← The Herd with Colin Cowherd
The Herd with Colin Cowherd
3 & Out - Lions center RETIRES, CJ Stroud CAN'T throw, Knicks FIRE Thibs
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John Middlekauff
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Which means no more crossing your fingers and hoping you ordered the right thing. All the parts you need at prices you'll love. Guaranteed to fit every time. Ebay things People love the volume. What is going on, everybody? John Middelkoff three and Out Podcast hopefully everyone is doing well and we're here to talk a little football. Because that's what we do. And we had some breaking news. A starting center Pro bowl for the lions. The number one seed retired somewhat out of the blue. C.J. stroud has not been able to practice. Big year for Josh McDaniels. The offensive coordinator Tom Thibodeau was fired. You got to be careful when you're, you know, the head coach. The GM in the front office can backstab you when you're out grinding, when you're on the court or on the field, that guy's talking to the owner, texting people, and all of a sudden you're looking for a job and they're writing the statement saying, see ya. So we'll talk some sports walls to do a big mailbag at. John Middle cough is the Instagram fire in those dms. Get your questions answered here on the show. But before we talk any football, you know, I need you to subscribe to the podcast. If you listen on Collins feed, you got to subscribe to three and Out. We did a big golf podcast yesterday. We did a football podcast the day before. So we've had a lot of content this week. Everything is up on YouTube. Go check that out as well. So make sure you subscribe to those two things for me. Really appreciate everyone that has. But before we dive into some football, you know, I got to tell you about my friends, my partners in the official ticketing app of this podcast trying to talk my, my beautiful wife and to go into the sphere with me so I can see Candy Chesney. Not quite sure that's going to happen. So I might have to figure out a way to get there. I don't know, maybe invite someone else because I really do want to go. But if you want to go to anything, we got baseball in full swing. 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I always think when a player retires Quote, unquote, randomly, especially when there is, you know, the car situation had gotten, let's say, toxic between the new coaching staff, mainly the new head coach, him. They weren't on the same page. It clearly got weird. And I do think that, I would imagine we'll see when quotes come out, when Dan Campbell finally gets in front of a mic, or Brad Holmes, the gm, that they would have been in communication over the off season with Frank Ragnow, their starting center, and let's face it, one of the better interior offensive linemen in the NFL. It's always a little jarring when you see a guy just choosing to quit at 29 years old. Now, I think what makes pro sports in 2025 so much different than I would say the previous, we could even go the last 10 years. But anything before that is the money is so outrageous. It really is. Frank Ragnos, 29 years old and he's already made $57 million. You know, so even if you factor in after taxes, he's taken in net probably, I don't know, well over $30 million. And he lives in a place that, you know, no, no shade to Detroit. And obviously they have some high end places, but is it Manhattan or Newport Beach? So his money's going a little bit farther. And I do think that makes or gives guys the opportunity when they're in a lot of pain. Because the one thing with football is we've all been critical, and I'm guilty as anybody is being like, this is not the NFL. I know this is not the sport that I grew up loving. This was not the sport when I was in high school. It was suspicious. You could take out anybody. The Ronnie Lotts, the John Lynch's, the Troy Palomalu's, the Ray Lewis's. That's, that's my NFL. It was a much more violent game in the open field. That is true. Can't touch the quarterback anymore. That's a fact which I do understand from a business perspective. But when you're watching a game, when it's your team, when you're betting on a game and they throw a roughing the passer penalty on a quarterback hit, that is like hitting them with a pillow. It makes you want to puke. I mean, it really does. But the one area where you can still be really violent and an area in which more and more elite players have come into the league over the past decade at defensive tackle, let alone defensive end, is the line of scrimmage. And the speed, the power, the size of these humans is it's crazy whenever the combine comes around and you see the measurables on the defensive lineman in the league and Frank Ragnow said like I've tried to talk myself that I'm not into a lot of pain and at the end of the day I just do not feel right. And if you look at his injury history, he's had a bunch of injuries over the course of his career and you do not become a Pro bowl level player, a high end player, a first round pick, a guy that is just, you know, one of the better players at your position at offensive line if you are not a tough son of a bitch. Like no one can question your toughness when you play center or guard and you are a high end player at that position. So I'm going to take him at his word that the pain and the worry about like this might not work moving forward. Right? Jason Kelsey talked about this when he retired. Like could I keep playing? Of course now he was, he was much older than Rag now. But I'm in so much pain when I get out of bed every morning. Not even counting the season. I'm talking about the off season. And I do think it makes it easier to make life decisions. When you have a lot of money in the bank and your family is secured and you're not going to have to worry about anything, is it unlimited money? Is it enough where you couldn't blow it if you did some stupid things? Of course not. So but is it more money? Are you immediately in the top 1% of the 1% with having millions upon millions upon millions of dollars in the bank, you can look at things a little bit differently and it has to be difficult to make this decision. I think if you're the Lions, I've said this before and I still believe this today. Now it is more difficult in this spread offense version of college football, this transfer portal world we live in. I always thought that guards and centers are the most replaceable. Now when you get Pro bowl guys it is hard to find another Pro bowl guy. But the drop off of just finding another center who can function is much smaller than if Penne Sewell retired. It's like what do I do at tackle? It's like, yeah, you can be screwed. I see with the 49ers all the time when Trent Williams gets gets injured, it's like what do we do? And the answer is there's nothing you can do because your swing tackle can never just step in. You know, the Lions over the last couple years have actually had a pretty good Swing tackle. But it's why their offensive line has been awesome. But for the most part, like there's a massive drop off with your third tackle than giving a guy that your starter, especially when that starter is a high end guy. But I think we've seen like, you know, Derek Carr 30 years ago is still playing football, right? But he's made over $200 million. And it's like, you know what, just kind of over this, not, not dealing with the politics of this business. And Frank is like, you know what, 30 years ago, when again NFL players were still making a lot of Money in the 90s, they weren't making life changing, generational changing money when you were the center and in 1987, you keep playing because Frank, hell, he could make $10 million this upcoming season, hell, he could hold out because he has no guaranteed money left on his contract and surely get a raise. I mean he's scheduled to make like nine and a half million dollars in actual cash. I bet he could get that number easily up to 15 plus million dollars. But you're like, you know, it's not even worth it to me. I don't even want to deal with this. And who knows, he's young enough that maybe in a year, maybe he's feeling better, that he gets the itch. And trust me, there would be either the Lions or other teams willing to scratch that itch. But I think a huge element of these decisions, even going back to Calvin Johnson, you know, I think Barry Sanders decision was strictly based on this franchise. Fucking sucks. This is not fun. This is, this is a miserable experience running around and never winning. I do think the guys that we've seen in recent memory have factored in pain and I'm super rich. It's just not worth it. Patrick Willis had the feet. I think Calvin Johnson had the feet as well. You know, Derek Carr has this messed up shoulder. Those are just ones that come to mind. It's like, you know what? I don't need the money anymore. Aaron Donald, I mean Aaron Donald still kicking ass and taking names. He's like, I've already banked $100 million. I'm good dog. I'm out. I've already accomplished everything I've set out to accomplish. I still feel good. I see some of these clips. I saw an Instagram reel of Aaron Donald lifting. It's like, Jesus, guy looks fantastic. He looks like he could, he'd make it all pro this season if he came back. I would actually bet on it. But it's like, you know, What? It's not worth it to me because football, more than these other sports like baseball, you just play every single night. You don't practice. Take a little BP and you play basketball. If you're on a good team by like Christmas, you don't even. You don't practice at all either. I don't think LeBron James teams have practices in like a decade. So, like, football's the one sport where you practice and mentally practice with meetings and rehab and working on your body and lifting way more than you get to play. I say this all the time because I think it's one of the great quotes of all time, Ray Lewis saying, you pay me Monday through Saturday, Sundays are for free. Because playing football at any level, if you played in high school, if you played peewees, if you good enough to play in college, the games are the fun part. Right. It's everything else that sucks. And I think it's made these decisions for some of these guys that could I battle through a couple more years of this pain for another $20 million, which most humans would do? Well, it's easy to go. Yeah. It's not quite worth it when you've already made it millions of dollars. And I think that's really the number one factor here. C.J. stroud is not practicing because of shoulder soreness. I would say it's a little concerning, you know, mainly because this is a big time of year where the on the field stuff is easy, but it's really learning the offense and repping the offense when you have a new coordinator. I would, I would. Might not even talk about this for more than a minute. If Bobby Slowik had came back and they had cohesion at the. It's like, well, he's had the same offensive coordinator for three straight years, but they fired that guy. They have a new offensive coordinator. So even if they're going to run some of the same base offense, which I would imagine they're going to keep a lot of stuff in there. And who knows, maybe they run a very similar playbook. And it was just the offensive line sucked. But not being able to practice because of shoulder soreness is a little alarming and makes me a little nervous if I was a Houston Texans fan, because this should be the easiest time to practice. Like, sometimes that happens in training camp. You're throwing a lot, you're fatigued. We see it all the time this time of year. I mean, should be able to make enough throws in your sleep. So there's a lot of pressure on this guy. He had an incredible rookie season last year. I mean they were a team that I might have sprinkled a little money on to be the number one seed that they were really, really underwhelming. I actually kind of think this year could be a bounce back season because we know their defense is going to be good if their offense is just a little bit better and they can run the ball and they just stay a little healthy and they block a little bit better, they're like, they clearly have a good quarterback. But sometimes I don't know. This is just something to monitor because you don't just, you know, precautionary reasons like no, this is shoulder hurts, that's a problem. So it's just a lot of pressure on this guy and now if he's healthy, they not only should be the heavy favorite to win this division but like they should win a lot of games. Division sucks. So I was excited about the Texans last year. I think everyone was too. And now I think everyone's going to pivot off them. I'm going to pivot back, but it makes a little bit harder to feel confident about that when C.J. stroud can't even throw a practice. June 3, I saw Josh McDaniels had some quotes about Drake May and you know, coaching new guys and you know, sometimes screwing up in practice is better than having a good play, especially in OTAs because you can coach off of it and that's how you can really improve because every guy, it's much easier to learn by doing on the field. And when you screw up, it's easy to hammer that home. And when you go to training camp and I started thinking there is no disputing when Josh McDaniels was with Brady, especially that stretch when he came back in the 2010s, it was remarkable what they did. You know, a lot of that time Gronk was pretty beat up. Their best wide receiver was Julian Edelman, who's a stud. I love Jules, but I mean it's. Don't get him compared to like he's not Randy Moss or Jerry Rice or Justin Jefferson or anything. They had a lot of random running backs. They had, you know, solid offensive lines. But a lot of that was being coached up by. Many would consider the greatest offensive line coach of all time, Dante Scarneckia. Obviously Jeff Stoutland's making a push to join him in that category but like that doesn't exist anymore. Dante's retired. Ernie Adams isn't giving you notes every week. Bill Belichick is at North Carolina. And Tom Brady's not playing quarterback for you anymore. I thought when the Raiders hired Josh McDaniels, I believed in it. I thought it was going to work. Not only did it not work, it was a historic failure. He's the only guy to not make it to year two or, you know, through two seasons in multiple spots in the history of the NFL. The guy was fired with Denver and then the Raiders in the middle of year two, both times. It's crazy. It's like literally has never happened. Now he's not the head coach, he's the offensive coordinator. But, like, he had a pretty good. We talk about infrastructure a lot with quarterbacks, right? Like how lucky Jalen is to have such a good gm, to have an owner that's willing to pay for coordinators. His head coach is supported with great offensive assistant coaches. He has a great offensive line. You know, Jared Goff has had Sean McVay. Now he's got the Lions and their infrastructure. Like, you need help. You cannot. You don't control your personnel, you don't control the scheme. A lot of stuff is out of your control. Well, like, a lot of offensive coordinators go to jobs and the quarterback sucks. You know, their line sucks. Their head coach doesn't know what he's doing. It's like, well, you get Mike Vrabel. I know he knows what he's doing, but Dante's not there to coach the offensive line anymore and Bill Belichick isn't there to hold your hand. And I bought into this. But I do think it's pretty important for Josh McDaniels if we're going to take them seriously. Like, I think the Patriots should make the playoffs and I think they should win nine plus games. Their schedule is easy. We know their coach is good and we know their defense we saw two years ago with a lot of the same players and they've added some guys this offseason. Going to be pretty good. But offensively, like, what's Josh doing here? You know, what's he like when Bill's nowhere to be found because we've seen him as a head coach? When Bill's nowhere to be found, it's a fucking tire fire. Like, it's a crazy. It doesn't get any worse. You know, we make so much fun of some of these guys and it's like, just because this guy's more buttoned up and, you know, more articulate, like, he's kind of Jim Tomsule, right? It's kind of like pretty ugly, you know, Think of some of Joe judge, who's a McDaniels guy. But just think of some of these scenarios that we just made so much fun of. You know, Josh can just handle himself a little bit better in front of the media that he doesn't get that treatment. But his results are kind of like that now. When he was with Tom, they were ass kickers and what they did in playoff games was, I'll never forget as long as I live, that second, you know, iteration of their three championships was incredible to watch and they did it with a lot of guys who probably aren't going to be in Canton, Ohio. So I'm pretty excited to watch. You know what Josh McNan is we getting this year? Are we getting the guy that most considered one of, if not the best offense coordinator in the league? Are we getting the guy that actually it was all Bill and Tom? I don't know the answer to that. The NBA Finals are here and this is your last chance to bet on the NBA until next season. And the DraftKings sportsbook and official sports betting partner of the NBA is pulling out all the stops to make it a finals to remember one team will be crowd the champ and the other will be lost to history. Who you got winning it all? Obviously everyone's picking the Thunder. Not gonna lie. 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And with LinkedIn you can feel confident that you're getting the best share with your network. You you can let your network know you're hiring. So post your job for free on LinkedIn.com John that's LinkedIn.com Johan to post your job for free. Terms and conditions apply this holiday season. Don't forget your number one fan you so what's a gift you could use? Maybe go to more home games or even travel to some away games while rocking a new away team jersey? Well, they've got something for you. Discover automatically doubles all the cash back you've earned on your credit card at the end of your first year with cash back match with Discover, you could turn 150 cash back to 300. That'll help with the swanky away jersey it pays to discover. See terms@discover.com credit card I saw that Tyler Guyton, who was the Cowboys first round pick said that he was terrible last year. I mean essentially I'm not not verbatim. But it didn't go well. Now granted they drafted him. He was a project and it can be overwhelming when you're a project and you're thrust into a situation, especially for a team like the Cowboys. But I do think for a lot of guys that didn't just have like seamless rookie seasons or seasons that by the end of it you're like God, like Jared Verse no One's questioning like is Jared Verse any good or Quinion Mitchell with the Eagles? It's like these guys are just good, you know, this is just a player. Like this guy's a player. A lot of guys like pretty up and down, right? A lot of guys like, is this guy good? Is this guy going to be one of our cornerstone pieces? We have no clue. That's where the off season for players like that is enormous, you know, because when you're a rookie, I saw I think a headline that Mason Graham, the guy the Browns took number five overall from, from, from Michigan, like he didn't look good in, in rookie mini camp or OTAs. Like, guys, do you understand that most of these players, especially a bigger guy, let's say an offensive or a defensive lineman, they have not been training. Once the combine ends, they start flying around. They're just meeting with people constantly. They're eating shitty food, they're completely out of their routine. And a football player, it's almost like someone in the military. Their life is very buttoned up on a daily basis. They know minute by minute, hour by hour, day by day, what they're doing. From on the field to off the field to training to eating. It's all kind of mapped out. Especially when you're at a big time school like a Texas and Michigan, Ohio State, like it's, it's pretty regimented. There's not much just screw around time for weeks on end. And I'm not saying these guys screw around during the draft process, but they're just being flown all over the place, meeting with people and you're not really working out. And I think sometimes like it's. Then you get to a place you're trying to learn the scheme, you're trying to learn the coaches, trying to learn the name of all your team. There's a lot going on and I think anyone that has an awesome rookie season, that's impressive, right? Most guys, they have an up and down rookie season that's kind of par for the course. But your second year, like you get the whole off season, you get a lay of the land, you know, you're building, you know, especially in a place like, even for Tyler Guyton, while he has a new head coach. The head, the new head coach was there, so he has a relationship with Brian Schottenheimer and you just kind of know your way around and it's a time when you really can hone in on your craft. And I think the off season, especially for offensive and defensive linemen are huge on the fundamentals. And for an offensive lineman, that's a project. The way they get good is. And this is boring and this is not something that would, you know, if you broke it down on a daily basis, no one would listen. But the fundamentals of playing offensive tackle is like make or break the success of 99% of people. There's a small group of guys in the history of the league at tackle. They can just kind of get away with like, yeah, step was off, but Orlando pace didn't matter, right? Walter Jones, Trent Williams, like, it's Jason Peters. Tripp got up and threw the defensive end seven feet the other way. And that's not normal. Most guys have to be fundamentally sound. And the way you build good fundamentals is, you know, in practice, but specifically right now, when you can really, really hone in on it. So I think there are guys all over the league, young players, and it's not even just first round picks. It's guys that made the team at guys that played all over, you know, second, third, fourth rounders. This is a huge, huge time of year for them. Other than that, I, you know, Tibbs was fired. I met Tom years ago when I was doing radio. I used to go to a lot of Warrior stuff. And Tom, I think it was after he was fired by the Bills. You know, Steve Kerr was big on bringing these guys in and just they would hang out and he was around a lot or at least for a couple months. I remember in might have been before Durant got there, so it might have been like 15 or 14 with the Warriors. And I remember just BSing with him and talking to him for a while. He's a good guy, easy to talk to back that was a decade ago. But he got fired today and he obviously led the Knicks to their best season in two and a half decades. And I think one hard thing as a coach, and I would say this in football and in basketball, you could say this in baseball too. The difference is in baseball they got a ton of managers making like 900 grand. Like in basketball, guy like Tom or any top coach is making millions of dollars. Obviously the head coaches in the NFL are making huge cash. They are so tunnel vision with their team, especially late in the season in the playoff run, that there's not a huge political element to the way their job is built. Their only focus is try to win games, deal with their assistants and deal with their players. Now you got to be a little political, I guess, with your players, especially in basketball, maybe a little more in football, but like, that's your focus where a GM's job is actually much closer to just like a normal corporate job in terms of running a huge budget. Their budget happens to be the salary cap. You know, you negotiate a lot of contracts, hell, you negotiate a lot of your coaching contracts. And I think that leads to just natural backstabbing because at the end of the day, I would say 99% of executives could never coach. They won. They, they don't even have the capability of doing it. Two, they don't, they wouldn't have the personality to even attempt to do that, and they wouldn't want to do that. I mean, part of being a good coach is wanting to help other people, right? Like, you do have to have some level of patience to be a good coach, right? Andy Reid, Bill Belichick, Pete Carroll to, you know, basketball coaches from SPO to Kerr or whatever, there has to be some sort of balance. Whereas an executive, you can just be very cutthroat. It's why what Bill was able to manage for 20 years was pretty incredible. Like, because he had to coach the guys and get to know them, but they also knew that like he was in charge of their money and he could cut you, fire you, trade you at any moment. Like Andy's always had a gm, so he could always kind of play the role of good cop, bad cop, which is probably the healthiest thing to do. It's like SPO in Miami. He's got Pat Riley to play the bad guy, right? It's really, really hard, especially in this modern day with the amount of money that's on the line of like doing it yourself. And I think when I see that he gets fired, it's like it's so easy for executives to point the finger at the coach and listen sometimes maybe he should get fired. Maybe there is a better option out there. But I just think it's. You see it in the NFL a lot during the season and Michael Lombardi used to talk about this all the time. Where do most GM sit? They sit next to the owner in the suite. Well, even if you're a good team, you're losing four or five games. I mean, if you're a shitty team, you're losing well over half your games. What do you think the vibe is? Think of you as a fan when you're sitting on your couch if your team wins six games that season, how angry you are most of those Sundays. Well, what do you think those guys that work 70, 80 hour weeks, that pick the players are telling the owner good things or bad things. It's why they're always pointing the fingers. And some guys get that reputation. Trent Balky has it really bad that he is the ultimate backstabber, but I think most guys intentionally or not, just naturally kind of lean that way because it's survival. It's why honestly, it's kind of impressive that in the Giant situation that Joe Shane and Brian Dabel and maybe I've missed it, there haven't been like super explosive articles of like one guy tried to backstab the other guy and maybe that maybe that happened or maybe it will happen. But it feels inevitable when you lose that it happens when you win and it happens, man, that shows you there are some people in there that I don't know if you could trust. Blending Vice's signature dynamic storytelling with the high octane world of sports, Vice Sports brings an exciting and diverse range of programming that goes beyond the game catch action packed live events and exclusive sports documentaries and profiles only on Vice TV. Okay, let's do a little mailbag. Onmiddalcoff onmiddelcoff is the Instagram fire in those DMs. Get your questions answered here on on the show. Like Chase Steeler fan here. With all the offensive problems the Steelers have, could it all really be fixed with the right young quarterback? Or would the Steelers current setup only serve to stunt a young quarterback's growth? My brother is a lifelong Commanders fan and I'm sure he would have called me crazy a year ago had I told him the right guy would have them in the NFC championship. If the Steelers were suddenly given Jaden Daniel talent, would they be crazy good with the current infrastructure? Yes. I think it's a long winded way if I give any talented team, I mean you guys, you guys are winning nine, 10 games every year with just hodgepodge of different quarterback options from Trubisky to Pickett to Mason Rudolph to I guess now Rogers, who if Rogers the quarterback, you probably win nine or 10 again too. Now I think if Mason Rudolph's got to be your full time quarterback and Rogers never shows up, you'd be in trouble. If I gave you Jaden Daniels or Josh Allen or just some elite guy, you'd be fucking good. I mean, yes, you would be good. Would you win the Super Bowl? I don't know, maybe. I mean last year defense was playing like crap at the end of the season, but yes it would, it would dramatically change some stuff. Now the AFC especially your division is a little harder than, you know, some plights to get where you want to go. But I do think with a team like the Steelers, I think it would have dramatic impact. Yes. My question is, realistically, how do you think the Chargers will do? I've been a diehard fan since the Qualcomm days and I truly believe it's one of the hardest teams to be a fan of. No, Super Bowls haven't won our division in well over a decade. And although I think Herbert is an amazing quarterback and is all the talent, the playoff performances kill him. Give a brother some hope. I'd be pretty bullish. Just look at Harbaugh's track record. He wins. So I would say I'd be pretty cocky about being a playoff team. Now, how that meshes how we look is going to come down to like, does Cleo Mack give you 12 sacks? Does the rookie running back give you 1300 yards or 10? You know, I almost had 10 hundred yards, 1000 yards and like 45 catches and becomes like a complete back for you. And Najeez is a solid role player and your running game is more consistent than last year because you, because of the injuries, I'd feel pretty good. You have a high end coach, you have an excellent defensive coordinator. Division's hard. Division's hard. But I would like my chances if I were you. Remember I picked you guys to make the playoffs last year, four to one. And every Tom, Dick and Harry was like, middle cough. You're an idiot. They're not good enough. Well, actually they are because GM Harbaughs, as a Bears fan who thought Nagy had all the goods to become an elite head coach play caller, knowing what we know now, Trubisky is a career backup. And the overall success Nagy had with the organization, two playoff appearances in four years, do you think he gets another head coaching opportunity in the league or does he take over in Kansas City when Andy decides to retire? I think 100% he gets another shot. I mean, I would, I mean, I've, I'm biased here. Nagy's my guy, but I'm trying to look up how old he is. He's 47 years old. He's on the most consistent franchise with the best quarterback in the league for years now. I'd be stunned, especially if they, you know, some of these offensive guys hit and they're a high end offense again, like you said. Listen, the Bears, tough place to coach. And Trubisky, Trubisky's bad, seems like a good guy. I saw Josh Allen, had him in his wedding, high character and I've knew some people beside Nagy that worked at the Bears. Everyone liked him. Like people are people like Mitch Trubisky, the person. Bad player, no feel, no instincts, no touch. Hard to win with a guy like that. And listen, I think like a lot of people, he's going to be dependent on a good coordinator. And when he had Vic Fangio, that team was really good. And that double doink, I think thousand percent he'll get another shot. 38 years old, 3 kids under 9, health care, 60. This guy's a grinder. I love football and I love the bills. I love winning money even more. You have mentioned some big wins on podcasts. With so many games, so many potential bets, how do you zero in on a few bets to make each week? Well, some of my biggest bets have been in golf where you get crazier odds. So you bet $500 on someone to win 20 to 1. You know, do the math. You're winning 10 grand. So to win a lot of money in football, you got to put a lot of money down. And I've also lost. I mean, I've had some devastating playoff losses. I think football, I really pick and choose. I would say I just whatever I believe in the most. I think the hard part is with football for me is part of gambling is obviously you follow it, you follow the numbers and you also get a gut feel like I really like this team in this spot. But like I don't really get a high off betting $100. So I got to be kind of careful because I love to gamble. So I just kind of pick and choose. I mean, there's a game or two each week that I, that I like. I'll same with college football. And I also to kind of keep me involved sometimes because I don't always feel comfortable, you know, just betting thousands of dollars. You know, football's. I mean it can be fucking easy to easy to lose. I do do a lot of parlays. That's where I can bet 50 bucks, 100 bucks and be entertained for the day. So I can take three teams or definitely like three guys to score a touchdown. That's one thing I started doing last year. I think there was one parlay I hit with a player prop that was like $150 and paid like $7,500. It was like, I forget like three or four guys to score touchdowns and Jamar Chase to score two. And it was a Monday night football game and Jamar Chase had two touchdowns. It was incredible. So I, I kind of do that sometimes more than do super aggressive bets on football games. Because, like, listen, you have five grand on the Niners in the super bowl, and all of a sudden they lose. It sucks. I've learned my lesson. Don't bet against the Chiefs unless they're playing the Eagles in the super bowl last year, which I didn't touch. I just bet a lot on golf because of odds. I mean, because I can bet a guy top 10 or top 20. It's like four, four to one odds. Where in football to get plus 350. I mean, that is a massive underdog. Dear John, this is Jocko, not the famous podcaster. My question relates to podcasting and commentating on the NFL. Do you think the podcasting pipeline will eventually lead to commentating? People like Edelman, Taylor, Luan and Kelsey would be great. They could bring new, fresh ideas to the table and help commenting grow. Do you think it could would go if offered big bucks? Well, let's use Kelsey as an example. He does do Thursday Night Football on the panel, right? Or I guess he's on Monday Night Football, so he travels. But it's a little less work to do the pre and post game show than it would be to call the game. Like, there's a lot of pressure there. Let's use Luan as a better example. I'm with you. I think he'd be good. Big personality players like him, coaches like him, just easy hang Edelman, same thing. Those guys are making a lot of money. I mean, Taylor's making huge Money now. The FanDuel Bodice podcast. Same thing with Will Compton. I think Will Compton be good? You don't always just need to be a huge famous name, but it's like I want to travel every single week to a different game. And most of these guys aren't flying. Like, I got to go to the airport, like travel like me and you. So it's tough. I mean, for Tony Romo and Tom Brady, traveling sucks, but it's a lot easier in the PJ. You ain't waiting in the Southwest line. B32, right? Hey, are you B31 or B33, right? They fucking just go to the airport, take off, come home after the game. So I think it's hard. Back to the Frank Ragnow thing, retiring. These guys made big money. So to get me, these guys have young kids to fly around. Like, you can make a really good living podcasting. You don't have to go anywhere. I mean, hell, I'm seeking office space. I could do this from home forever. Not That I will never not have a home office. But it's like I do need to get out of the house. So I've been looking around for office space because I got to mix shit up. My question, my little brother is getting recruited by some big programs like Florida, Indiana, Kentucky. My question is, what do you think big time recruits should be looking at when choosing a school? I feel like stability and opportunity are the biggest things. But is there anything else vital that you think we should be considering? I would say this. The thought of what matters and what doesn't matter has changed dramatically over the last couple of years. Because one, you can be like, choose the school. Choose a program that you're comfortable with, a coaching staff that you're comfortable with. We know it's all kind of bs, right? Unless you're going to play for like Kirby Smart. The schools you just listed, Florida, if their coach doesn't win, he's going to get fired. I mean Indiana, I know they had a great season last year, but they're going to be at a huge disadvantage on a yearly basis to Penn State, to Ohio State, to Michigan, to Oregon, Kentucky, impressive school. I mean, Mark Stoops long term contract. So it's like that, that's a good example. Guy is probably going to be there for a little while, but these coaches can all leave and your coordinator and position coaches can all leave. You know, most guys make these decisions now based on money. If things don't go well, you can change schools. So like I said, I'm always a huge believer in gut. You can only go off who's recruiting you and if they are recruiting you, like how much are they paying and what are they telling you? Because regardless what they're telling you, like that changes once you get there. Unless you're like a can't miss top 10 recruit, whatever they're telling you is kind of a lie. There's no guarantee you'll start, there's no guarantee you'll play. Hell, you have to fight for your money, potentially even with nil. So I think, I don't think you can ever go wrong playing in the sec because if you do break into the starting lineup in the sec, you are in a direct path to the NFL at Florida or Kentucky, that's for sure. So I would say in Indiana is obviously in the Big Ten. I mean these are the best two conferences in the country. So playing in that conference at that level, you're closer to the NFL than most college football players. It also means it's really hard to get on the field because they have a bunch of NFL guys that you have to pass. So it's going to be difficult no matter where you want to go. My advice would be this is it's one thing if the coach tells you we don't want you here anymore so you transfer. I think too many guys transfer too fast. Like let this settle. Like you're going to leave Florida for I'm just going to pick a school like Kansas State. No shade to Kansas State. Impressive program. My point is like what if in like year you would have been starting at Florida? You know, I think too many guys are just too quick to leave because they're not playing. Like historically most guys don't play right away. Most guys are not like Reggie Bush. You know, it's, it's pretty difficult to go from high school to Florida and play. So it might take a couple of years. If the coach wants you, I'd stay. So my, my advice would be go sec. I would have no problem going to the Big Ten, but I would go to Florida over Indiana Interested in investing in Bitcoin but not sure how to get started with the Gemini Credit Card? You can dip your toes into Bitcoin without even trying. Just spend like you normally do groceries, gas or even a night out and instantly earn up to 4% back in Bitcoin or one of over 50 other cryptos straight to your account with no annual fee. The Gemini Credit Card is a no brainer and right now you can grab a $200 bitcoin intro bonus. Go to gemini.com card to learn more and start earning today. Terms apply. 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You might have missed the podcast because I watched Mob Land. Still have the finale to go. But he's good in that he's entertaining. Maybe I was too harsh on him. He is. He is talented. I do. Maybe I was just trying to go against the grain. To go against the grain. I thought the move would have been this year. Trade Mike Tomlin and go get Ben Johnson. Like it was handed there on a silver platter. So I don't know. I don't have the answer for you or even Mike Vrabel but they didn't want to do that so the Tomlin fired conversation unless they have like a historically bad season I'm just done talking about because they're not going to fire him. He's going to be their coach forever maybe till he's like 80. At this rate the NFC's north feels wide open. The Vikings have a rookie quarterback known more for handing off. Detroit lost both its coordinators. Could we see an Eagles style fall off? The packers have had a 25 year old quarterback but we still don't really know if he's the guy. And with a brutal schedule ahead the whole division I'm curious who do you think regresses the most? I was actually thinking about this the other day. Division's obviously very talented. I mean the rosters are stacked, the teams are a lot of talent but sneaky some question marks for a really like there are way less question marks with like the one thing you know is if Joe Burrow is your quarterback, if the coach can just start a little faster they're going to win 10 games. And obviously the Ravens are pretty dominant team and the Steelers they got some issues but if Aaron Rodgers are quarterback they're probably just going to be floating around at 9ish wins. Right? Someone has to lose in the NFC north, right? Not everyone can win 10 to 14 games. Someone's going to have like seven or eight wins. The Bears first time head coach and you know, quarterback that has some scars from last year. Like you said the Vikings, the quarterback we'll see. Is he good enough? I don't know. The Lions just lost their center, lost their two coordinators. It's just. That's a lot, right? I mean it really is. And the Packers, I mean there's just a pressure on Jordan Love like two years ago that last eight games, like is that actually who you are or what do we got going on? You convinced me that I think it'd be a little shocking if the Bears won the division but you could convince me the other three teams won the division as of June 3rd. I'm probably going to pick the packers but don't feel great about it. But you could give me any combination be like Packers, Bears make the playoffs. It'd be hard. I mean it'd be pretty crazy if the Lions didn't make the playoffs given how good they were. But I could definitely see them take a step back from 15 wins. If you tell me they win 10 or 11 that might be more realistic. Seahawks fan specifically question on Sam Darnold. I'm not super high on Darnold, but you have to give the guy some credit for his play last season and. Or at least you would think. It seems the general consensus is that Darnold will be below average quarterback this year after putting up top 10 stats. If we revitalize our establish the run mentality, I'm actually inclined to think he's in a decent position to succeed. How do you think the season plays out? I saw that he, like, threw a couple interceptions in practice, and then McDonald had gone to do a radio interview with the local radio station, and they asked him, like, what are the scenarios in which Sam Darnold could get benched? And Mike was like, kind of. I don't want to say lost it, but in fairness was like, what are we talking about? This is insane. This guy's our quarterback. It just shows you, like, when you bounce around and you. And I don't. It wasn't his choice. Like, the Vikings didn't want him back. So there's a difference of, like, LeBron chooses to his. You know, in Kevin Durant and all these guys, like, choose to be mercenaries. And some guys like Kirk Cousins, the Vikings didn't want him anymore. Sam Darnold, the Vikings didn't want him anymore. Like, he didn't choose to be a mercenary. He just didn't have a choice. But when that is your route, whether you choose or you don't choose, if things don't go well, it's like you don't have the equity with that franchise. So there's pressure. Like, this team, they have been. If you just ask the casual fan, like, how the Seahawks been the last three years, I think most people be like, oh, yeah, Pete Carroll got fired last year. They missed the playoffs. I think they went 9, 9, 10. Like, I'm pretty sure Seattle the last three years has had better seasons than people realize. I think most people would say, like, yeah, like 7 and 10. So the last three years, 9 and 8. 9 and 8, 10 and 7. So he's not coming to a team that's like, oh, yeah, they've been. They've only win, like, five, six games. I mean, they're averaging a little over nine wins a season for the last three years. Think about it. How many team. What would the New York Giants and Brian Dayball due to be like, yeah, our last three seasons, we've won 28 games. How about you? Right? Obviously you'd rather be the Chiefs or the Ravens or whatever, but 28 wins in three seasons, like, not bad. Do 28 divided by three over nine. So I mean, last year you missed the playoffs, you win 10 games. Not bad, but. But to me that adds pressure on them, which I'd have to study the depth chart you lose DK who had felt like they were kind of over cut locket. It's gonna be interesting. I think they're gonna be solid. But that ending does Darnold season did not go well. I'm currently in the process of making the biggest decision of my life. Jesus. That being choosing my college major. I know you're young and it feels that way, but I promise you it's not. I'm stuck as I want to pursue a career in sports and major in sports management. But I have everyone around me, including my family, telling me that's not the smart thing to do and that the major is pointless. I have already built a small following on TikTok, but I'm lost. Is a sports management major truly pointless? What do I do? So I take it you're. You're not in college, you're trying to get to college and you have to apply to different majors or you're already in college and you have a major and trying to switch. I would say this. My undergrad major at Cal Poly was ag business. Let me repeat that. Ag business. Now, granted, it was essentially a business degree because I took a bunch of classes in the business department. But like, I'm pretty sure on my diploma, wherever that is in the closet, it says from the School of Agriculture. And my master's degree at Fresno State when I was a GA is in sports business. I promise you this. Those two pieces of paper and those two titles mean absolutely nothing for the course of my career. If I would be sitting here if I was an art history major, if I was a business major, it did not impact where I got in this world in terms of sports. So I would say sports is a field, unlike being a doctor, a lawyer, an architect, where the major is not as important. So if you want to pursue a career in sports while you're in college, sports management, I mean, it depends on your school. Maybe they have some connections, but I truly don't believe it matters. I think that you could do. I would say you're better off with just a degree. If this is possible, have a business degree then and pursue something in sports than have a sports management degree. I don't think you're any more likely to make progress because of the sports business degree. Again, depending on the school. Maybe there are different examples, but I truly believe this, that I don't think it matters now. I also think the people telling you that it's worthless, like, are they just coming from a position that they think it's a stupid major? The classes I took at Fresno State with a graduate degree in quote unquote sports management were pretty pointless. Now that was 2008 and 2009. That was a long time ago. So maybe it's changed, but I don't know. If you had total power to make changes to the NBA to boost popularity, what changes would you put in place? Well, I just don't think you can change the load management stuff. Clearly there it's pointless to talk about reducing the amount of games. I think I heard Windhorse say this, and he's right. Basketball is actually much closer to baseball than it is football. It's an inventory and a quantity sport more than like an impact quality sport on a weekly basis. Like they make their huge money because they have so many games. And I mean, sometimes Maria looked at me the other day, I want to turn on the Knicks game. She's like, God, still playing basketball. I'm like, yeah, they're not even to the finals yet. They stretch out these playoffs for a long time. Basketball, in my experience, and I've been a. It's crazy. I saw the who put this out. If there was a game 7 at Madison Square Garden, the going rates for different prices, you know, I think to sit on the floor was. I mean, like, I forget the number. It was huge. But even the get in price, the get in price was thousands of dollars. This was probably like 2002. But I remember being in high school, it might have been the first, could have been the second round. Now it was the last row at Arco arena where the Kings played. Me and my buddy EG went to a Mavericks playoff game. Remember, we got a little, little stoned. I think we hit it. We brought an apple with us. And I don't even know if kids need to do that anymore. But back in my day, you had to get weed and like from dealer behind a McDonald's or Burger King. Now you just press an app and they come to your front door and you give them a credit card. But we paid $20 a ticket, $40 for two tickets. Again, times have changed, but basketball is always going to be dependent on the stars. It's like this combination of. It's like football where it's a team game. That's why I always push back when people go, the league's never been more talented. It's not an individual sport. Guys it's teams. So yeah, there might be more talent than the 90s, but you can't convince me that I don't know when they played together for a decade plus were not better. Obviously you change a little bit of your roster, but basketball, a lot like football, is very dependent on chemistry. The longer you play with someone, the better you are. Think Steph and Draymond just showed up playing like that together? No, they've been playing together for 15 years. Steph, Clay and Draymond, it's a huge advantage for them. And I think you're just dependent on the stars. So I think people push back of like, God, they keep riding Steph Curry and LeBron James. Well, hard to blame them. Those guys are dramatically more famous than all these other stars. And there is an element. My guy, Ethan Strauss has been writing about this for a long time. One thing football does not have to battle is all their star players are always going to be from America. And really beside Jordan Mylotta, all their star players and high end players, especially a quarterback, play college football. And most of them, like, even if you don't go to a quote unquote true powerhouse like Texas Tech's a Power 4 conference. Josh Allen's a little bit of an outlier. You know, Lamar played at Louisville. Joe Burrow played at LSU and Ohio State. Baker Mayfield played at Oklahoma. Kyler Murray played at Oklahoma. Jared Goff played at Cal, which used to be better than it is now, but you know what I mean, like these guys played real schools, you know, in the, in the NBA. Like Giannis didn't play in college, not from America. Jokic did not play in college, not from America. Luca not from America. I mean, it's just, it's hard. I mean, I grew up, the NBA couldn't have been much bigger. Michael Jordan is like on the Mount Rushmore of superstar athletes. You could say he's number one, the most marketable athlete in the history of America. And then that just kind of rolled into Kobe, Shaq, LeBron and Curry. They're just all time marketable athletes. Shay Gillis Alexander is never going to be that. He has no chance to ever be that. Zero chance. I honestly feel that the players aren't even nearly as famous as they used to be. I know people always say that, like NBA players are so much more famous. I feel they're not nearly as famous as like guys. When I was growing up, the star players in the NBA felt like they were bigger culturally, like Charles Barkley, Gary Payton, obviously Bird, Magic and Michael. But Even the next crew of guys. So I just think, you know, David Stern was great at this. I think he's the best commissioner of my life, any sport. Because I think what he had to do is harder than what Roger had to do. And I think Roger, I'd put Roger second, but he understood the power of stars. And I just, I don't think. It's not all Adam's fault. I mean, the better players are coming internationally. It's a problem. I mean, if Cooper Flagg could be a star, it'd be awesome. The WNBA is big. Not because there's some resurgence in women's basketball. It's because of Caitlin fucking Clark that she's just an all time outlier. And I saw some quotes from the wa NBA commissioner like she won't even embrace. I'm like, I'm shorting you. I would fire you. If I was Adam and I'm subsidizing that league, I would fire that woman. I would have to replace her because she's not going to be good enough. You have this opportunity. Who knows how long it's going to be. We see with Caitlin Hurt, ratings are dropping. So you're just only as strong as your stars. And most individual sports, all individual sports are like that, right? Tennis, golf, racing, team sports can be a little bit different, but basketball is not. Basketball is a team game driven by their individual stars. And right now, the two biggest stars in the NBA by a mile are old. So you don't. You're not going to have them forever. Last question. What is your viewing experience? So I don't have a good answer there because I think that the. Even Luca, who probably has a good chance because he with the Lakers, but I just feel like their appeal is just going to be different than American stars. What is your viewing experience like for guys like you and Colin to digest these games for a living? On Sundays in the fall, are you able to have a cocktail and enjoy the games? Is it sobering day at the office or something in between bonus questions. Do you use any apps to help track stats, gather information than betting apps in espn? Yeah, I would say, listen, I watch football for a living. So, you know, there's a difference of being at the office and working hard or being outside and digging ditches. It is in terms of taxing physically and even emotionally. It ain't that crazy emotionally. Now if you got a lot of money on a game you're losing, it can ruin your day. But yeah, I mean, I take the day pretty seriously. I would say definitely as I've gotten older in my 30s. Like, I'm not doing anything on Saturday night. I'm definitely not being hungover. I was hungover once last year because it was my 40th birthday and it was miserable. It was miserable. And I was like, I can't do this ever again. So I just say Sunday is just, I just approach it. I mean, I try to get up at like 7 or 8. I go to the gym, try to be home, especially, you know, Arizona's Pacific Standard Time. And then it goes to Mountain time. I kind of like the Mountain time because at 11 o' clock, first kickoff. But I try to be in my office, dressed, ready to go, cup of coffee and have all my TVs on kickoff, 10am and then dialed till I do with Colin after the second games and then watch the Sunday night game while I have dinner, come into my office in the fourth quarter and do my own show after that. And obviously Monday night and Thursday night football are built around watching the games and doing the podcast as well. So, yeah, just like anyone, I mean, you just. I take this shit seriously. I don't want to lose this. Like, I, I also am not dumb enough to know, like, I get to do this for a job so I'm able to like pay the mortgage, right? So it's, it's. I take this stuff very, very seriously now. There's also like, I also talking for a living, so I can't just be a stiff about it, but in terms of when I watch it, yeah, I can't, I just can't function. The end. You guys can relate to this. Depending on how old you are, as you get older, the hangovers, they just get worse and worse and I just can't have that feeling because I need my brain to work. Right? I mean, there are some jobs, like if I'm just typing in stuff and I don't need my brain to work, I technically could be hungover. But like, if I got to do multiple podcasts on a Sunday, I just can't. I can't afford to be hungover because I can't do that anymore at 40 years old. I was able to pull it off a decade ago, no problem. Actually, now it's now. Honestly, I have a couple drinks now and the next day's a work day. I kind of like just slows me down enough that I don't like that feeling at all. So I've been in football long enough to. I mean, it's all I've ever done in my professional life from college football to pro football, to then doing this for a living and going to a lot of games and radio and then obviously doing podcasts on Sunday. Like, I'm not a big drinker on Sundays, so I've never in my adult life drank on Sundays. So yeah, no cocktails really, which now that I say it out loud, it kind of sounds kind of sad. So you just gotta get your cocktails in on other days, I guess. Tito's Soda, maybe a little splash of lime. The volume AI is redefining what's possible for your business. With more unique challenges to solve and higher stakes than ever, Microsoft helps you stay ahead. Our trustworthy AI tools and guidance can empower leaders like you to drive greater impact. And with Azure's simplified platform management, we're helping businesses go further, faster, unlocking up to 150% improved output. Whatever challenge comes next, let Microsoft help you keep pushing forward. For more details, visit Microsoft.com challengers There are moments in life when you get to make a real difference, and this is one of them I want to tell you about Folds of Honor. 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