobs are going to be decided by the time the season is over. And so. And they've just really set up a really dumb way of doing it. But my. My gossip out there that does relate to your business is that Lane is not only considering Florida and LSU and leaving Ole Miss for. But. But he's interested in following Jackson Dart to the Giants. So, Joanna, break any news or reporting you have on the Lane Kiffin.
- [27:32]
Seth Wickersham
I have no. I have none on that. But, like, you know, we won't know until mid January for that, because the NFL does have a uniform process for that. But, like, look, I just think, like, yeah, Ole Miss is having its best season in decades, maybe ever. And, you know, in the middle of it, you've got his family going to visit places, and, like, you know, look, if your dad is up for a job, it's not unreasonable to go look at the city. If it's going to uproot the entire family or if it's going to have consequences down the road. But it's like, why is this happening in the middle of the season that he's pledged, you know, his total, you know, undivided commitment to and gotten a bunch of really good players to buy into that also, to me, like, that's the part where it gets really, you know, frankly, disgusting.
- [28:18]
Tim Miller
That's tough. All right, well, what you worked on, anything else we got any, any profiles you got coming up? Any investigations?
- [28:26]
Seth Wickersham
No, I. I wish I could, as you know. You know, you can't tease investigations, but I think I've got some good stuff that, you know, fans, you know, in sports and with and beyond sports will really enjoy reading. About a year ago. Well, it was about a year ago January. My, my Franklin, you know, colleague Don Van Natta, we co write a lot of stories together. But we did that big story about Dan Snyder and how disgusted and turned off he was by the commander success. And that was a lot of fun because, you know, those stories are just great because they transcend the sports world and, you know, that hopefully we'll have a couple more, you know, stories that are, you know, it's not about Washington or about Snyder, but hopefully we have some stories that do that soon.
- [29:05]
Tim Miller
Well, Washington sports fans are thankful for any aid and comfort that was provided on the transfer to the new owner over there. Now they've now that the political world at least has a football team that they can unite around. Not that good this year, but the trajectory is good, thanks to Jaden Daniels and thanks to getting rid of Dan Snyder. Seth Lichersham, thanks so much for doing this, folks. Looking for a break from politics, but, you know, some themes, some overlap. You can go check out the book American Kings. It's out now. It's at your bookstore. You can go get it. A little something to read over the holidays and we'll be seeing you next time you come through town. All right, man.
- [29:42]
Seth Wickersham
Thanks, man. Appreciate it.