
Loading summary
John Holmberg
This week on We Fixed it. You're welcome. We're getting personal about a very beloved company. I'm the grandson of H.B.
Dave Nash
reese and I have no interest in
John Holmberg
buying another Reese's product. Our guest, Brad Reese has the world's attention and he's got ours, too. It's laughable. I mean, you're paying more for a product that's inferior. Of course we're going to try to fix this situation. Hopefully Hershey will pay attention. Hopefully Hershey will address it. Go listen to this very special episode wherever you get your podcasts. We Fixed it. You're welcome. Welcome once again to that sports thing, a John Holmberg podcast. Once again we are joined by our permanent guest, three time world champion, co host of the main event with Steve McCollum. It's Dale Hell Astray, formerly of the Dallas Cowboys and other teams that didn't win championships. But they don't really count on your resume.
Dale Hell Astray
Did not.
John Holmberg
Do they? Well, you don't bring it up.
Dale Hell Astray
I mean, I went to an AC Chapter game with Buffalo.
John Holmberg
Doesn't matter. Nothing good.
Dave Nash
Actually, that does. I think I'm impressed with that. Never really think about that.
John Holmberg
Not until you get to Lombardi's.
Dave Nash
No.
John Holmberg
Then it just stops mattering.
Dale Hell Astray
All right.
John Holmberg
It's like.
Dale Hell Astray
But when you go from two and 14 to the AFC championship game in four years, Johnny, that's something.
John Holmberg
But if you date a girl for a while and never close the deal, and then the next year that you close it with, you don't even talk about the.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah, but if you're dating somebody who's just butt ugly and all of a sudden you're at least dating somebody pretty, that's your fault.
John Holmberg
That's your fault. And the Bills weren't. But ugly they were.
Dave Nash
Give him credit, right?
John Holmberg
You were there. I'll give it to you. The other person here is named Dave Nash and he is known as the Angry Fan, the Angry Patriots. Just an angry guy all the way around about everything and wearing an angry shirt of a team that is no longer a thing. He's got a Coyotes shirt on today.
Dave Nash
I was. I, I'm a fan of local teams. I live in Phoenix.
John Holmberg
Well, there. That's the Utah Mammoth, my friend.
Dave Nash
Yeah, well, I, you know, I'm not gonna throw that shirt away because they move.
Dale Hell Astray
You think you look good in there?
John Holmberg
I am more. Is that your color for that? Is that your color?
Dave Nash
I. Dale, I don't have a color. I am not proud of my look.
John Holmberg
I think it's a good color for you. I Think it works? It's nice. It's too bad. The Coyotes.
Dale Hell Astray
I appreciate both of you.
John Holmberg
Oh, here we go.
Dale Hell Astray
Is both of you know how ugly you are?
Dave Nash
I do.
Dale Hell Astray
And you don't. You don't. You don't fight it. No, no, you don't fight.
John Holmberg
But this is why we hang out with you, Dale, so we can feel better about ourselves.
Dale Hell Astray
I am the skinny girl.
John Holmberg
Oh, God. These. We are making fat girls look good for. Best they've ever looked. If he's the skinny one, that is correct. Crying out. All right, let's get right to it. This week had a lot going on. And again, soap opera of the NFL is no longer about football. It's nothing that happens on the grass. It's nothing at all as interesting as what happens outside of it. Thank you, Jerry Jones and the rest of the NFL for making this annual sport now 12 months long. Even with the super bowl looming and an interesting super bowl at that, we are now talking about the NFL in two different ways. Let's start with what everybody's going off about. The Bill Belichick snub. The Bill Belichick snub to me. And I just, you know. And you talk to your co host, Steve McCollum from the main event just seconds ago. And he was kind of hipping me up to what Bill Polian's been up to. And I didn't realize he was leading a group or supposedly leading a group against Belichick and saying out loud, hey, we need to wait a year to kind of punish him for Spygate. That was my first reaction when I saw he didn't get in. I thought, the NFL is basically finally admitting he can't have everything right away. We have to at least put a little embarrassment or a smudge on his reputation because of the tapes. The tapes were real. And you as a conspiracy theorist should be all behind this. The tapes were very real. The tapes were a huge problem. And the reason I know that and Dave, you should be on this is because when they settled it, Goodell said out loud, we're destroying the tape. So this dies today. They. They got rid of everything anyone else could look at.
Dave Nash
So why would they bring it back up now?
John Holmberg
They're not.
Dave Nash
Okay.
John Holmberg
They're not.
Dale Hell Astray
Julian is. Who was affected by that sort of.
John Holmberg
He did evidently say it's by Spyg. They're not bringing it back up. They're basically doing the thing that's like, you have to have a smudge on your.
Dale Hell Astray
On your.
John Holmberg
On your career. You have to have an embarrassment.
Dave Nash
Sounds like they're bringing it back up because it's becoming a major topic that.
John Holmberg
But are they bringing it up or are we bringing it up? Because it was so obvious, the fact
Dave Nash
that he's not voted in, that they're bringing it up so that everyone else
John Holmberg
is going to be talking about it passive aggressively. They are saying, go with. Go with what you think because you're probably right. So it's. It is the Spygate.
Dave Nash
But see, I disagree, though.
Dale Hell Astray
If it was. If it was Jimmy Johnson.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Who got snubbed the first year. Nobody's going, oh, my goodness. But, you know, he's your fire. He's. He's a slam dunk. Hall of Famer. Jimmy won two Super Bowls.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Bills won seven, eight with the Giants. You know, so, I mean, seven is a head coach, eight is six, I
John Holmberg
think is a head coach.
Dale Hell Astray
And two with the Giants.
Dave Nash
I would think six.
Dale Hell Astray
He. He's a. He's a slam. As much of a slam dunk as there is a slam dunk. Now, here's what's interesting to me is the fact that you've got guys coming out in defense of him, Jimmy Johnson, y. Bill Cower, saying, hey, the whole spy thing, everybody's tried it. We tried it. We just weren't good at it.
John Holmberg
Yeah. I said that basically everybody's trying to cheat or game the system. But here's where the Patriots. This is what cheating is. Don't get caught.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
You get caught. You were cheating. You don't get caught. You were gaming the system. But they're both doing the same thing.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
It's just a matter of whether or not you got clumsy. And they got clumsy, very clumsy for a long time. Many players, and I've talked to a couple guys who used to play have said, that is an absolute mess. What was going on. Hines Ward's story about the 2001 championship game, when the Patriots were calling out their plays at the line and they installed the language that week and Hines was like, how do they know? The halftime interview, as Bill went into the locker room with a team that was rushing for 186 yards a game and they couldn't run the ball at all. And they. And Bill said, it's like, they've got our playbook, so we got to do some adjustments. Jerome Bettis has gone on record saying, I watched Vince Wilfort call a timeout and run to the sideline goes nose. Guards don't do that.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
We ran the next play. We just flipped the play and they were right on top of It. This was a brand new scheme that they had inserted just for that first 15 or first 20 plays. And the Patriots knew it.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
So there was an advantage to be had. Is everyone else doing it?
Dale Hell Astray
Don't know. Right.
John Holmberg
But here's what I do know. They got caught doing it. So we are sure they do.
Dale Hell Astray
Because when you say calling out plays, if I could give you the number of times. Oh, yeah, I've been lined up over the ball and somebody goes, sweep, sweep, sweep, sure.
John Holmberg
But if they're calling out your. Your cadence and your new language and your new.
Dale Hell Astray
That. That. That is interesting. Yeah.
John Holmberg
And Heinz Ward made a point of that after the games, they were calling out our language. They were calling. And they did it that week for the championship game. They added new wrinkles for that game. And they're like, how are they yelling out what we know?
Dale Hell Astray
So in your mind. In your mind.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Does that tarnish him from a Hall of Fame career?
John Holmberg
It doesn't. Because. No, because here's the thing that I've always thought of the Patriots through that time. And we'll get into the Deflategate thing, too, because that's got some real merit.
Dale Hell Astray
No, it does.
John Holmberg
Yes, it does. Statistics. We'll argue there are statistics that have merit with that. I'll tell you exactly what it is, too, that he is a. He didn't need this. He was a. He was a great coach in Cleveland, right? The Browns. He was a great coach in Cleveland. The Browns were a Super bowl favorite going into the last season before Paris Glendenning, the mayor and the owner of the Browns got together and announced in the middle of the year they're moving, and the team fell apart. I think they were 7 and 1. They were a Super bowl favorite by a long. Like, everybody in the AFC was like that Brown team.
Dale Hell Astray
I don't remember that.
Dave Nash
I don't remember those numbers.
John Holmberg
The year they were moving, the year they were moving out, in the middle of that season, they announced it and the whole thing collapsed. Like, I mean, everything was up in the. Belichick was a good coach in Cleveland. What he pulled with the jets was weird.
Dave Nash
It's. It's nonsensical. And I've got the numbers to prove, so whenever you're ready.
John Holmberg
Go.
Dale Hell Astray
All right.
Dave Nash
In five years in Cleveland.
John Holmberg
Yes.
Dave Nash
His record was.
John Holmberg
They were horrible when he got 30.
Dave Nash
Not. Not really. Not really.
John Holmberg
They were horrible.
Dave Nash
Continued on whatever their record was, there were no changes. And you can look it up, and I'll look it up in between after I give you this information. They were 36 and 44 with Belichick in five years. And one of those years they had
John Holmberg
a really good year.
Dave Nash
They were 11 and 5. You take that away. They're a terrible team. They're a 400 team at best.
John Holmberg
The 11 and 5 year was the second to last year before they moved.
Dave Nash
Correct.
John Holmberg
The next year started 7:1.
Dave Nash
No, they only won five games all year. So they didn't.
John Holmberg
Okay, Maybe they started 5 and 1 or something like that, but they ended up falling apart. But they were super bowl favorites coming off.
Dave Nash
That gives proof that a coach can't keep them together. Because we're moving from Cleveland to Baltimore.
John Holmberg
Do you remember the mess that was that whole year for the Browns because of that? That was a disaster.
Dave Nash
I'll just say this as a player, you know, again, minor league baseball player, you go from town to town to town, you get moved around, you get bumped up, you get bumped down. No one I know.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
That played that were going from town to town ever affected their play.
John Holmberg
But they didn't move that week.
Dave Nash
No.
John Holmberg
The announcement happened and the whole city turned on him and everything went sideways. That was a disappointment.
Dave Nash
As a player. You're going to go, oh, my God, we're moving to Baltimore. I can't play anymore.
John Holmberg
Green Bay moved and announced it in the middle of the year. If Pittsburgh moved and if Dallas moved and announced it in the middle of the year, we're moving to, I don't know, San Antonio. Even people would lose their minds.
Dave Nash
I'll give you this thought. Anyone in Cleveland saying, we're moving? They should have been happy.
John Holmberg
They should have been. How is anyone in Cleveland, any player
Dave Nash
in Cleveland going, oh, my God, we're leaving Cleveland. How are we going to watch the.
Dale Hell Astray
The.
Dave Nash
The lake on fire from. From Baltimore?
John Holmberg
Team of a heritage franchise survives a year like that. Belichick did a good job with the Browns and I hate the Browns. But watch that last. Go back and look at that last season again, because they were coming into that and they had an injury. I don't remember who it was. It was a major injury that year, too. But. And you can say, oh, any coach would hold them together through that. The franchise is on fire.
Dave Nash
I don't know how San Francisco did it this year.
John Holmberg
San Francisco did it with injuries. But if they said, also in the middle of the year, guys, you're all moving because we say so and everybody's out and your families are disrupted and this. And then now the city hates us and we're taking a franchise that is established and we're going to stay in this city and all you're going to Everybody talks about distractions.
Dave Nash
We're going to finish strong. That should have been the message.
John Holmberg
Can't even terrible coach. You can't even have somebody in a locker room say something wrong without it being a huge distraction no one can overcome.
Dale Hell Astray
But okay, so let saner minds prevail. His candidacy for hall of Fameness. Yeah. Is not rooted in Cleveland.
John Holmberg
No. But he wasn't bad.
Dale Hell Astray
It's. He was average. You could say just average. Maybe he learned how to be a head coach in Cleveland, but when he went to New England, that is a Hall of Fame career, bar none. No have no questions asked. Most Super Bowls won by a single head coach over a 20 year period. He kept it together.
John Holmberg
Little star next to his name.
Dale Hell Astray
I will say the Spygate. Possibly.
John Holmberg
It's a big deal.
Dale Hell Astray
It's possible. But when you have other coaches. I didn't know that was going on when we were in Dallas. It probably wasn't that they were trying
John Holmberg
to if they were filming their practices. Marshall Falk watched the the Saints had that onside kick against the Colts in the Super Bowl. Remember that?
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
So when they did America's Game on the NFL Network to kick off the season the year after, they always play last year's America's thing and they showed the season of the Saints and they were showing a video of of the Saints practicing and they ran a personnel out there for a kickoff they'd never run before. And there were three guys on there that weren't running. And we're going to try to sneak them out there and we're going to run a surprise onside kick at one point during the game if the moment calls for this is who we're running. They ran it 10 times with that personnel. Ran it a certain direction with that personnel when the thing was over. Marshall Falk said, you're telling me if the other team had that tape, they wouldn't have known. That's a big deal. Because that changed that super bowl and they were working on it. And if you had practice tapes of a team trying to install the surprise and it's not a surprise. Patriots line up, you know, a couple of receivers on that side and see if they try it on this. We've seen this before. It's not game tape. That's not fair. It's practice tape. There's a reason the Cardinals of all teams have planted Bogan Villa around the fence and then a bunch of green stuff that they double down on. You not being able to get in there and see anything.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
It's a big deal to tape somebody's practice. That's. It's like having a spy in when you're trying to install the game plan.
Dale Hell Astray
I, I understand about Spygate. Yeah. Right. But at the end of the day, if the three of us are sitting down and going, looking at Bill Belichick and his accomplishments.
John Holmberg
Incredible. And I hate him. He's. I agree.
Dale Hell Astray
And the hall of Fame, I could take it or leave it, but in my mind, he's a. Check. Yes. Hall of Fame, but this is.
John Holmberg
I think he's going to be a Hall of Famer. I think the first ballot thing was taken away from him. I think.
Dave Nash
Whatever.
John Holmberg
That's a hu. Jack.
Dale Hell Astray
No.
Dave Nash
I'll tell you what.
John Holmberg
I watch baseball. I talked to Randy Johnson about it because it was a big deal.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah. And.
Dave Nash
And, but, but for him, it's a big deal. For everyone else in the world that thinks it's a big deal that Bill Belichick doesn't get in on the first ballot. You need to get a life. I mean, you need to.
John Holmberg
Nonsensical.
Dave Nash
No, it's too.
John Holmberg
Only for him.
Dave Nash
Sports for entertainment. And then when we start thinking about, well, who's going to get an award? Awards are nonsense.
John Holmberg
We do so much more than watch it for entertainment. We watch it for the soap opera. And we've been.
Dave Nash
Well, it's got a soap opera and
John Holmberg
it is a soap opera. I'm not a fan.
Dave Nash
I'm not a fan of soap operas. I watch sports.
John Holmberg
You absolutely are, too. You don't watch the typical soap opera, but you watch sports. And sports doesn't survive without the soap opera. The reason this exists is because it's a soap opera. You wouldn't just sit there and we never talk rebound.
Dave Nash
For listeners out there, I'm the guy that wants to watch the competition. I enjoy man against man. And then after that, we're done.
John Holmberg
Now don't say that. Isolate that man against man thing.
Dale Hell Astray
Okay. So real quick. So what's fascinating to me is the fact that. And I'm one of the Cowboys special. Jerry was talking because he's integral in the negotiations to go from cbs. Yep. To Fox.
John Holmberg
Yep.
Dale Hell Astray
And. And then it was the. You know what? You're not going to make money on us. You're going to make money on everything else that you broadcast. Yep. Because. Because you talked about like an I Love Lucy thing where you had to pay so much for the rights. Right. In Arkansas. And they made no money on the I Love Lucy reruns. Right. But everything that followed I Love Lucy garner great ratings, and so he brings that. And now the NFL. I guarantee you that. I was going to say Pete Roselle, Roger Goodell. Yeah, it's. They're all sitting up there right now. This is an off week for the Super Bowl. And what are we talking about? Love it.
John Holmberg
They love it.
Dale Hell Astray
The NBA is going. The. The. The NHL's going. There's.
John Holmberg
Nobody cares.
Dale Hell Astray
No, this is.
John Holmberg
This is. What they've created is the world of entertainment in sports. It is not about what's on the field all the time. And we love this. You and I are arguing about it. So there's something there. There is a.
Dave Nash
Can I get back to some stats?
John Holmberg
Yeah, but I don't know if they're any good.
Dave Nash
They're very.
Dale Hell Astray
Are you. Hold on. Are you trying to talk us out of Bill Belichick being the hall of Fame?
John Holmberg
That's what I'.
Dave Nash
But I'm. I'm trying to talk people into reality that without Tom Brady.
John Holmberg
He had him.
Dave Nash
It doesn't matter without Tom Brady. His record 11.
John Holmberg
5 with with Castle.
Dave Nash
But that's the rest of the team you had
John Holmberg
with or without Tom Brady.
Dave Nash
Listen, you had winning and losing is a habit. And you can lose really important players on your team, but if you have a team that is used to winning, that's a hab.
Dale Hell Astray
Okay, so who instills that?
Dave Nash
All right, that's great.
Dale Hell Astray
But.
Dave Nash
All right, again, statistically, before Tom Brady was a quarterback. Starting quarterback in New England.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
And then the four years, last years of Belichick's career, five years without Brady. His record in New England was 34 and 49.
John Holmberg
Took over a bad team.
Dale Hell Astray
Third,
Dave Nash
he had a good team. He lost Tom Brady and he became one of the. He almost got the number one pick in the draft.
John Holmberg
You lost Tom Brady and no coach is going to be better.
Dave Nash
No, that's a lie. And look at how many coaches have had teams that gone to Super Bowl. They change quarterbacks. They go right. Sean McVeigh had. Jared Goff said, hey, we got there with him. We really need more. Let's get Matthew Stafford a better quarterback.
Dale Hell Astray
The Patriots get a better quarterback than Tom Brady.
Dave Nash
That's on Belichick. Listen, you look at his record.
John Holmberg
Been a better one. You can't get a better one. That guy's the best that's ever done it.
Dave Nash
He had a. Basically a.400 winning percentage without Tom Brady at quarterback. Would. Would you say that coach is a Hall of Fame coach?
John Holmberg
Your winning Percentage.
Dave Nash
I'm not saying he's not a Hall of Fame coach.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes, you just.
Dave Nash
No, I'm not.
John Holmberg
I'm saying without Tom Brady, everybody pump
Dave Nash
the brakes on him being the greatest coach of all time. Tom Brady out of the mix.
Dale Hell Astray
And.
Dave Nash
And. And I don't know what kind of coach he is.
Dale Hell Astray
Do you want to go down that road?
Dave Nash
Yes.
Dale Hell Astray
Name me a great coach that didn't have a great quarterback.
Dave Nash
Exactly.
Dale Hell Astray
Give me one. Give me one.
Dave Nash
John Gruden.
Dale Hell Astray
John Gruden. John Gruden.
Dave Nash
Yes. Yes, he is.
Dale Hell Astray
He won one Super Bowl. He's a.
John Holmberg
He's an underachiever.
Dale Hell Astray
What do you call it? What?
Dave Nash
You have to. You have to win six Super Bowls to be a great coach.
Dale Hell Astray
He won six.
Dave Nash
Hey, and I tell you what. In regards to Jimmy Johnson, he won two Super Bowls, but he's an idiot for extracting himself out of the Dallas situation. That's an idiot.
Dale Hell Astray
He's in the hall of Fame.
Dave Nash
So that goes to show you how much getting in the hall of Fame is. Nonsense.
Dale Hell Astray
Bill Walsh is in the hall of Fame.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
Great coach. Yes.
Dale Hell Astray
Oh, he did.
Dave Nash
And then he went from Joe Montana to Steve Young. Same thing.
Dale Hell Astray
Pretty good.
Dave Nash
You know what? He set that up. Who do you have coming in after Tom Brady? Because throughout Tom Brady's career.
John Holmberg
Oh, my God.
Dave Nash
Bill Belichick said, we can win with any. We do not need Tom Brady.
John Holmberg
11 of 5 with Matt Castle.
Dave Nash
Okay. All right, Then, then, then, then. See how that works more without Tom Brady.
John Holmberg
Like, it wasn't. It wasn't just him, though. Tom Brady and that team. Yes. You had the. You also had the greatest quarterback that ever played. You're not replacing that. So when Tom retired.
Dave Nash
Yeah. The best thing Bill Belichick ever did was move on from Drew Bledsoe, who's a Pro bowl quarterback. He moved on from.
John Holmberg
Mo Lewis. Moved him on.
Dave Nash
Yeah, but.
Dale Hell Astray
But when.
Dave Nash
When Bledsoe was healthy, he said, I'm sticking with Brady.
John Holmberg
That's.
Dave Nash
That should get him into the hall of Fame. Just that move alone. I'll give him super credit for that.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
He realized this kid is better than a Pro bowl quarterback.
John Holmberg
You didn't see every loophole that guy found. You didn't see moving Troy Brown to defensive back in the playoffs. These are coaching moves that were unheard of.
Dave Nash
Listen to me closely one more time. I'm not saying he's not a Hall of Fame quarterback.
John Holmberg
Coach.
Dale Hell Astray
Coach.
Dave Nash
Or you're just saying he's not the greatest coach.
John Holmberg
I'm saying it's deserved.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
Everyone is up in arms about the fact. Do you know how the, the voting goes for the hall of Fame? I heard you talking about it. You understand there's five names on it. You as a. There's 50 voters. So you get three votes. That's 150 votes. Point is you've got to get 40. If, if all of those three, five candidates.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
Got somehow 30 votes each. That's total 150 votes.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
No one gets in. You only can vote for so many guys. It's not you're on or you're out.
John Holmberg
That's the first ballot argument is who are they putting in more deserving than Bill Belichick?
Dave Nash
Do you know the five names he's up again or the four names he's up against?
John Holmberg
The ones they're arguing against aren't better than Belichick.
Dave Nash
The only five in the votes to get him in. Yeah, it's him.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
Robert Kraft, Roger Craig, Ken Anderson, and Elsie Greenwood. Your guy.
John Holmberg
I love Elsie Greenwood. Exactly. Is he a better contributor to the NFL over time than Belichick? No, because he has, he's been retired for 40 years, but again, and he's not in the hall of Fame.
Dave Nash
This is in. These are, these are like senior guys that will fall off the ballot. And I can listen for, for, for all cases, Robert Kraft's the guy that brought in Bill Belichick. So he gets in before Belichick in
John Holmberg
my house,
Dale Hell Astray
your whole argument go.
John Holmberg
Goes away. It goes because he didn't set up after Belichick either.
Dave Nash
Yeah. And then after Belichick ran the club into the ground in four years, it took him, he turned around and he, and he made a mistake with Gerard Mayo and he realized that's a mistake. I'm going to go get Vrabel. And all of a sudden they're in super bowl again. Robert Kraft, hall of Fame.
John Holmberg
But to use your argument against you, because Belichick didn't have a Steve Young behind Tom Brady, he wasn't good enough as a coach to foresee the future. Then Robert Kraft's argument goes away because he didn't have a plan for Brady either.
Mackenzie
My name is Mackenzie and I started a GoFundMe for the adoptive mother of a non verbal autistic child. The mother had lost her job because she wasn't able to find adequate care for this autistic child. So she really needed some help with living expenses, paying some back bills. So I launched a GoFundMe to help support them during this crisis. And we raised about $10,000 within just a couple of months. I think that the surprising thing was by telling a clear story and just like really being very clear about what we needed, we had some really generous donations from people who were really moved by the situation that this family was struggling with.
John Holmberg
GoFundMe is the world's number one fundraising platform, trusted by over 200 million people. Start your GoFundMe today at gofundme.com that's gofundme.com gofundme.com this podcast is supported by GoFundMe.
Dave Nash
And they did.
John Holmberg
It was Mac Jones and it didn't work.
Dave Nash
This argument can go round and round.
John Holmberg
No, it can't.
Dale Hell Astray
It's.
Dave Nash
It's solved. There are reasons why Belichick didn't get in, and that is certain guys want to see some of those other guys get in. You can only vote for three guys
John Holmberg
that there's something more.
Dave Nash
That's it.
John Holmberg
There is something more to it. Maybe it is. Maybe other than.
Dave Nash
I'm not arguing that, but you're the
John Holmberg
only one making the argument saying he doesn't.
Dave Nash
No one is bringing up the point of his record, minus Tom Brady and the nonsense he pulled in the super bowl against the Philadelphia Eagles.
John Holmberg
That's the. Well, he had one super bowl where he took a couple chances that weren't good. He got out.
Dale Hell Astray
Then he.
John Holmberg
Then he beat a team after they were up 28 to three.
Dave Nash
The guy. Yeah. Right. He's down 28. Thank God he had Tom Brady at coach. Quarterback. I'll say this in regards to the Philadelphia Eagles Super Bowl. You got to remember Malcolm Butler played more snaps on that team that year than anyone else.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
And he gets to the super bowl and he plays two snaps, both on.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
Special teams.
John Holmberg
We don't know why.
Dave Nash
Right. The point is, I'm gonna make. I'm gonna make an.
John Holmberg
You're gonna assume something.
Dave Nash
I'm gonna assume.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
That he was holding something against Malcolm Butler and he put that in front of the team and the good of the team. And to me, I think it's inexcusable what he did with male.
Dale Hell Astray
Two things. Two things to come back at. You rebuke. You rebuke.
John Holmberg
Rebuke. Biblical.
Dale Hell Astray
Okay. Number one, I'm gonna assume that Malcolm Butler did something against team rules that week.
John Holmberg
Nobody on that team ever said that was about.
Dale Hell Astray
And he said. And. And. And the program that he built said nobody is above the team, so you're not going to play in this game. Number two. And this is it to me, is non negotiable. If L.C. greenwood and Roger Craig are not in the hall of fame 30 years after they got done playing. What have they done in the last year deserve to be in the hall of Fame?
John Holmberg
Elsie Greenwood's been dead for 14.
Dave Nash
Only so many votes that you get to get people into the hall of Fame. So if you want to look at, you know, the, the system of actually voting people in the hall of Fame, you can do that. I would agree, but it's not an
John Holmberg
argument of how the hall of Fame works. It's about Bill Belichick not being a first ballot hall of Fame, which means who is. The bigger argument there is if he's not getting in on the.
Dave Nash
Tom Brady is. And Tom Brady can drag him in with us.
John Holmberg
What if they snub him into what
Dave Nash
he did for his whole career?
John Holmberg
If he. Without Bill Belichick, Tom Brady's not that great. I mean, what if that's the argument? It's not. He won a Super bowl of Tampa. But I mean, if you just say it's like, without Belichick, he's nothing. These are fantasy arguments.
Dale Hell Astray
And then you add to the fact that you are sitting there telling both John and I, two intelligent, incredible young men, healthy young men, compared to you,
John Holmberg
you're as red as your shirt sitting
Dale Hell Astray
there, and you're gonna tell me, Robert Kraft deserves to be in before Bill Belichick. How many play calls did he do?
John Holmberg
He just put, he put the pieces in place.
Dave Nash
Get their voting owners in or, or
John Holmberg
people who built this, you know, what is it? Crash, first year of eligibility?
Dale Hell Astray
Is it his?
John Holmberg
I don't know how that works.
Dave Nash
I have no idea.
John Holmberg
So if, if, if anything, between the two of them, who's going to hold that slot? If there's one left, you give it to Belichick.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes.
John Holmberg
And I'm not a fan of Bill Belichick.
Dave Nash
Ten seasons without Tom Brady. He won two. He was a winning coach in two out of ten. Two out of ten seasons when Tom Brady was not the quarterback for Bill Belichick at the end of 10.
John Holmberg
Every coach hangs around the last few years of their career too long. You're going to see some numbers decline.
Dave Nash
Now. Either that or you're going to see Tom Brady left and he's not a very good coach.
John Holmberg
Everything has a shelf life.
Dale Hell Astray
So you.
John Holmberg
I don't, I don't look at Bill Belichick's last few years as like, well, that was the best product on the field. Was he great at drafting? He might have had a little too much power in the GM room.
Dale Hell Astray
He Got too much power.
John Holmberg
I think he got a little too much of that. And towards the end of it it's like nobody was questioning him anymore and might have had his eye off the ball towards the end. As we've seen in North Carolina, a young lady will distract the man. So maybe he's flawed. I don't. Nobody's saying he's perfect. But this first ballot thing has to be the argument more so of nobody. Nobody's using the argument. Oh, he had Tom Brady. Because that's like saying well they should be. Well then why wouldn't you just say Steve Sarkeesian should be? Because if he had Tom, Brad have been great. It doesn't matter. He had him. So you have to go with what he was given.
Dale Hell Astray
And I go back to name me a hall of an upper echelon head football coach NFL that didn't have a quarterback. Look at Jimmy Johnson. I don't think Jimmy Johnson should be in the hall of Fame. I played for him.
John Holmberg
He had Dan Marino for a year or two. Nothing happened.
Dale Hell Astray
He, he, he won two Super Bowls in Dallas. Then he went coach about four or five years in Miami and they did diddly squash.
Dave Nash
They had a better record in Miami than he did.
Dale Hell Astray
Dan Marino, he had the one in 15 year. You got him wiped.
John Holmberg
Mark that off again. Yeah, he took over a terrible team and yeah. And his percentage is going to be based on. What did you grab when you first got there?
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
What was the situation when you got there? And I think the Cleveland situation. Anybody goes there and gets an 11 and 5 team in Cleveland and then has the next thing with ownership that was, I mean they just
Dave Nash
wasn't a bad owner.
John Holmberg
He was at the. Oh my God. The last couple years of the Browns, he, he's devastated that franchise.
Dale Hell Astray
Have you ever played in Cleveland Stadium?
Dave Nash
No.
John Holmberg
He wouldn't spend a penny on anything.
Dale Hell Astray
I play in Cleveland.
Dave Nash
I know I wouldn't even want it. What's better, Cleveland or Philadelphia?
Dale Hell Astray
Well, the old vet.
John Holmberg
That's a rough.
Dale Hell Astray
Okay. At least in Cleveland they didn't throw batteries.
John Holmberg
Modell moved the team in the middle of the of a quality year when it seemed like the ball was rolling right for them. Trust me, as a Steeler fan, I remember the years the Browns popped up and I'm like they're going to be good. This sucks. And then the next year was. Or when the Ravens drafted the lineman. I can't remember his name right now.
Dale Hell Astray
The left tackle.
John Holmberg
Yeah. Ogden. Yeah. And then. Oh my God. And Ray Lewis shows up and you start Build. The building blocks were in. Were there, right? They were dismantled. Everyone left right after that Browns debacle because they're like, I don't even want to be part of this. So when the owner, Cardinal fans is looming over the team, you watch that team disintegrate every time.
Dale Hell Astray
What a great transition.
John Holmberg
Yeah, yeah, we're going that way. See what I did there, podcast.
Dave Nash
We want to be finished with the numbers when LC Belongs. When LC Greenwood. Yeah, but he, of course, he was at hall of Fame coach. But, you know, everyone getting up and arms because he didn't get in the first year.
Dale Hell Astray
Whatever.
Dave Nash
But that's the point.
John Holmberg
That that's supposed to be the ultimate honor of the hall of Fame, L.C.
Dave Nash
greenwood. When he retired, or at least his last year of playing, he was in the top maybe 15 or so spectacular. Okay, so. So he will drop off this list. Do you think he'd become a Hall of Famer because Belichick's getting in?
John Holmberg
I will use your argument for that. Is that most people take LC Greenwood and say he's not what he was without Joe Green.
Dave Nash
He's part of that. What was the defense?
John Holmberg
Steel Curtain.
Dave Nash
Sorry, but I'm telling you right now
John Holmberg
that LC Greenwood benefited more than anyone for being on that line with a dude that had to get triple teamed, who changed the way defensive linemen line up and gaps. Joe Green was never just helmet to helmet. He turned sideways and everybody was like, what's he doing? They couldn't figure it out for years.
Dale Hell Astray
And some damn good linebacker.
John Holmberg
And behind him. And then you got two hall of Famers standing there on the corners and we got Woodruff and. Do you think L.C.
Dave Nash
greenwood is a Hall of Famer?
John Holmberg
I think L.C.
Dale Hell Astray
greenwood.
John Holmberg
I wouldn't. I wouldn't put him on above probably even Roger Craig. And I love.
Dale Hell Astray
Else.
John Holmberg
I got a jersey right when he.
Dave Nash
When he left the game. I think though, Dale, he was in the top 10 in yards from scrimmage or if not top 10, unstoppable.
John Holmberg
But again, back to your argument. Well, he wouldn't have done that without Rathman running in front of him. I mean, or Montana or Rice or Taylor or the entire line or, you know, the. You. You have to. You can't use the argument that they had too good a player.
Dave Nash
It's not like he lost Tom Rathman and he couldn't play anymore. By the way, Belichick couldn't coach anymore after Tom Brady wasn't there.
John Holmberg
Prior to Belichick, Tom Brady was a barely making it college guy.
Dave Nash
I like. I Said the best thing Bill Belichick ever did in his career ever was sit down a Pro bowl quarterback for a six round draft pick out of Michigan who was a skinny is a nothing. Nothing.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
You know what? He should make the hall of Fame for that and maybe even to be a first ballot for that. But other than that, let's everyone get off. You know.
Dale Hell Astray
Stop.
Dave Nash
No sucking this guy off.
John Holmberg
No. He is even with the scandals I'll say you can't get past. I don't think he needed them. And I'll go back to the deflate gate. There is a statistic that makes this real. It's a good one. Five straight years the New England Patriots fumbled less than every other team per like 100 carries. You teach bottom security because at home if they had a deflated it wasn't about Brady throwing it or anybody catching it. And that's why the Colts again Polian's involved told his linebackers if you get your hands on that things find out if they're doing this. It was a rumor in the league that the footballs were different when you played the Patriots. And I can't remember was it Barkevius Mingo. I forget who made the pick squeezes it and gives it to a ref and goes we told you. And that's where it started. Because they were warning these guys that's nothing. It's nothing. They're doing something to these five straight years the Patriots led the league in fumbles per 100 attempts. And it was like two. Everybody else from two to 30 shuffled. Never the same a team second. The next year could be like 28th. It never. The Patriots were first Deflategate happened. They looked at them, they said can't do this anymore. Suddenly the Patriots are in the mix. 4 per 100. No longer at 2.1 per 100. They're down to right with the rest of the mix. Their advantage was an advantage.
Dave Nash
I don't blame New England for that. I don't blame New England for that.
John Holmberg
They got caught. Yeah, but.
Dave Nash
But what was the penalty in the rule book for a deflated football? What was the penalty?
John Holmberg
I don't remember what they did.
Dave Nash
There was no penalty.
John Holmberg
That's probably why they got in trouble. It's like you're not supposed to mess with the equipment. You can't put slick on your jersey. You couldn't wear stick on a while. You could for a while until they stopped them.
Dave Nash
Okay.
John Holmberg
Right.
Dave Nash
But.
John Holmberg
But you could scuff a ball but
Dave Nash
you had to be careful of the organization need if you put in a rule that says you can't do this right. There needs to be punishment, and it has to be clear cut. What you get. For instance, did you hear about what Dion Sanders is doing up in Colorado? I might want to throw. Throw that out.
John Holmberg
What do you do? You got notes.
Dave Nash
Yeah, he. And, And I'm gonna. I, I, I wrote this down really quickly. I heard this. So don't take it for.
John Holmberg
So it may not be true.
Dave Nash
Well, no, And I, I heard that I. He's finding guys.
John Holmberg
You're.
Dave Nash
He's finding guys monetarily in college because they're getting nil. Okay, whatever. And I could see that, but he's finding. If you're late for practice.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
500.
Dale Hell Astray
Okay.
Dave Nash
If you don't show for practice, 2500.
Dale Hell Astray
Why are you not showing up?
John Holmberg
You should get cut.
Dave Nash
Hey, it's 2026, guys. Got something else going on. More important.
Dale Hell Astray
Girlfriend.
John Holmberg
And it's her anniversary.
Dave Nash
No show. A meeting. Two grand. You know, show workout. It's 1500.
Dale Hell Astray
You.
Dave Nash
You're late.
John Holmberg
So don't do any of those things. What's wrong with this?
Dale Hell Astray
All those football team.
John Holmberg
I agree.
Dave Nash
And I get social media misconduct, $5,000.
John Holmberg
Okay. And smart.
Dave Nash
No, listen, I'm not arguing anything.
John Holmberg
But you're saying there's.
Dave Nash
I heard it. And I go now. We're fine. I couldn't imagine being in college.
Dale Hell Astray
Well, you weren't in this college. Yeah, but where you get a million dollars?
John Holmberg
Yeah, you weren't in this College. We're getting 60, so that's where we're at now. Yeah.
Dave Nash
Not only are they getting. They're getting payments now. They're getting fined monetarily. I mean, if we did. If I missed the practice. I was late for practice. I did laps around the field.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah, yeah, but did you ever, ever miss a practice without a death in the family without calling your coach and saying, hey, I, I'm. I. This happened.
Dave Nash
Not that I remember. No, not that I remember.
John Holmberg
He might have been drunk. He doesn't remember.
Dave Nash
Not that I remember.
John Holmberg
But back to full circle. This. Back to that. You're. I agree with you there. There needed to be a clear cut rule that says, here's the fine for what you did, but it doesn't diminish that they did it. And that is what made Bill Belichick a great coach. He said there is no, there is no repercussions for this.
Dave Nash
I won't argue that either.
Dale Hell Astray
He also knew little nuances.
John Holmberg
That's one of them.
Dale Hell Astray
Continue to have penalties and that thing he's standing over there smirking.
John Holmberg
Yeah. Was it the Jets? And he just figured it out and he's just smirking like, oh, it's the Titans. It was a Titan.
Dale Hell Astray
Because he's smirking at Brable.
John Holmberg
You know who used it next? Mike Vrabel. Yes, it was with the Titans. He's like, hey, they haven't changed the rule yet. Belichick's on to some. Keep penalizing the play gate.
Dale Hell Astray
Is that in the 90s when I was there? I promise you, Toy Aikman didn't know a PSI from a PPU from a LO2 or whatever. All he knew was that the kicker and punter would get all the game balls, put them in a bag, throw them in a dryer, get them out, bang them against the wall, do whatever they did to him, rub them down, and then they show. Right. Here's a ball, Troy. Feel it. A little more banging.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Or a little more dry or whatever. And I promise you, Tom Brady didn't go, give me 12 psi instead of 14 psi.
John Holmberg
Well, you looked at the. You looked at the texts that he wouldn't give up. And I was on his side with that. And he was basically telling him, make him a little squishy.
Dale Hell Astray
He was.
John Holmberg
He was. But at the time, there was nothing. That's a rule because of the statistic I gave you. It is an advantage now if everybody
Dave Nash
should do it, play with flatball. There's no penalty for it. Do it.
John Holmberg
There's the first ballot. Hall of Fame.
Dave Nash
I'm not going to argue. That's a good move.
John Holmberg
Yeah, that's a great move. But it was. It was stuff he did.
Dave Nash
Even he did that, he was still only a 400 coach without Tom Brady. How's that happen? How do you do all of that and you still can't win without one guy?
John Holmberg
Byron Leftwich was the hottest assistant gonna get three head coaching jobs because he was Tom Brady's OC until they interviewed him and they're like, oh, you don't get hired just because your quarterback's good.
Dave Nash
Yeah. And you don't get. And you shouldn't get put into the hall of Fame first ballot just because your quarterback.
Dale Hell Astray
Okay, so then all of them are out again. I've given you time. Now give me a head coach that doesn't have a Pro bowl quarterback. And I'm not talking about Sanders.
John Holmberg
Is Gruden in the hall of Fame?
Dale Hell Astray
What's that?
John Holmberg
You said Gruden to this. But he's not in the Hall.
Dale Hell Astray
No, he's not.
John Holmberg
Name A Hall of Fame coach.
Dale Hell Astray
He won one Super Bowl.
John Holmberg
Yeah. Name a Hall of Fame coach that didn't have a quarterback.
Dale Hell Astray
Right. And you can't do that. You've got all these notes over here.
Dave Nash
I, I don't, I don't even know what, what, what coach are in the hall of Fame.
John Holmberg
I have to look. Yeah, all of them. I guarantee you. There's Tom Landry, he had a heck of a quarterback. Jimmy Johnson, Chuck Noel, I believe Bill Cower got in okay. And it was his record because of what he was doing without quarterbacks. And then with Ben Roethlisberger, he finally got over the hump.
Dale Hell Astray
Walsh in San Francisco, Jimmy Johnson.
John Holmberg
Yeah. They all have that one thing in common. Don Shula.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes.
John Holmberg
Who still managed to not win one with at the time the Tom Brady of the league. And Dan Marino for 10 years.
Dale Hell Astray
Right. But he won one with Earl Moore.
John Holmberg
But he. Yeah, he won earlier. And a lot of people say, oh, he was just riding off the Colts success. No, it's the same argument they make for Mike Tomlin in Pittsburgh when they're like, oh, he only wanted.
Dave Nash
Just had good quarterbacks. They didn't have Tom Brady.
Dale Hell Astray
But it's.
John Holmberg
Nobody's ever had Tom Brady.
Dale Hell Astray
No.
Dave Nash
So he's lucky. He's lucky. Hey, it's better to be lucky than good.
John Holmberg
Was Barry Switzer a good coach or was he just living off Jimmy Johnson?
Dave Nash
Dale, Dale asking you.
John Holmberg
Oh, Barry Switzer was a good coach. He did it with a roster that he didn't necessarily build, but he was a good coach. To keep it from imploding you, you
Dale Hell Astray
have to approach it a sep. A different way. Yeah.
John Holmberg
And Mike Tomlin always got though he never won without cowers, guys. Yes, he did. And also he won nobody. Six Super Bowls out of 60 is still the number one amount of Super Bowls.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
Every team that's the two best 54 Super bowl non appearances or losses. I mean, you're not winning it a lot. So to base it off of that is crazy. The guy was in the championship game. Okay, I got the list.
Dave Nash
I think most of them don't have a good quarterback.
Dale Hell Astray
But you don't.
John Holmberg
Yeah, but you have a. You think Darnold sucks, so.
Dave Nash
No, I don't. And, and we were. I'll get to that.
John Holmberg
Also, you have notes on your own notes.
Dave Nash
Yes, I got notes on Sam Darnold also.
John Holmberg
We got to replay that show. He hated Sam Darnold out loud for a long. I didn't hate him.
Dale Hell Astray
I guess he's.
Dave Nash
He's not a Top. He's not a 20%. He's not a top.
Dale Hell Astray
Oh, he.
Dave Nash
He's a top seven quarterback.
John Holmberg
Your argument before for Sam Darnold was he can't win a big game. He.
Dale Hell Astray
Well, we'll.
Dave Nash
We'll agree to this.
John Holmberg
This is crazy.
Dave Nash
George Allen. Remember George Allen?
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah, yeah.
Dave Nash
You call Billy Kilmer a great quarterback. You call Billy Kilmer great quarterback.
John Holmberg
He had
Dave Nash
George.
Dale Hell Astray
No, no.
John Holmberg
I don't know. He had.
Dave Nash
Not Joe Gibbs. George Allen.
Dale Hell Astray
How about come a little bit closer to our life.
John Holmberg
How about when they put on helmets, Use the helmet era.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
All right.
Dave Nash
Well, I gotta.
Dale Hell Astray
Over the hill. I remember over the hill game.
John Holmberg
He's combing through. This is. This is. When you're dealing with an illog. This is an illogical brain. But, Grant, finding the outline. Fran Tarkinton went to the super bowl four times.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes.
John Holmberg
All right, we'll end it there. That's a good one. Not the whole show.
Dale Hell Astray
We'll move on. Come on.
John Holmberg
Yeah. No, you can't sit and say, here are the averages, and then everybody can go, here's the outlier. There's. You're going to find one if you dig. But you're. Look at you.
Dave Nash
Scrolling parcels.
John Holmberg
Bill Parcell's had good quarter. Phil Sims is a good quarterback.
Dave Nash
Hostetler, he won with Hostetler.
John Holmberg
Super bowl with Hostile. Hostetler was on a team with a great defense. And Bill Belichick was a coach on that team.
Dave Nash
Hey, he should have stayed a defensive coordinator.
John Holmberg
Oh, yeah. He didn't have any success once he left.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah. And Bill Belichick was on that staff, too.
John Holmberg
Yeah, that's what I'm saying. Anyway, let's get on to the next thing because Dave has lost his mind.
Dale Hell Astray
You don't got anybody else.
John Holmberg
Yeah, Tom Flores, Jim Plunkett, He's a Hall of Famer.
Dave Nash
You think Jim Plunkett was a great quarterback.
John Holmberg
He's in the hall of Fame.
Dave Nash
He was on the scrap heap before he got to Oakland because he was.
John Holmberg
Because he was in the Patriots organization that was caving in.
Dave Nash
Guy Chamberlain. Who's that?
John Holmberg
Was that. Was it 1935? Again, the logical Chamberlain. Look, you can go back and find a coach eventually. That will make your argument.
Dale Hell Astray
But I think the argument. Yeah, yeah.
John Holmberg
He's gonna have 6,000 guys that he's. That he can't fight the argument and he'll find the one and make that his basis. That's a lunatic. Yeah, you're being a lunatic. The angry looney.
Dale Hell Astray
You get five minutes at the end for that.
John Holmberg
Yeah. We'll give you that. Yeah, we'll let you go because this one is a loss. Let's talk about the Pro Bowl. You bring up all these accolades and we talked earlier this morning on my show, Dale, about a certain Pro Bowler now on the AFC that's going to play quarterback. And I believe the number and it might be wrong, but I think this is right. 696 quarterbacks. It might be. I don't remember if it was six or three. I don't remember. But anyway, certain 196 quarterbacks have played in the NFL since 2000. At least 20 snaps. Let's call it 696. I don't know if that's right, but Shador Sanders ranks 692 or if it's 396. It's 392. I can't remember the number.
Dale Hell Astray
Well, the other four behind him. Pro Bowler.
John Holmberg
Yeah. He's only better than four guys who have taken 20 snaps in the Max halls. I have to wonder if Max hall had better numbers.
Dave Nash
So you're saying you're not going to put him in the first ballot hall of Fame?
Dale Hell Astray
No.
John Holmberg
Well, dependent. But he is now an all Pro. He's a Pro bowl player in the NFL. And this has gotten to the point and I don't know if he gets a bonus if you have to have first, like if you have to be voted in by your peers.
Dave Nash
Same thing happened to Tyler Hunley a couple years ago.
John Holmberg
Yeah. We've had. Well, I mean, there. There are guys you're looking at. What are we doing with the Pro Bowl? Just call it the AFC NFC fun Ball and just have these guys that want to show up.
Dale Hell Astray
You should.
John Holmberg
Should.
Dale Hell Astray
What they should do is just have the Pro bowl nominees have a dinner.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
And honor them and move on. Yeah.
John Holmberg
Were you ever part of. They had that. It was Battle of the Network Stars was the thing where they put people from TV shows up against each other and then they moved that to the NFL. You remember that?
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
And I remember it was during spring they would have superstars from the NFL, I think it was called superstars. And they would put them on like obstacle courses and tug of war. They'd never do this now because of an injury happening.
Dave Nash
Oh, that's what happened.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
It's a guy from the Patriots, if I remember.
Dave Nash
I guess I'm playing volleyball the other
Dale Hell Astray
way out of the beach.
John Holmberg
Yeah. Yeah. And the beach volleyball.
Dave Nash
But it was touch football and.
John Holmberg
Oh, was it. Okay.
Dave Nash
Football on the beach.
John Holmberg
Sand.
Dale Hell Astray
Nobody can get hurt.
John Holmberg
No. And that was the. Yeah, exactly. And that's what they're doing with this flag football thing. And eventually you're going to lose somebody that goes, oh, you know, Justin Herbert's going to go out there and I'll do it. And he'll step wrong in a flag football game. Not carrying a blow a knee out, knock it off, knock it off. Or play the game.
Dale Hell Astray
Because you know as well as I do, and I said on your show this morning, your world famous, it is local show, massive fact that if there's gonna be 5 million people who watch it, they're gonna keep it on.
John Holmberg
But 5 million is not an audience for the NFL to care.
Dale Hell Astray
But it isn't.
John Holmberg
It's, it's, it's a little grade sponsors
Dale Hell Astray
to pay some money.
John Holmberg
It's a little money.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
It's almost like, you know, like the, the Beef o Brady's bowl. Like, what are we doing? Nobody's there, gets a couple million. It's just gravy money.
Dale Hell Astray
What I, what I've always said about that, whether it's the, the bottom 20 bowls in college or whether it's the Pro bowl, they're going to do it. If you don't want to watch, which I don't know, the last time I watched a Pro bowl, it might have been since 2000.
John Holmberg
It's a long time I've not watched the Pro. Wouldn't you rather watch like a skills contest?
Dale Hell Astray
Yes. Yeah.
John Holmberg
Wouldn't it be better just have the quarterbacks out there and then like a, you know, maybe a relay race or something. Somebody can pull a hamstring in March, it would be okay, right? And they do a, you know, fast. I remember they used to do NFL's fastest man and it was Woodson and Daryl Green and all these dudes got involved. It was fun to watch. But again, a dude gets hurt, it's over. Now you're talking about the 4 million people. Okay, so let's say they make an extra 30 million bucks on the Pro bowl, but you lose a $50 million quarterback who just decided to, and that would boost your ratings.
Dave Nash
More opportunity for the next guy.
John Holmberg
But that franchise is screwed.
Dave Nash
More opportunity.
John Holmberg
You can't take Justin Herbert off the Chargers and say, we're fine. You can't.
Dale Hell Astray
So, I mean, unless you're Bill Belichick.
John Holmberg
Oh, yeah. And then he'd coach him. He'd coach 115 with Matt Castle and then the Chiefs will sign him and do nothing. Yeah, I just, I, I fix the Pro bowl is what I'm saying.
Dale Hell Astray
Well, you can't.
John Holmberg
You just gotta end it.
Dale Hell Astray
It's either cancel it, continue to do the nonsense that they're doing because again, shoulders and. And guess what? 20 years from now. Yeah. It will still say Shadour Sanders, Pro Bowl, Pro bowl quarterback.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
And how did he get get voted on? Did all the other quarterback said. They said.
John Holmberg
Everyone, everyone said Josh Allen a little hurt. Justin Herbert's not playing. You go down the list of guys who had better seasons than him and you're hard. I mean, Philip Rivers might as well be in there. At least he can't get hurt for next year. Put him in there. It's fun.
Dave Nash
That would have been fun.
John Holmberg
It would have been a fun one. People might have gone, that's all right. Having one last run with Philip Rivers. Aaron Rodgers had a 10 times better year. Joe Burrow, who didn't play much, had a better year. Speaking of, Geno Smith is the only one in the afc. It's like, good choice.
Dave Nash
Like, that would be Aaron Rogers coming back next year.
John Holmberg
See, now this is the thing. We get into the Steelers, they hired Mike McCarthy, and as a Steeler fan, I am dealing with all my Steeler friends who are losing their minds. Steeler fans have this problem. They wanted Tomlin out. We're in the grind. Nothing ever changes here. The owners never do anything different. We're mediocre and we're going to stay the 20th pick and we're never going to get that guy. We have to do something different. So they. Tomlin goes. They didn't expect that. Tomlin leaves. And every Steeler fan wanted exactly the same thing they've always done when they hire a coach, which is a young defensive coordinator who's going to be there for 20 years. And instead the Steelers go, most qualified guy Here is Mike McCarthy, who loves Pittsburgh. He's from here. He's a good coach. He's got good numbers. He's shored up an offense that we don't have in Pittsburgh and basically can say, let me bridge this team for that. He's 62. He's only going to be there for. For five years.
Dale Hell Astray
Is there. Is there a name with your friends who they wanted?
John Holmberg
Everybody had Jesse Minter and when the Ravens hired him, that's a big one. But the Steelers interviewed Shula from the Rams and evidently he bombed the interview to the point where the Steelers didn't ask him for a second one. Even on Zoom, right? And they're just like, it didn't go well. They interviewed all these young guys and didn't See their guy, which is. It's smart.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes.
John Holmberg
That's just smart. And it's safe. It's unsexy, and it certainly isn't the. Oh, my God. Who's. When Cower got hired in the early 90s, everybody's like, who's this idiot from the Dobbs, right.
Dale Hell Astray
Love.
John Holmberg
But he's a Pittsburgh guy. Tomlin gets hired, who's this moron?
Dale Hell Astray
He did.
John Holmberg
And if nobody. It turned out okay. Mike McCarthy is a safe. A safe boat in rocky waters. Because the Steelers are treading on some thin ice. Their owner may not be the guy he may not really know. Like, Art currently is not necessarily the most respected in. In Pittsburgh as far as how he's run the organization. It's been a little stagnant. Whereas his. His dad, Dan and everybody always made the moves that were right. He kept it pretty much the same. So when he put Mike McCarthy in, I was kind of like, that's a safe. That's a safe move. It's not pretty, it's not sexy, and it certainly isn't super long term. But you get a good offensive coordinator in there. He learns from Mike McCarthy. Suddenly there's a little excitement. The defensive coordinator looking to hire is the Raiders DC from last year. Graham not thrilled with that idea, but maybe. And he worked with Mike in Dallas. You look at Dallas's numbers with him now, one thing he couldn't do is win with a bad quarterback.
Dale Hell Astray
That's a fact.
John Holmberg
I mean, he only had Dak 12 wins every time Dak was on the field and Cooper Rush came out there and they couldn't do anything right. Quarterback developed CD Lamb. Yeah, it was a. It was a very safe hire.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
And I like that hire for that reason. I don't like it because I would have loved to have another story where they just found this guy sitting in a pile and had the foresight and wherewithal to understand, oh, he's the future. He wasn't there, at least according to them. Now, maybe they miss with Jesse mentor. Maybe Minter goes on and makes the Ravens the greatest thing ever.
Dale Hell Astray
Who knows?
John Holmberg
And maybe he bombs and maybe he bombs out.
Dale Hell Astray
You know, to me, it's almost like, okay, I'm looking at the draft and these quarterbacks who are third, fourth rounders when the season ends.
John Holmberg
Yeah, yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Now they start doing a few workouts and they go to the combine. Oh, he might be a second rounder. Oh, no. Low first rounds. Like, yeah, he hasn't played a football game.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Well, these young coaches who again, didn't really middle of the season, none of these guys were really. Oh, he's the next guy.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
It's just as the season went along. And also, well, there's four openings and there's five openings, Then there's eight openings.
John Holmberg
Yeah. A lot.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
And you're looking at a bunch of coordinators that are super young. Like, this was a weird batch of dudes in their 30s.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
Because everybody wants that Mike Tomlin find. Everybody wants the mcveigh. They want to find that young super brain that's going to change the game. And if they're just guys coming in saying, I'm a. I've never done it before, and I know the basics of football, and I'm kind of impressive this way and that, but not necessarily everywhere. If I'm the owner of a team, I'm like, give me the established dude. Let me have these next few years to solidify our team. Because that's what they need in Pittsburgh for sure. So I'm not. I'm not against the McCarthy hire. And also could bomb.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
This roster's not that good.
Dale Hell Astray
That's the thing.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
It's aging.
John Holmberg
Yep.
Dale Hell Astray
A lot of money on defense.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Here's how I've always said I would hire a head coach. Number one, obviously. Have you been coaching? You got a little experience. But I am walking. I'm telling my head coach. You start at that end of the building.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
And you walk through the building. And if. When you walk into a room, people take a tent to take notice.
John Holmberg
Yeah. Yep.
Dale Hell Astray
You're gonna. You have a chance to be my guy for sure. If you walk through the room and everybody who's just writing stuff down or on their computer and nobody notices.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
You don't have it.
John Holmberg
Don't.
Dale Hell Astray
Whatever it is. And again, I've told you the story, and I've told Dave the story. When Jimmy Johnson would come walking down the hall, we could feel him. We could feel him 50ft before he got there. Chan gailey, Barry switzer, Dave campo, they're in the room yelling, hey, hey, hey. Shut up.
John Holmberg
Yeah. Trying to calm the room. Yeah. They're not owning the room. They're calling the room.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
And that great story in Cleveland, and I remember the coach was when. And he said, everybody shut up. Everybody shut up. And one guy did. I think it was. I don't know if it was Denzel ward or one of the players was like, I'm gonna be here longer than you are. It was over.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah, it is. Oh.
John Holmberg
When the. When they snap back, it's over. So, yeah, I look at this as a very established thing. He is a guy who's going to own the room and everything else. I think the Cardinals dropped the ball not looking at Mike McCarthy, not giving him the opportunity, whether or not he'd want to be here now. Mike McCarthy's press conference in Pittsburgh was wild. It was so emotional. He started crying the minute he started talking. He was in black and gold swaddling on his way home from the hospital when he was born. He's a Pittsburgh True and blue. This means more to him than the packers and Cowboys in they get him cheap. I don't remember. I don't see what they paid him for. I think they paid him well. I don't think they gave him a.
Dave Nash
You think that's why Arizona's waiting to pick a. They're like, hey, you're the last guy.
John Holmberg
There's the thing. Dale and I talked about this. This is where and I and. And psych.
Dale Hell Astray
The source.
John Holmberg
I don't remember what it was. They did a. They did a thing with ranking the teams that haven't made the playoffs from most miserable to closest to being good as a franchise. Cardinals, Jets, Raiders. 1, 2, 3. Cardinals are now ranked the worst franchise to be part of going into next year.
Dave Nash
Even worse than the Browns.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes.
John Holmberg
Browns were fifth. The Colts were fourth because they're in shame.
Dave Nash
You hire a guy that the Ravens were going to fire and they were favorites to win the super bowl and they didn't even make the playoffs and you hire the guy that I think was rumored to. To have to be out the door or harbors out the door.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
You hire him and you lose your defensive coordinator.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
Who was one of the best defense coordinators in football.
Dale Hell Astray
Look.
John Holmberg
And.
Dale Hell Astray
And.
Dave Nash
And now I know you have a Pro bowl quarterback in Stamps that might
John Holmberg
but being the fifth most miserable team is not being good.
Dale Hell Astray
No.
John Holmberg
But think of who you're fighting with and I and it's a pretty tight battle. Cardinals, Jets, Raiders, Colts, Browns as just like it says, ranking the most miserable teams in the NFL. That is. That is a tough pill to swallow
Dale Hell Astray
if you're the big well. Family and you go, well, at least the Raiders, they have some salary cap rate room. Yeah. And they're going to get Mendoza and
John Holmberg
they've got a Max Crosby chip to play.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes they can. And they've got a really good tight end just like the Cardinals do.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
But there's like your nose is a little bit above water.
John Holmberg
There's hope.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes.
John Holmberg
The Cardinals have none outside of their tight end and sweat on defense. They've got nothing. And Buddha Baker and who are you going to bring? Nobody. And that's the thing. And these coaches aren't sitting there knocking down the door. They're waiting to see what's available.
Dale Hell Astray
No, because they're going back to their teams.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
And they're getting a little more money because they've been, you know, bandied about as head coach. Get a little more money. And the head coaches tell them, wait till next year.
John Holmberg
Yeah, yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Wait till next year.
John Holmberg
Better things are waiting.
Dale Hell Astray
There'll be six more openings next year.
John Holmberg
Because what you're looking at right now is, like, the Buccaneers, you know, Washington, maybe Dallas. Like, you start seeing this kind of stuff and you're like, these. These prestigious jobs may open. Even Green Bay. Green Bay has another hiccup up. And they're not going to. And you go to Jordan Love, and like, if I'm a coordinator that's got a hot situation, the last thing I'm going to do is tarnish that with a choice to go to the Cardinals. Although I don't think it stinks as bad as people think. You're not going to be a head coach if you coach here again for a while, but you're going to get another job because they don't. It washes off with the Cardinals excuse. I can't imagine being on the top of several lists as the worst franchise in football and not having a press conference and putting it on the Internet saying, I see it, I know what's going on, and we're gonna change it.
Dale Hell Astray
Right?
John Holmberg
And instead of sitting back going, oh, we like to cast a wide net for coach Ron Rivera is now they're going to be their 16th or 17th interview. Riverboat Ron has been like, just. Has been kind of the Herm Edwards kind of type of. You get teams going a little, and then they. And then they just fall apart. Like, you create a toxic environment everywhere you've been. He's out. Why are you considering that? And Mike McCarthy didn't get a call. Jon Gruden's phone doesn't ring.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
There's dudes waiting that are more qualified than who you're interviewing. And dudes who aren't even qualified are leaving, going, no. Second interview.
Dave Nash
Allegedly Gruden was called in New York
John Holmberg
and I not to be with the Giants.
Dave Nash
The Jets. Oh, same thing, right? No, man.
John Holmberg
Not coming out there for that, man.
Dave Nash
There's no way.
John Holmberg
I thought it was a spam call,
Dale Hell Astray
man, but here's what I want. Yeah. I'm sure anybody sees 602.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
On their phone.
John Holmberg
VM, we're going to voice message.
Dale Hell Astray
But here's what. I would love to be a fly on the wall in those meetings. What's a tripping point? Is it we're not going to pay you market value? Is it you have to take Collar Murray, Is it. You have to. We're getting rid of Kyler Murray. Is it what?
John Holmberg
Or is it just Gray and the coaches come in and go. They don't have a plan at all.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
They're leaving it up to me. I'm not doing this.
Dave Nash
Are the Cardinals looking for everyone to write like, like, like an essay?
John Holmberg
What I'm seeing is you heard about
Dave Nash
that with the, with, with the Browns, didn't you?
John Holmberg
No. Somebody wrote an essay on it.
Dale Hell Astray
No, they asked. They asked.
John Holmberg
Oh, I did see that. Yeah.
Dave Nash
Can you imagine that?
John Holmberg
Let's see.
Dave Nash
I'm going.
Dale Hell Astray
They got a coach before the Cardinals did, so maybe that's the way to go.
John Holmberg
They have hope. There's hope in Cleveland. It's more than Arizona. It's not good, but it's. There's more hope there because their defense is. You've got a defense, borderline championship caliber defense. And they're just a mess. And they had Stefanski, who's a good coach.
Dale Hell Astray
He's going to go to Atlanta and
John Holmberg
he'll do well there. He's got Bijan Robinson. He loves running the ball. Although I've watched when he had Chubb at his peak, not run him at all. And as Steeler fans like, okay, he's getting five yards of carry and you're not giving him the ball. Brilliant. But the Cardinals. I would love to see Michael Bidwell get on a television station and apologize and you know, hat in hand, basically say, I see it, we're an embarrassment. And that's on me.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
And I need. And just to take ownership of how
Dave Nash
bad it is, you got a big Wheel show here. Why don't you interview him?
John Holmberg
He won't do it.
Dale Hell Astray
He doesn't.
Dave Nash
Will he do interviews with anyone?
John Holmberg
When was the last time you saw him interviewed? That wasn't beneficial to him. You're just open.
Dave Nash
You do voice as well.
John Holmberg
I could do a Bidwell, do an interview bid.
Dave Nash
Well, you do Bidwell. Come on, I'll write it for you.
John Holmberg
I don't think I'll write it for you. I've heard him talk enough.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah, that's true.
John Holmberg
I haven't heard him say enough.
Dave Nash
Then you don't even have to be good.
John Holmberg
That's true.
Dave Nash
I can just.
Dale Hell Astray
It's him.
Dave Nash
That's right.
John Holmberg
No, I, I, I, I just don't understand how somebody with that kind of cachet doesn't have the wherewithal to sit in front of a group of people and say, I'm gonna wear this. This is my skin.
Dale Hell Astray
Because here's what I said. Two things. Number one, I said when he took over for his dad, I thought, to me, a successful owner has some ego.
John Holmberg
Oh, has to.
Dale Hell Astray
And by ego, meaning I want to win. Which means now, when I'm walking around town, I walk into a restaurant, I walk into a. You're single, like Michael. You go into a bar and people go, michael, hey, I got your drink. Or, hey, come over here. We want to. Whatever. And he hasn't been that way. No.
John Holmberg
And, and it's, no one's happy to
Dale Hell Astray
see him, you know, and, and instead of, like you said now saying, okay, we screwed this up now for about a decade since Arians left. Yep.
John Holmberg
Hubris, man.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
Give me some, give me some humility and sit back. And you know how far that would go in this city if he sat back and said, I get it. I, this has been. My name's on this. I'm embarrassed.
Dale Hell Astray
Do you think that you're upsetting, man?
John Holmberg
Yeah. I don't want to hear the cliches of, you know, we cast a wide net. We're going to find the right guy. We feel we're. No, we're going to put the right people in place. And I'm the one who hasn't done that. This has been a mess.
Dale Hell Astray
He's going to hire somebody that everybody's going to go, what are you doing? What are you doing? What?
John Holmberg
Especially if it's Vance Joseph and you sit back and you're like, you had him in the building.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
You don't see anything like, this interview couldn't be better or more. And if that was true, that you end up hiring him, why did you have to interview all these other people? Because you knew how he coaches. You've seen him in action.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
You interview him, he wants the job. Get him right there.
Dale Hell Astray
Well, you get a coach in town and you interview him one day and say, hey, yeah, we're going to put you up, we're going to do dinner, Come back the next day. You bring a coach back for the second day of an interview, and you don't hire him. Yeah, I would love to know why.
John Holmberg
I feel like this is more analysis of what's wrong with the team rather than, like, their Process. They don't know what they're doing. I mean, that's really what this comes down to.
Dave Nash
I just realized, listen, this. You guys are describing that water is wet.
John Holmberg
It's true. But again, you want to figure it out, because the fans deserve it. The people who play on the team deserve it. Monty, Austin, Forts of the world. Jonathan Gannon's of the world, you'd love for them. They're too classy to come out and say, that's an absolute mess, and I don't know how I could have fixed it.
Dave Nash
You can't get Bidwell, can you get Austin?
John Holmberg
Monty, Austin Pfeffer. I could try. But I'll tell you this. I've talked about cardinal stuff before, and they show up with rules. Don't talk about this. We can't do this. Don't go down this road. I talked to Michael Bidwell at a charity event a long time ago, Long time ago. And I was chatting with him, and I said, I got to tell you, I was on Tatum road, and I was behind a. A blue Rolls Royce, a light blue Rolls Royce. And I'm like, this dude was going 14 miles an hour down Tatum and driving me nuts. And I'm honking and yelling, and I get by and I'm screaming and I'm losing my mind with road rage. And it's his dad, dad, Bill Bidwell. And I said, so apologize to your dad. I'm the lunatic in the Jeep. And he goes, that's my father's car. I'm like, right? I just told you, that's your dad. There was nothing, nobody reacting to anything other than, how dare you? Don't you know who we are? And I was basically making a joke, but it was an affront to the Bidwells how you treat us. We have reverence. No. You know, especially if you're driving 14 in the middle of a day on Tatum. That was a pain in the ass getting around him. But I made the joke, and I kind of realized at that moment, they don't have humility. They don't have anything about themselves that you can poke, you can't play. They believe they're more than they are.
Dave Nash
How many people do you know that are born with big money?
John Holmberg
It's very true that do that. Don't understand being dropped down a peg, even in a kind of buddy, buddy nudge way.
Dale Hell Astray
And I've never thought about. Until Steve McCollum brought. Brought this up a year ago.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
He said, second generation.
John Holmberg
Third.
Dale Hell Astray
Second. But second. And then it's not getting Any better than the third? Nope. It's going down.
John Holmberg
It's the movie Multiplicity. Michael Keaton, he invented himself and then could duplicate by the third or fourth one. It started getting a little stupid and didn't really get what the first one knew, but it was. It was just. It looked right.
Dale Hell Astray
But here's. And then to add to all that, you have this Lieutenant Mark Dalton. Sultan.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Who protects them with an iron clad. Yeah.
John Holmberg
Protection and leverage will steal this from you. We will not advertise here. We will not do anything. You get no access to us.
Dale Hell Astray
You will. Yeah. You will not be able to send reporters out here and all that. Which is crazy.
John Holmberg
Yeah. It's. It's. I mean, everybody loves the word fascism nowadays. This is kind of football fascism. Let's get into other things. Any coaches that got hired that. You guys. You kind of mentioned the Browns coaching thing was a little surprising. I think everybody's done kind of the right thing. I think what went on in Baltimore, the one that I leaned on, that because I have a few friends who are Bills fans, is the Joe Brady hire.
Dave Nash
I don't mind. I don't understand that. I don't understand that one.
John Holmberg
I understand.
Dave Nash
I don't understand all.
Dale Hell Astray
You know, it's very easy to understand Joe Brady.
John Holmberg
Yeah. Is it money?
Dale Hell Astray
Maybe a little bit of money.
John Holmberg
But Josh Allen.
Dale Hell Astray
Josh Allen.
John Holmberg
Yeah. That's.
Dale Hell Astray
Josh Allen was. Is the only guy that you care about what his opinion is.
Dave Nash
And then Josh Allen made a mistake because.
John Holmberg
I agree.
Dale Hell Astray
All right.
Dave Nash
Here's your offense coordinator. That. That's. That's doing the. The offense wasn't the problem, was it?
John Holmberg
Not at all. Number one rusher in football, the quarterback.
Dave Nash
Obviously the problem. They needed actually to bring someone in there to actually.
Dale Hell Astray
So maybe he can bring a defensive coordinator. But all I'm going to say, it's just like with the Cardinals. Whenever players start coming out and defending a coach. Yeah. In a horrendously losing season.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
That means that they're comfortable.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Being 4 and 13.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
And coaches making it. You don't want that.
John Holmberg
No change.
Dale Hell Astray
No. I mean, the guy with the Raiders defensive end, Crosby, who's all world.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
But he's fighting for Antonio Pierce. Yeah. Yeah. It's like, trade me or sign it.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
No. You don't ever acquiesce to a player
John Holmberg
I liked in Pittsburgh that they just. They fired their defensive line coach or not bringing him back. And he's a guy named Carl Dunbar. He's. He's been great. That defensive line's been really good for a while. But comfort Bill Cower used to say that he goes, I'd fire coaches every three or four years to get new faces in the building.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes.
John Holmberg
You know, there's a few. Just certain things have to change or it gets stagnant. And it doesn't necessarily mean you're, you're, you're, you know, you don't pick the, you know, you're not going to do it to Dick LeBeau or somebody like that, but you're going to find a coordinator in there and go, you know, we're just going to make a move here. Or you're going to shuffle you out of the room you've been in for five years. You're no longer the wide receivers guy.
Dale Hell Astray
You know, let me tell you, I'm
Dave Nash
gonna remember what you said three years from now when we're doing.
John Holmberg
Why you know what I just say?
Dave Nash
We might need to change some faces.
John Holmberg
Oh, all right. Yeah. No, you know what? I've been thinking about that already, but
Dale Hell Astray
I had the same off as line coach in Dallas for like 11 years.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah. You know, but by year five, you'd heard it all. But they're coming over to our house for dinner. They're having Brooke and I over for dinner to their house. It's a completely different relationship to where obviously if I was a starter and playing it, it would probably be a little more uncomfortable as a backup. It didn't really. True. But it's just fascinating when you talk about that, that three, four, five years and all of a sudden you're the same player, same coach, and all of a sudden you're calling him Hud.
John Holmberg
Yeah. He's your buddy.
Dale Hell Astray
Yes.
John Holmberg
Yep.
Dale Hell Astray
It's, it's, it's kind of funny.
John Holmberg
Yeah. And I, and I, yeah, I do see that as kind of a thing that if you're gonna fire your head coach, you need to mix something up. And bringing up the OC when it never was mentioned before, like Joe Brady's running this thing.
Dale Hell Astray
Right.
John Holmberg
In fact, Bill's fans didn't like him because he was. He got Josh Allen. If it wasn't for Josh Allen, a lot of those offensive plays get killed because he's making things happen.
Dale Hell Astray
Josh Allen on his own.
John Holmberg
Oh, they weren't designed to go that way. Probably 15% of the time, and a lot of times you get, you know, the plays are all as executed, but, man, Josh Allen made that offense tick a little bit more than it would have. So hiring him was just sort of a weird move.
Dale Hell Astray
One last thing about that so my second to last year in Dallas, they hired Dave Campo.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Dave Campo started off as a defensive backs coach in 89 people in his back coach, I don't know, mid-90s by the time Dave wants to have went somewhere. And Butch Davis, all of a sudden he's defensive coordinator. He's kind of a little dude. He's camps.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dale Hell Astray
Like, you walk by him and you mess his hair up. Yeah, he's camp. And now he's the head coach.
John Holmberg
Now he's the man.
Dale Hell Astray
He's a head coach from within. You know, if he came from another team, we don't know him. But he's camp now. He's the head coach.
John Holmberg
Yeah. The dynamic can't change.
Dale Hell Astray
No, we still call. We still call him camps.
John Holmberg
Yeah, it's tough. It's even tough in any business when your buddy sitting next to you at the cubicle gets the job as your boss and you're like, yeah, I've been dicking around with you for 10 years now. You're my. All right, I'll listen to you. But it's tough for some people to absorb that, and it's not easy when you're in a testosterone fueled nightmare that you've got to control. Yeah. I look at that coaching things that have happened, I've liked most of them. I liked what the Ravens did. Didn't understand Miami search at all. That was weird. But they got a guy and you're like, I don't know if it was the right move or not, but that seems strange. But for the most part, everybody's been acceptable, save for maybe the Browns. I thought that was kind of crazy, and I love that it happened.
Dale Hell Astray
They heard Mangan, right?
John Holmberg
Yeah, yeah. The guy from the Ravens who.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
John Holmberg
Was getting the blame for why the Ravens offense was stagnant. It doesn't make any sense. But Todd Monken was the one, and the Browns are in the same spot. It's like, nobody wants this job. This guy seems to. He'll take it.
Dave Nash
Well, they had a guy in the building.
John Holmberg
Oh, for sure.
Dave Nash
Listen.
John Holmberg
But I don't think he wants to be a head coach.
Dave Nash
Yes, he did.
John Holmberg
Jim Schwartz wants to coach again.
Dave Nash
He did. He thought he had the job and now he's out. He's saying, I'm not coming back.
John Holmberg
Well, if I don't blame him for that. And when he made the announcement, every person that loves the Steelers was like, get him on the phone. He's the D.C. in Pittsburgh. Like, I would have loved that. But I think the fact of the matter is I don't know if they own him for a year or not.
Dave Nash
I think they. I think he's still in the contract.
John Holmberg
Yeah. So I think that was the kind of sticking point.
Dave Nash
Yeah, but I mean you can't make him coach. He's going to walk away.
John Holmberg
Yeah, well, I mean, I don't blame him but I mean you got again, you're going to mix it up. You got to get rid of everything. I don't think unless you were clear cut going Schwartz as the head coach of this team, that wasn't the case in. And they just want to get rid of Stefanski because that's the thing to do that, right? Yeah, but. But it's a crazy, crazy off season. We haven't even gotten to talking about Sam Darnold, Future Super Bowl MVPansky.
Dale Hell Astray
Is he hall of Fame coach didn't
John Holmberg
have a quarterback but he would be. We should put him in Dale. Let's get him in the hall of Fame because we both know that in in Dungeons and Dragons world over there, had we given him Tom Brady, he'd have clearly been in the hall of Fame. And that's the only reason reason you and I could have coached that team.
Dave Nash
It's nice you guys don't know quarterbacks. No, you know, listen, the Darnold he.
John Holmberg
Are we going back to that?
Dave Nash
He is a serviceable, very confident quarterback and that's all you want.
John Holmberg
30 wins in two years on two different teams.
Dave Nash
It's him that's a serviceable.
John Holmberg
No, it is not.
Dale Hell Astray
He's playing in a Super Bowl.
Dave Nash
You're talking.
John Holmberg
You're probably. I'll take his service thing you.
Dave Nash
But again, 8020 Rule 20% of the T guys have 80% of the talent and vice versa.
John Holmberg
He. He's moved into the top 10.
Dave Nash
Okay, I'll name you 10 quarterbacks I'd rather have.
Dale Hell Astray
Okay.
John Holmberg
Go Mahomes. Serviceable.
Dave Nash
Joe. Joe Burrow. Lamar.
Dale Hell Astray
Okay, hold on. Stop.
John Holmberg
I wouldn't take Joe Burrow over him right now. What?
Dale Hell Astray
No, hold on.
John Holmberg
He's not durable.
Dave Nash
No, hold on, listen.
John Holmberg
He's not durable.
Dale Hell Astray
No, hold on. You got Malone fight who's been who, who's gonna. Who's injured. Who knows what's gonna happen when he comes back. You got Burrow in Cincinnati. He gets hurt every year and a half.
Dave Nash
I, I would love to have Joe Burrow. I'm going off the characteristics or the criteria that I have one game to win. What do I. Who do I want as my quarterback? Okay, well if I want one game to Win. Who do I want as my quarterback
Dale Hell Astray
if I'm playing an NFC championship game last week? Yeah, I want Sam Darnold.
John Holmberg
Absolutely. And I've watched Joe Burrow not win big games in playoffs, so, I mean, they're kind of getting to the point
Dave Nash
where he got to the Super Bowl.
John Holmberg
I know.
Dave Nash
So did Sam Darnold, right?
Dale Hell Astray
Okay. Oh, he did.
Dave Nash
Matt Staff. Your Matt Stafford. Yeah, he. The kid from Sandy La.
John Holmberg
Herbert over Darnold right now.
Dale Hell Astray
I don't know.
Dave Nash
Caleb Williams?
Dale Hell Astray
No.
Dave Nash
Jalen Daniels?
John Holmberg
No.
Dave Nash
Drake? Maybe Prescott?
Dale Hell Astray
No.
John Holmberg
Jared Goff?
Dave Nash
I have. You take Jared Goff and I don't like Jared Goff.
John Holmberg
You've got five in a row you've named off that are at least arguably under sample.
Dale Hell Astray
He might be top five.
John Holmberg
I think they just made the argument we moved him up because you just rattled off four that I'm like. Nope. So, yeah, he's fifth. Thanks, Dave.
Dave Nash
Yeah, there you go.
John Holmberg
Top five quarterback.
Dave Nash
Will agree to disagree.
John Holmberg
Well, that seems to be the way you're going to run it, man. That's. Yeah. Darnold is a bad man right now. Like, he's.
Dave Nash
When I.
John Holmberg
He's making.
Dave Nash
When I say serviceable. It.
John Holmberg
You either have like Chris Chandler. Serviceable.
Dave Nash
Brad Williams, you have the elite quarterbacks. There's. There's six or seven every year.
John Holmberg
Brad Johnson.
Dale Hell Astray
Sorry.
Dave Nash
And then you have the other guys you can win with and these and all those names you can win with. I don't think Sam Darnold is going to win you a game.
John Holmberg
He's.
Dave Nash
You. You will win with him.
John Holmberg
He just did.
Dale Hell Astray
Doing it. It.
Dave Nash
He's not going to make special plays that other quarterbacks can't win. You want a.
John Holmberg
What game did you watch last year?
Dave Nash
I'm just sorry.
John Holmberg
He was whipping the ball.
Dale Hell Astray
Watch any of the playoff games. He.
John Holmberg
And again you're going to say, well, he's got that receiver that catches everything. But I mean the dude is putting the ball pinpoint on.
Dave Nash
All quarterbacks can be accurate. I'm not saying he's. What you mean he's more accurate than. Than, than the, the guys I just talked about.
Dale Hell Astray
You're not.
Dave Nash
He's more accurate than all those guys I just.
John Holmberg
Accuracy last week.
Dave Nash
He's incredible. He. I don't know how he even has
John Holmberg
an incomplete pass the last two games. I was marveling most at his accuracy.
Dale Hell Astray
He's.
John Holmberg
He was ridiculous.
Dave Nash
He's on a roll. Good for him.
John Holmberg
That's awesome. It happens to be.
Dale Hell Astray
He's won 30.
John Holmberg
30 games in two years.
Dave Nash
That's a Very good defense. Defense he had in Minnesota and a very good defense.
John Holmberg
And Minnesota without him caved.
Dale Hell Astray
Oh, God.
John Holmberg
The defense wasn't that different.
Dave Nash
And because they didn't have a serviceable quarterback, because Minnesota had a serviceable quarterback instead they would argue that they did
John Holmberg
have a service quarterback and they ended up with seven wins. Serviceable.
Dave Nash
That they. They won seven games with a quarterback.
John Holmberg
Aaron Rodgers is currently a serviceable quarterback.
Dave Nash
Correct.
John Holmberg
Sam Darnold is better than Aaron Rodgers right now.
Dave Nash
Correct. I'll agree with that.
Dale Hell Astray
Well, serviceable sounds, Dave, like you throw in a frappe machine.
John Holmberg
And yes, it also sounds like if he wasn't on the team. Plug in the next.
Dave Nash
I'll give you a comparison. I feel Sam Darnold is very similar to Dak Prescott.
John Holmberg
He.
Dave Nash
He very. He's good there. You can win with him. You can win a Super bowl with him.
John Holmberg
No, you can't.
Dave Nash
He's going to do the right things with you. You can win a Super bowl with Dax if defense ever gets together.
John Holmberg
No, you can't.
Dave Nash
Yeah, well, evidence.
John Holmberg
Evidence. Using logical courtroom evidence, you cannot win a Super bowl because you never get to it.
Dale Hell Astray
Because he has a chance.
John Holmberg
He's in one.
Dave Nash
I get it. But in regards to the quarterback position, I don't see a difference between Darnold and Dak. I don't see a difference between Darnold and Golf. And they're.
John Holmberg
And they're.
Dave Nash
And they're really good quarterbacks.
John Holmberg
I do.
Dave Nash
They're not.
John Holmberg
The guys you just mentioned aren't even in the playoffs and this guy's in the Super Bowl.
Dave Nash
Yeah, listen, he has a very good coach there.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
They have a great defense. They have a great running game. They have two good running backs. They have a good office line.
John Holmberg
Last week you're describing the New England patriots of the 2000s.
Dave Nash
Okay. Right. They have everything. They almost. They. They were not much different with Geno Smith. And I don't think much of Geno Smith. I don't think much of Geno. What's that?
John Holmberg
They had the losing record last year. They were. Or 9 and 8.
Dave Nash
Maybe they were.
John Holmberg
They were right around 500.
Dave Nash
They have a better defense this year. Better running game this year. No doubt about it.
John Holmberg
You just hate Sam Darnold.
Dave Nash
I don't hate him.
John Holmberg
You are racist against gingers.
Dale Hell Astray
Yeah.
Dave Nash
He is a.
Dale Hell Astray
Hey. And by the way, that's. That's going to blow your whole.
John Holmberg
Ruin everything up. I'm going to have to come back with a Nash argument.
Dale Hell Astray
That.
Dave Nash
Okay.
John Holmberg
Other than him, that's it. I wanted to talk about LeBron James.
Dave Nash
I don't see Darnold being any different than Baker Mayfield.
Dale Hell Astray
Wow.
John Holmberg
Except for.
Dave Nash
Except for he's there one better team
John Holmberg
around him and one isn't. They were. What are they? Seven and one to start the season and caved in.
Dave Nash
Okay.
John Holmberg
Right.
Dave Nash
My point is when he's going.
John Holmberg
Yeah.
Dave Nash
Baker Mayfield, when he's going, he's got a good team around him. You can win a Super bowl with him. You can win a Super Bowl.
John Holmberg
Dak.
Dave Nash
You can win a Super bowl with Darnold.
John Holmberg
You can't. You prove they. You have to get to the super bowl to win it.
Dave Nash
After this year, you can win a Super bowl with all those guys. You can't say that after next year.
John Holmberg
You could win a Super bowl with Neil o'.
Dale Hell Astray
Donnell.
Dave Nash
You could have no serviceable quarterback. He got there.
John Holmberg
That's a serviceable quarterback.
Dave Nash
That's correct.
John Holmberg
And then when he went somewhere and proved, oh, just that, the wheels fell off, he.
Dave Nash
I would agree.
John Holmberg
He never won 30 games in a
Dave Nash
row then
John Holmberg
a Super bowl. Serviceable quarterback.
Dave Nash
Brad Johnson, another great example. Dilfer is not even serviceable. But that was just a great defense that led him there. He was just a body that was taking snaps, staying hot.
John Holmberg
See, we don't even need the last five minutes. You've spent the first hour being insane today.
Dave Nash
Game over.
John Holmberg
I am tired of talking to you morons. All right, this is. This is a good one today.
Dale Hell Astray
It started off with, man, I'm really not arguing against Belichick in the hall of Fame, but you guys
John Holmberg
continue to anyway.
Dale Hell Astray
Wow.
John Holmberg
Gez Louise. I don't know what he's getting over there. It's that Summit Mayo Medical, but you might want to tone it down a little on that stuff.
Dale Hell Astray
It's is.
John Holmberg
That's it. Let's be done. The sports thing. A John Hoberg podcast featuring those two is all done. We're done. That's enough.
Episode 24 – February 2, 2026
Main Theme:
A deep-dive discussion into Bill Belichick’s Hall of Fame snub, the soap-opera nature of the NFL, the value of great quarterbacks to coaching legacies, the Pro Bowl’s decline, the state of the Arizona Cardinals franchise, and recent coaching hires across the league—with classic banter, stats, and strong opinions from Arizona sports figures.
The episode centers on the controversial “snub” of Bill Belichick from the Pro Football Hall of Fame’s first-ballot club, dissecting whether Spygate and Deflategate should tarnish his legacy, and the intricate link between head coaches and elite quarterbacks. The hosts also pivot to the dysfunction surrounding the Arizona Cardinals, weak coaching searches, and the problem with the NFL’s current Pro Bowl format.
Main Question: Why did the NFL keep Bill Belichick out of the Hall of Fame on his first ballot?
Key Quotes:
Debate: Does Spygate/Deflategate diminish Belichick?
Dave Nash’s Argument: Belichick without Brady is .400, essentially average.
Pushback by Holmberg & Hellestrae:
Funny Exchange:
Historical Context:
NFL Fandom as Drama:
Media Mastery:
State of the Cardinals:
Coaching Search Dysfunction:
Ownership Critique:
Media Relations:
Pittsburgh Steelers Hire Mike McCarthy:
Buffalo Bills Promote Joe Brady:
Lesson:
Darnold’s Rise:
Serviceable QBs:
Banter on Rankings:
This episode is lively, statistics-driven, and rooted in the hosts’ camaraderie, taking the audience through rants, stats, and laughs without losing sight of the bigger picture—the NFL thrives on drama and narrative, and even legendary coaching legacies will get dragged through the mud for ratings and relevance. Holmberg, Hellestrae, and Nash debate fiercely but amiably, channeling the voice of the grizzled sports faithful while poking each other, the league, and their own local teams in equal measure.