Transcript
John Middlekoff (0:00)
This is an iHeart podcast. Guaranteed Human.
John Middlekoff (0:05)
The Volume. What is going on everybody? John Midkoff three and out podcast. How are we doing? Hopefully everyone's having a good Fugazi Friday. We'll just dive right into it. You guys know the drill. Subscribe to the podcast if you listen on Collins feed. Also Netflix. We are rocking on rolling. All of our videos are up there. We talked to Justin Jefferson yesterday. We talked to Kendrick Bourne yesterday. I listened. The audio wasn't great. My bad. Not that I had anything to do with it, but hey, I'm not pointing the finger. It's no one's fault. It just kind of is what it is in those situations. As you can tell, my voice, you know, it's holding on. I, I don't, you know, I'm, I'm 40 now. I'm not quite throwing at the same speed I once was. I wouldn't say I hit the town last night, but definitely enjoyed myself for the first time in a long time and made an executive decision. It could have got crazy. Last year I went with the kind of some of the I Heart crew to the. We went to the Volume party and then the after party was Club Shake Shake which is basically some version of like Techmo Bowl. Every famous player from like 1992 meets like Madden 2001. It's, it's a trip and I, they all went and they were begging me to go and I said, you know, it was about 11 o', clock, I had an early, early flight and I, I was, I showed maturity. I, I did not go. Hopefully I didn't miss out. I haven't texted anyone because last year it was in New Orleans I an incredible experience. So from Stephen A to Michael Irvin to Timber. I mean I'm telling you every player that was good in the, in my entire childhood and Ocho Cinco, my you know, college years. So yeah, I mean now we got the super bowl and that's what we're going to do today. I'll give some thoughts on the super bowl is Fugazi Friday and I got a couple fugazi that are just football related that made me shake my head and we'll bang out a little mailbag as well. At John Middle cough. At John middle Cough. I, I didn't sleep that much last couple days. My voice is, I wouldn't say gone. Hanging on a little bit. So got to give it a rest the next couple days so I can podcast after the Super Bowl. All signs point to Drake May said today he was healthy. Eamon worry who got injured at practice. And there was some video of him walking to the hotel, limping around, claimed he'll be good to go. Definitely something to monitor, though. I mean, he. He really takes our defense to another level. He's Mike McDonald's Kyle Hamilton of this team. Not saying he's as good, but you know what I mean? Like, that's the version of player there's not many. Tall, physical, long ball skills, can play safety, can play cover guy. I mean, kind of do it all. Pretty unique player. So that. That would be a big deal if he had got, you know, a major injury. It looks like, you know, he avoided disaster, which would suck. I mean, get injured the week of Super Bowl. I mean, that's. I mean, these practices, I. I can't imagine they are that intense. So it's. It's clearly a freak injury, but we'll dive right in. Because I think the coolest part about the super bowl is the. The Sam Darnold storyline really is what everyone's talking about. It has, like a human interest story type vibe to it. Like, it. Could you meet a human being that follows sports? They would be like, I hate Sam Darnold. Loser. Can't wait to root against him. And that's kind of sports, right? Bring up some famous athlete, you go into a bar, you're going to find mixed reactions. Bring up Tom Brady in a bar. Bring up LeBron James in a bar. Just bring up Patrick Mahomes. Not. Not everyone's like, rah rah on their side. And I think there's an element to Sam Darnold that is hard to kind of root against. I. And unlike Brady, I truly have no dog in this fight. Honestly, I'm. I guess I'm kind of rooting for Seattle in the sense that I'd love to get John Schneider on the show again. I'm a big fan, and I think it'd be cool for him. And we'll dive into. You know what it will be on his resume if he's able to win another Super Bowl. But like, we were talking about it last night, this game in the 60 minutes, if Sam Darnold wins. I. I just think it, like, I. I don't ever think we've quite seen a turnaround in this fashion. Definitely in my life, I'm sure that happened in the 70s and the 80s. We have seen crazy quarterback stories. You know, the video that went viral of Jon Gruden walking down, it must have been like Market street and running into Rich Gannon and them doing like, you know, snap counts and screaming at each other. I mean, Rich Gannon was a guy that bounced around. You got with Jon Gruden and became the league mvp. I actually think he won the league MVP the year after Jon left, but became a high level starter, a Pro Bowler. That's kind of a unique story. You know, Steve Young got traded for a fourth round pick to the 49ers and later became a Hall of Famer. Now granted, he had been a top pick and played in the ufl. You know, Plunkett was a little before my time, but he was a number one overall pick. Was viewed as a guy that didn't live up to the hype, then got with Al Davis and won Super Bowls. This situation feels the most different of any that I can remember because most of the prominent quarterbacks are kind of good immediately. Like it's pretty rare that someone comes out of nowhere anymore. People go through dips in their career. Like Philip Rivers had a couple down years in the middle of his career, right. Jared Goff had a weird little stint in the middle of it, but like by his second year they were in the playoffs and he was good and he got a big contract extension. It's the other thing most of these guys in the Brady Manning era we've kind of known immediately, right from Cam Newton to Roethlisberger to, you name it, Brock Purdy, like happens immediately. It's pretty rare where everyone goes, yeah, this guy's not that good. He's just not that good to and what the league thought that because remember when his career pivoted, when he became a backup for Kyle Shanahan, it's not like they gave him one year, $20 million. They had a bidding prop. They gave him like one year, $3 million to be the backup. So teams all over the league could had access to Sam Darnold. He was not, relative to NFL terms, that expensive of a player. He was there to be had and no one wanted him. And now a couple years later, think of the ramifications. I mean, I was talking to Jefferson yesterday. We got a bunch of people at the volume that are Vikings fans. You know, the Vikings, just a prominent organization in this league. Their general manager just got fired. And people think that there are ripple effects of the Sam Darnold success. I mean he threw 35 touchdowns for them and they were 60 minutes away from being the number one seed. And then he goes to Seattle and listen, he hasn't had some perfect season. Led the league in turnovers in the regular season, but in the NFC Championship game against Matt Stafford, which we can debate. And listen, the hall of Fame's all over the map. I mean, pretty good chance Matt Stafford makes it to the hall of Fame. And if he's not, like, he just won the mvp. So let's not even take away the hall of Fame. Look, he's just playing the league mvp, the number one offense in the league. And he went toe to toe, if not out dueled him, did not have a turnover and was freaking awesome. And now he has a chance, as now I think sometimes, and I'm guilty of this too, when you're like, he's the betting favorite to be the super bowl mvp. Well, yeah. I mean, the starting quarterback on the team that's favored by almost five points is going to be favored to win the mvp. That. That would be the case in any scenario. Right? These quarterbacks win this award the majority of the time. And can you imagine if Sam Darnold on Monday years like, he. Sam Darnold in Seattle won the super bowl and Sam Darnold won the super bowl mvp. Like, let's face it, there would be validations, the wrong word. Because how long have we been trying to validate the guy? Honestly, it would be more of an issue, more for Minnesota trying to, like, overcome that narrative, which would never go away. Like, there are things that just never go away. Letting a guy walk for a young quarterback who's been a epic disaster, leading to a GM getting fired while the other guy leads the Seattle Seahawks, who were 5 to 1 to win their own division in August, which odds makers were off on that one. Listen, it wasn't. It wasn't easy. I mean, they came down to the last game of the season to win the division, but still, like, they should have been more like +250, not +500. But regardless, it's just an incredible story. And I think the. And back to the human interest part, there's just a genuine, like, hey, seems like a great guy, never heard a bad word about him. In a league that gossips about everybody, in a league that talks shit about people constantly. And I'm as guilty as anybody because I get this information and I kind of put my own spin on it. And listen, I got my own opinions. I got no problem blasting people and be like, I don't like this guy until half these guys don't even know. I just watch the way they operate. It's like, turns me off. And she's like, tim Donald seems like a great guy. And McCaffrey on. On Coward yesterday, Who I, I, I was, I was trying to get his handler, and that's part of the super bowl is you're like begging these handlers to get like 10 minutes with the guy. It's, it's just not my vibe, not my scene. I, I appreciate the hoopla behind it, but Radio Row, which eventually is going to have to be renamed, I don't know, Podcast way or, you know, Digital Drive, I don't exactly know. But we're going to need to rename that bad boy in a little bit regardless. People just like this person. And McCaffrey was like, you know, it would have been very easy to get some bitterness out of Sam. I got the short end of the stick. I got screwed. And he's like, I've been around him in Carolina. I've obviously now was around him in San Francisco, and I never heard him utter any negativity toward anyone else. I saw in his press conference earlier this week, they kind of asked him. They, they people were trying to get him to take shots at the jets and he just wouldn't. He was like, if anything, he was humbled to be drafted that high. And I think anytime you just constantly say the right things and it'd be really easy. And listen, I, I got no issue with the Rogers, with the Baker Mayfield. Like, we're all wired differently. We can't all be wired the same. You know, part of like, part of the reason football is entertaining is we got some just straight arrow guy and we got some crazy guys. As someone that's a fan of golf, like when Liv, I want all these guys from Live to come back because we need some crazy guys. You can't just have everyone with a big smile on their face, high character. You need some wild cards. You know, this is entertainment. And Sam Darnold falls under the category of like, just a good guy, you know, who happens to be 65 with a big arm. And John Schneider was talking to Ty, Ty Dunn, who was just his substacks. Awesome. He was at the Volume party and we were talking. It's, it's some people are just good at their jobs. And I was telling him last night, like, you know what? You have a really, really good talent of, of just getting people to talk to you, like the coaches, the executives. You know, he, he covered Buffalo when Richie Incognito was with the Bills. And Richie came right up to him at the party last night and started talking to like, he's just, some people just have a knack for connecting and interacting and Ty clearly has that that talent. But so does Darnold. Like, I mean, Darnold comes to the 49ers. He's immediately at like the warriors games with Purdy, McCaffrey, Kittle and us. Check who. I saw Juice yesterday walking around the. He looks fantastic. God, guys, he's in great shape. Good looking dude, you know, just a legendary fullback. So good to see Juice. But congrats to Darnold, who just flipped his, you know, career around. I'm rooting for him. I'm not gonna lie. I'm rooting for Seattle because I also think, you know, John Schneider, I was thinking about this, like, Less need or John lynch or some of these guys. You know, think of other GMs, veach with Andy, most of them that have had success and got to Super Bowls or got to a bunch of champion NFC Championship or AFC championship games. It's the same crew of guys doing it. Like, it's been less needed Sean McVay the entire time. Right? So anytime. Like, one thing that Howie can hang his hat on is he won multiple Super Bowls with two different coaches and two different quarterbacks. I don't know where you fall, but I think it's pretty hard to argue against Belichick being a Hall of Famer. Like, if you don't think Belichick's a Hall of Famer, it'd probably be hard for us to have a conversation. But if you did want to make the argument, like, move, remove Brady and look what he does. And it's not great. My comeback would be like Bill Walsh at Joe Montana. Like most great Phil Jackson had Michael and Kobe. There usually aren't great coaches without great players. But regardless, is Belichick success all came with Tom. Right? And you're looking at John Schneider, who has a chance to pull the Howie of winning multiple Super Bowls with two different coaches and two different quarterbacks, that is a remarkable accomplishment. Like, Veech will probably have a pretty good chance to win another super bowl in the next couple years. It will be with Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reed. And there's nothing wrong with that. But, like, to be able to. If I just told Veech, hey, you're gonna go to a Super bowl in like four years in Kansas City, but Mahomes won't be your quarterback and Andy won't be your coach, people be like, what? And if he did, it would just take his status to like legendary status because it's really, really difficult to do. And you could. He already is because he's won a bunch of Super Bowls. My Point is, it's. It's not easy to win these things ever. Right? It's hard for Belichick and Andy Reid and whoever to win them. But it's really hard to rehaul a coach because when you get a new coach, you completely change the coaching staff. And then when you get a new quarterback, like, that's a dramatic change. And I just think John Schneider, I think he's a Hall of Famer, but this would just be a no doubt about it. Just all time unique resume. I mean, even guys like Bill Polian who was in the super bowl, like he won one super bowl with Peyton Manning and Tony Dungy. He went to a lot of them in Buffalo, but he never won it. And to do it at the same franchise with multiple iterations just, it's just an incredible potential accomplishment for John. And obviously, before we get in the, you know, The Pats, Mike McDonald will be on the short list of young star coaches. And the thing that would separate him is like McVeigh champion, sirianni champion, some of the other young guys who have been close, like, obviously Kyle, you know, LaFleur's been to a bunch of championship games. Kevin O' Connell's never won a playoff game. You know, the way we talk about him, you think he's got three rings but never won a playoff game. But regardless, like, I'm not anti Kevin o'. Connell. My point is that if I told you Kevin o' Connell was Super bowl champion or Kyle Shanahan was Super bowl champion, it would just, it would take their status to another level. But because Mike's a defensive coach, I just don't think it. He's been properly discussed most of this. I mean, the last couple weeks he's gotten more buzz, but let's face it, the Sam Darnold conversation kind of clouds it a little bit. And you win a Super bowl at like 39, 40 years old as a defensive guy, you'd be in a division where Kyle doesn't have one. Just you and McVeigh, and you win it in your rival stadium. Listen, I. There's no denying that the guy's pretty special when it comes to a defensive mind. And there's no denying, like, his personality really, really works. Very level headed, very. Just consistent emotionally. He. He never seems like emotionally unwound or, or losing his, his kind of stability. Right? He's just very consistent. When you see like his body language and that matters, and you win a Super bowl at a young age, you're kind of playing with house money from then on out you really are. It's kind of like a player, right? Rogers knocked it out early, Brady knocked it out early. Then you're just kind of chasing like can you get two or three now? It's not easy. McVeigh's been chasing number two for a long time now. I guess not that long. He only wanted a couple years ago. But you know, I think you saw the devastation on his face this year because he knows how hard it is to get to this point. So. And once you're in this game, like anything can happen. Today's show is brought to you by our presenting sponsor, Hard Rock bet, Florida's sportsbook. It's the Big Game week, baby. On Hard Rock Bet, Seattle is a 4 1/2 point favorite over the Patriots for games like this. Basic bets do not cover. Hard Rock Bet is loaded with special props. 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