What the Football with Suzy Shuster & Amy Trask: Marshall Faulk 

Let's talk about game time tickets people.

We've been talking about it actually for months here on The Rich Eisen Show and our Rich Eisen Podcast. But guess what? There's something new to tell you about game time. There's a new feature called Game Time Picks that makes getting tickets to see your favorite teams play live even easier. Game Time Picks filters out the fluff to show you only incredible deals on great seats so you don't have to waste time searching through thousands of tickets. Yet another way that game time makes things easier for you when you're looking for tickets to anything in your area.

With the new Game Time Picks, it's curation easier to save more on sports, concerts, comedy, theater, and more. And with the all-in pricing feature, which is my favorite, you get to see the total up front so there's no surprise fees at game time checkout. And with game time, you always get the lowest price guarantee or game time is going to credit you 110% of the difference.

Plus your purchase is covered with the most flexible customer service policy in the ticketing industry. Take the guesswork out of buying concert tickets in particular with game time. Download the game time app, create an account and use my code EISEN for $20 off your first purchase.

Terms apply. Visit game time.co for restrictions. Again, create an account, redeem my code E-I-S-E-N for $20 off. Download game time today.

Last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed. Hi everybody. Week three of What the Football is Underway. Suzy Schuster, Amy Trask with you. Thrilled to be back here with you. Marshall Faulk will join us momentarily.

The Hall of Famer will zoom in. I insist that he comes in person next time, but he was selfishly on the road, but we promise to have him here. At WT Football Podcast on Instagram is how you can reach us. We look forward to hearing what you have to say about this podcast and ideas for future guests. I'm always open, so I'm curious to hear that from you as well. Amy, the Raiders in the news with Antonio Pierce talking about business dealings, talking about after the loss the other day, about players who are out there making business decisions, and that hit you.

And I'm curious to hear your thoughts on that. It grabbed my attention because those are the things that you hear said internally when you're part of an organization. You hear that a lot.

It's in the locker room. You hear it throughout the organization. Antonio stated publicly that which many coaches will only state privately. And to his credit, he was doing what I think one should always do.

To thine own self be true. Antonio stated publicly that which he wishes to state publicly. It'll be interesting to see what the reaction is internally in the Raider locker room. I believe there are players who support and agree and love that he said that publicly. There may be players who don't like that he said that publicly, but Antonio is being true to himself and saying publicly what few coaches are willing to say publicly. Most of them keep that within the confines of the locker room.

He was true to himself and he said publicly that which he wanted to say publicly. Look, for years and years, coaches have used the media and their time in front of it to get their points across. It's just a different time and it'll be interesting to see how the players react to that because back in the day, you know, Belichick never said anything so he knew that, so he would never do that. But there were certain coaches that would use that platform and it would get through to the players. But I wonder how the reaction will be now for him because a lot of players don't want to hear it. I think some players will react very positively because they'll think those teammates should have been called out publicly and there'll be some players, perhaps those who know they were being singled out, who don't like it. But look, what I believe about the best leaders is the best leaders lead in a manner that is true to themselves.

I can tell you, Suzy, that the only business decisions I regret are when I wasn't true to myself, when I was trying to be something or someone I wasn't. Antonio Pierce was being himself. Which players do you think needed to hear that loud and clear?

Oh boy, I wish I could answer that for you. I would have to go back and look at the all-22. And by the way, I'll tell you right now, after he made that comment publicly, they're all looking at the all-22 to figure out who he was talking about. Because there's no doubt that people watching the Panthers coming in thought there's no chance that the Raiders are going to go home with a loss. Well, and we're seeing that, you know, around the league would people have believed the commanders would go in and do what they did last night? And how about the Giants? Look, the league is built on a concept of parity. We discussed that at almost every league owner's meeting I attended.

The concept is that every fan of every team should have the belief that his or her team can win any given game. And we'll ask Marshall Faulk in a couple minutes, when he joins us, about why he thinks this team was successful in Carolina against the Raiders. Trying to make me cry. Let me ask you a question.

You're killing me Smalls. Do you still have an allegiance for the Raiders? Look, I spent almost 30 years with that organization. And while there are many, many, many colleagues I had throughout my years with the Raiders who moved from team to team to team, and one year they were wearing green, and one year they were wearing red, and one year they were wearing, you know, blue. I was a Raider for almost 30 years, and I didn't view that as fungible. I didn't want to move to another team. And when I chose to leave the Raiders, I had the opportunity to join other teams and chose not to. That's another thing that we'll talk to Marshall about, the fact that there's so many parallels with him and Saquon Barkley.

Right. I'm curious about what it feels like, and I will ask him about what it feels like to be traded, just because I think that that's something that very few of us in life can relate to. I mean, we change jobs. We change jobs. We get opportunities for new jobs. But if you change jobs, you're changing because you wish to if you were to get up and walk. Well, I don't know that you'd get up and walk out of the studio. You own it.

But if you were to change jobs, most often it would be because you chose to. How'd you like to get that phone call right this minute? Susie, we've traded you, and you'll be catching a plane tomorrow, and you're going to Kansas City.

And take your whole team with you and your whole family. Right. Although I think Al Michaels got traded for an animated character from Disney, didn't he? That's right, but I think he detailed the terms of that trade.

By the way, I don't think Al had to move away from his lovely home or his table at Toscana either. It is amazing though when you talk about that, and we talk about finding jobs. I was just thinking about LinkedIn because I would have loved to have had LinkedIn when I was looking for a job. And I would have loved to have LinkedIn when I was looking to hire people for a job because then you could just scroll through rather than going through all those papers.

Yeah, I basically had to beg people to hire me and like stalk them outside of their office buildings. But with LinkedIn, it's totally different. It's not just a job board. It helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't actively searching for a new job.

But they might be open to the perfect role. And in a given month, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites. So if you're not looking on LinkedIn, you're looking in the wrong place on LinkedIn. 86% of small businesses get a qualified candidate within 24 hours. Hire professionals like a professional on LinkedIn.

So post your job for free on linkedin.com slash WTF as linkedin.com slash WTF to post your job for free terms and conditions apply. Let's talk LinkedIn people and small business owning. I'm a small business owner. Yeah, I might host the Rich Eisen show, but I run it too.

Rich Eisen productions is a small business. And when you're hiring for small business, you want to find quality professionals that are right for the role. And that's why you've got to check out LinkedIn jobs. LinkedIn jobs has the tools to help find the right professionals for your team faster and for free.

It's not just a job board. This LinkedIn LinkedIn helps you hire professionals you can't find anywhere else, even those who aren't actively searching for a new job, but might be open to the perfect role. In a given month, over 70% of LinkedIn users don't visit other leading job sites. So if you're not looking on LinkedIn, you're looking in the wrong place. LinkedIn knows that small businesses wearing so many hats and might not have the time or resources to hire.

That's why you got to use them. Post your job for free at linkedin.com slash eisen. That's linkedin.com slash eisen to post your job for free terms and conditions apply. Hey everybody, you know, we're living in a new age of football with the expanded college football playoff NIL conference realignment and increasing popularity of the draft. The landscape is changing and it's changing quickly and it can be confusing, but you know, you're still into it. That's where the new podcast, the triple option comes in each week. Heisman trophy winner, Mark Ingram, host Rob stone and three-time national champion coach urban Meyer team up to bring on the biggest guests in college football, pro football, and anything related to the culture of the game. They cover it all from top stories to recent changes and shifts in the game, the culture surrounding it and everything in between. So get in the game today, follow and subscribe to the triple option on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts.

Watch the triple option on YouTube as well. New episodes drop Wednesday mornings. As promised, Marshall Falk joins us now, Marshall, happy to see you as I always am. Happy to see you too. Happy to see both of you ladies.

How are you? It's been a while. It has been a while.

I know, I know. What have you guys been doing without me? You know, it's selfish of you to be on remote by the way.

I like it when I call you and you show up and you sit here with us two old ladies and we'd like you in studio. So next time, please change your travel plans. I know you love being on an airplane. It's called right there.

Just saying. And there will always be a seat for you here. Yes, honey. Do you see why my relationship with Marshall works? Like no, Rich would never say yes, honey, and just go sit there.

Well, I mean, actually, yes, he would, but I guess this is just how I roll. Like this makes me so happy. I can go home happy now after this. And I get such street cred with my niece and nephew when we talk to Marshall. I mean, it's a big deal in the family. It's good. Well, we love having you on and it's not just because you're the perfect guest for this show. We're talking about Saquon Barkley.

We're talking about a lot of the comparisons that people are making with you and he, and I'm curious about what you see in the two of you. Yeah. You know, just the dynamic of how I left the coach and went to the Rams and what happened and joining the team with a bunch of playmakers. And it was awesome. It was fun.

And I remember how that opened it up for me. And now I'm watching Saquon and I see a lot of the similarities. The game seems so easy for him and I'm happy for him because after what, year one, it was a bunch of injuries, playing by himself a lot, didn't have much offensive line. You're a whole different running back.

The first move you make is on the defensive side of the line of scrimmage compared to you have to do some dancing in your own backfield just to get to the line of scrimmage. So I'm happy for him. I'm happy for him.

I reached out to him, told him that I love where he is. A lot of guys right now, they're getting in shape. He's in shape. If you watch him, he's taking most of the plays, playing a lot of the downs.

He's in there and it looks fun watching him. What did he say back to you when you reached out to him? Thank you, OG. Oh, nice. I'm OG now. Thank you, OG. I appreciate it. And he told me, he said, if you see anything in my game, let me know. I love that. I love it when guys do that. Okay. So what did you see that you'd give him feedback on?

I cannot divulge that. I will not ever, unless he said something, I will never say anything, but I complimented him on his game and where he is right now. And yeah, I love what I see from him right now. We know that the Giants owner, John Mara, had said in the off season on hard knocks that he didn't want to see Saquon go to the Eagles. And here he is reinventing himself after six seasons with the Giants. Do you think that Saquon is playing with a chip on his shoulder because he's hearing this and also knows how frustrated he was that he couldn't become who he wanted to be in New York? I don't think he's playing with a chip on his shoulder. I think the two games that he played against the Giants, they'll be played with the chip on his shoulder. But I see right now, he's just a guy just having fun, happy to be playing with the guys that he's playing with. And he's in a state that he's had a lot of success in playing football. If you think about his college days and he just looks happy.

It doesn't look like revenge. I know one thing, the Giants GM is happy that they won a couple of games with Saquon going off like this. This would be ugly if they were sitting at 0-3 or something like that. It'd be bad for the Giants right now.

I want to set this up just for the people listening at home. You both were drafted second overall, Saquon in 2018, Marshall by the Colts in 94. Both offensive rookie of the year selected the Pro Bowl the rookie seasons. Saquon six seasons with the Giants playing only two playoff games, both in 2022 before going to the Eagles in free agency. Marshall five seasons with the Colts playing in only two playoff games in 95 and 96 before being traded to the Rams for a second and fifth round draft pick with eight more seasons with the Rams and a Super Bowl. I mean, you hear that and the parallels are uncanny.

Yeah. Trust me, when the trade happened and he went to Philadelphia, I just started to think about what I was like when I got traded to the Rams and I was like, wow, Isaac Bruce, they got Tory Holt. We had a guy that a lot of people didn't know about, but I knew about him at San Diego State. I came and then we had a veteran. If you had watched Ricky Pro, I mean, he was, he was pretty much the offense in Chicago before they let him, before they let him go. I was like, man, I got some weapons. And we have a guy like Orlando Pace as your left tackle. We brought in an out of a Timmerman. It was just like this.

It was just perfect. And when I look at what Saquon has right now, the complimentary pieces around him, you can't just focus on him. It's so hard to do that. What's it like being traded, Marshall?

You know, I think there's two parts. There's when you're traded and you don't want to go, and it's traded when you want to go. I felt like I was in the position that I was ready to go. So the feelings were mutual.

The divorce was amicable. We both felt like it was time for us to part ways. I look at a trade when you don't want to go. It's like when somebody breaks up with you and you're still, you still want to like get back together. You're still hanging on.

That's the ugly one. When they want you to stay or you want to stay and it's just time for you to move on. So I'll be honest. It's not a good feeling, but when you go to the new team, it's a new start. It's a fresh start. And you get to rewrite the narrative and you walk into, you go from being very comfortable in the locker room to walking into the locker room and you're a stranger now. And you have to like, you have to prove yourself. You have to make sure that they understand who you are, that people understand how you work and that they can count on you. I think Marshall raises tremendous points.

Marshall, I'm nodding my head as you speak. There are trades where the player looks forward to being traded. There are trades where the player does not want to be traded. But the other thing people forget about all the time are players with families. You may have kids in school. You may have a spouse who has a job in the area.

And look, I get it. When I make these points, people say to me, Amy, look, players are paid a lot of money relatively, some more, some less, but still a lot of money as relates to people that have non-player jobs, if you will. So yes, people get fired all the time.

They get moved from one employer to another employer. But I don't think the fact that players are nicely paid diminishes at all the fact that someone has to walk home and say to their kids, either you stay here without me or we're moving you to a new town, we're taking you out of school, you've got to change schools, and says to a spouse or a significant other, oh yeah, by the way, if you don't want to stay here without me, you're going to have to quit your job. I mean, there's a lot of family impacts that trades have that I don't know that people, fans, others focus on. And some tell me, Amy, we're fans, we shouldn't have to focus on that. But I can tell you that coming from a front office, there were times we traded players where I hugged these men as they cried because of what it was going to do to their family life.

Yeah. And the tough part is if you've been embedded in that city and you don't want your family to leave, and now you have to leave them, you have to leave and leave your family behind. That's the tough part.

A lot of players, they do that. Let's say me, if I would have started in Indianapolis five years, my kids were in school already. Instead of uprooting your family, not knowing, you end up maybe spending a year with your family apart from them before you can get them situated. Because a lot of these trades, they happen middle of the off season and you don't have enough time.

Kids are in school already. You don't have enough time to do the moving. And the stress on the wife and her moving and her family, it's just a lot of stuff. So much goes into it, but we only think about the pawns that are being traded, the players and it's so much more. Well, and I can tell you, Marshall, from my years with the team, I thought about the families as well, because you're absolutely right.

Either the family stays behind, in which case a hundred percent of the responsibility falls on the spouse left behind or the family has to move. And either way, there are people in front offices who do care. I can tell you that.

Perhaps not everybody, but there are some. So what was it like for you that first year when you changed teams and you found yourself in that new locker room? First of all, who reached out and took you in?

It was collectively. The guys, they did a really good job at welcoming me. I was familiar with a bunch of those guys because my agent lived in St. Louis at the time and I spent a lot of time in St. Louis just getting away from Indianapolis at times. But I think what helped me was the first going to that first mini camp. I hadn't yet had my deal done and my agent convinced me to like, hey, just go to camp and see what it's like.

See if it's a place you want to be in. And man, it was Isaac and Tori and Ricky, DeMarco Farr, Kevin Carter, Grant Winstrom, London Fletcher, Todd Light. It was just so many guys that was just like, and I remember being at that mini camp and sitting around a bunch of us veterans and the guys just literally asking, why not us? Why can't we win at all? And that question was answered.

Sometimes you got to pose the question and have people rise up to the occasion. I remember that like it was yesterday. When you won the Super Bowl that year with them and you were the offensive player of the year, what was that like?

Just take us back and walk us through an experience that we can never really relate to. Well, most people don't know, I've won in a lot of sports. Every sport that I played, I won a championship and I had been successful.

And football was the only sport that I had, the sport that I loved the most, I had never won a championship. And I hate talking about this, but the narrative fits the story. My agent and I, we sat down with the coats and their brass at the time.

And none of the people that are there now were in charge at the time. So I can be clear when I say this, they asked us what we wanted. We said, we want a winning team.

We want to play indoors and we want to play on grass. And their answer to my demands were the Rams. So out of the three things that I asked for, they gave me none of them. And when I thought about it, it wasn't, I don't want to get into the semantics of what else, what other deals could have went on, but they weren't setting me up to win. I wasn't sent somewhere to go be successful. They weren't like, oh, Marsha, you were good here.

We're going to put you someplace where we're going to make sure you're okay. That wasn't the case. Because they were draft in the back as they were getting rid of me, the idea was they needed to suppress me in a sense.

They needed to put me in a position and a place that I wasn't going to be successful. And the total opposite happened. Not only was I successful, we won the Super Bowl. I won offensive player of the year. And listen, I thank God that Edger and James came behind me at a heck of a year, his rookie year, and continued to do well, he's in the Hall of Fame now. And that rarely happens. A Hall of Fame back follows a Hall of Fame back. That rarely happens at any position. But for it to happen at that position, for them to draft the both of us, me in 94 and then he in 99, that's a testament to, and I got to give the guy his props, Gene Huey, the long time running back coach there for always having us prepared and making sure that we knew what we were supposed to do and that we were responsible for the things that we were supposed to be responsible for. But like I said, I wasn't put in a situation to succeed.

They didn't send me there. Oh, you know what? We're going to help you out. We're going to send you to the Rams. They're a great team.

There were only two teams that had lost more games in the 90s than the Colts, and that was the Bengals and the Rams. Which player do you see out there right now that you think is not being put in the position to succeed the most? Oh man, because this is the talk right now. I don't know what the dynamic is and what is going on, but you're not going to tell me that Bryce Young is as bad of a quarterback as he is. You're just not going to tell me that.

I am sorry. You're not going to tell me that. The kid that I'm watching play, I watched Bryce Young play in high school.

You're not going to tell me. You are not going to tell me that this kid that we're watching playing right now, you can't tell me that. I remember, and I'm going to tell you this, you have to know how to coach quarterbacks that need windows to throw. I remember Drew Brees, how he struggled in San Diego before he got to Sean Payton. Sean Payton was a shorter quarterback himself, and he understood how to find throwing lanes for Drew to throw in because he wasn't tall enough.

It worked out for him. The difference in Drew when he was with the Saints in New Orleans with Sean Payton compared to when he was in San Diego with the Chargers, totally different guy. I think Bryce needs someone who understands the dynamic of having a shorter quarterback throw, where the throws are, how to create the windows, how to move in, and how to help this kid. Because right now, you can say what you want, and this is no shot at Andy Dalton. If you're telling me to Andy Dalton that you're starting quarterback right now, and you're not giving this kid a chance to get better just because you want to win a few games, okay, cool. We're not in the business of growing and developing players.

We need them to come in from college ready, so what we need to stop doing is we need to just eliminate the rookie salary cap, allow them to be paid like the starters, get the contract that that got the way they used to be able to do, the way Bradford and Stafford got it, and pay them accordingly if that's what we're going to ask them to do now. Let's talk DoorDash people. If your family's like mine, it probably is. You want something to eat, your kids want something else to eat. How do you handle it all? How do you make sure everybody's happy? DoorDash, that's how you make sure everybody's happy. The food delivery app is the most awesome on-demand delivery platform that you can go get to make sure that food comes to the places you like right to your table. It's awesome, especially now that football's finally back, which means it's time to order your favorite game day food, snacks, and drinks on DoorDash without missing a single play.

And here's how I can help you. Use my promo code, RichEisen24, for 50% off up to a $10 value when you spend $15 or more on your first order. Limited time offer, terms apply. Promo's not valid for orders containing alcohol. DoorDash, your door to game day greatness, your door to more.

Download the DoorDash app now to order your game day favorites and use my promo code, RichEisen24. Must be 21 or older to order alcohol. Drink responsibly.

Alcohol available only in select markets. This message is sponsored by Greenlight. As your kids get older, some things about parenting gets easier and others do not, like having that conversation about money and keeping track of it and making sure they understand that money just doesn't grow on trees and don't take it for granted. The fact is kids won't really know how to manage their money until they're actually in charge of it, and that's where Greenlight can help. Greenlight's a debit card and money app made for families. Parents can send money to their kids and keep an eye on kids' spending and saving while kids and teens build money confidence and lifelong financial literacy skills. With the Greenlight app, kids learn how to save, invest, and spend wisely thanks to games that teach money skills in a fun, accessible way. And then they can also learn about money on Greenlight. It's the easy, convenient way for parents to raise financially smart kids and families to navigate life together.

My family uses it for my oldest son. You should do it too. Sign up for Greenlight today and get your first month free when you go to greenlight.com slash rich. That's greenlight.com slash rich to try Greenlight for free.

Greenlight.com slash rich. I'm glad you turned to quarterbacks. I have a question for you in that regard. We saw this training camp period as well as this preseason that some teams with quarterbacks who'd been very injured didn't play them at all in the preseason, like the Jets, like the Falcons, and in the case of the Bengals, they played Joe Burrow one series in the first game and then no more. We also saw teams with rookie quarterbacks not playing their quarterbacks a lot in the preseason.

I'd love to know your thoughts. Look, I remember a conversation I had with Al Davis during training camp, and we had it again in the preseason, where he would want players taken off the practice field in training camp out of a game in the preseason. And I would say to him, Al, you can't put them in bubble wrap. And then we had a very, very bad injury.

And I said, you know, about that bubble wrap theory, there may be something to that. But look, it's a risk-reward analysis. If you put a quarterback out on the field in training camp, or more importantly, in a preseason game, he can be injured.

But if you don't put him out, you're not getting the reward of practice. And I would love to hear your views on that risk-reward analysis, how much you play a quarterback during the preseason and not. Yeah, I think it's based on the quarterback's experience, not just in the league, but in the system. When I look at, when I watched what Washington did and what the Jets did with two veteran quarterbacks, and you watch both of them come out and be a little rusty. And Kirk Cousins talked about it in the first game, he was just like, man, I was rusty.

I wasn't as ready. And it speaks to what we are saying. And now what's starting to happen is these first three weeks are like the new preseason. You know, it's the new preseason. You, you, you, you really try to get your guys, and it's attrition. You want to keep your guys healthy. You want your guys to knock the rust off and you want to try to win games. You want to, you want to look, to be honest, you want to look like Kansas City. These are games that they would normally run away with, like games. They find ways to win and you keep everybody hurt and knock the rust off. Patrick Mahomes said, but he's just like, I'm not where I want to be.

Like I'm missing girls. And we saw him throw the ball behind guys, throw the ball too high. And that's just not like Patrick Mahomes. And if the starters, if the, if the veterans are doing like that, then you know, a young guy is going to struggle. And look, you are, you know, last night, I'm just saying you're absolutely right.

Yeah. Last night, Troy, Troy Aikman did a great job at showing where Jayden Daniels needed to mature and like where he's, and this is, this is the advantage of having an athletic quarterback when it's not there. It's not a, it's not a dead play. He's able to run and get yards. But as he started to mature, a couple of those plays that Troy showed, they ran and they hit him game. He saw the route that time. And I was like, that's what knocking the rust off looks like. But Marshall, he played five years.

And look, I know that I am an outlier on this. And we'll talk about this, whether or not these kids need to sit and need to mature and need to, you know, like learn from these quarterbacks in front of them. Not everyone is CJ Stroud, but to me, Jayden Daniels, Amy, he, he played long in school. He learned how to be a more efficient quarterback. He did. He did. And that helped him. That, that helped him. But right now in the league, when you draft these guys, you know, they, these teams, they want them to come in and help right now.

Case in point. And let's, let's, let's give it, I want to give this kid some kudos because when I saw him the last couple of years, I was like, wow, Malik Willis, like what he's doing in Green Bay. Oh my God.

Oh my God. I mean, LaFleur got him looking like, looking, looking like he should be a starter somewhere. It is amazing what good coaching, let's be, let's be real, what good coaching can do. You're seeing the difference in good coaching and watching this kid play some solid football, looking like a guy who should be a starter somewhere in his league.

And Suzy, to your point, and you and I discussed this last week with Steve, the new collective bargaining agreement, and it's not new anymore, but it's the current collective bargaining agreement. When that agreement went in, it would became very obvious you're not going to sit players as long as you used to. In the olden days, if you will, you could sit players for a long time and let them learn.

Teams don't have that luxury anymore. Listen, where we're at right now, all right, where we are at right now, Patrick Mahomes is the only guy to win a Super Bowl, not on a rookie deal. Like, you know, these rookies, like they're trying to, these teams is like, we got to win with these quarterback on a rookie deal because once the quarterback get the big money, did you see what the Deshaun Watson offensive line looked like? Did you see what Joe Burrow offensive line looked like? Look at all these, did you see what Dak Prescott offensive line looked like?

Do you see what happens now? You have to be a guy that they win, not just win with, but win because of when you start making 40, 50 million. You got to be the reason why they win. You can't just be a part of a win. Before we move on from Bryce, why did they win with Andy Dalton? It's that third, why did the Giants look like they could build world beatings yesterday? You know, that's that desperation game. You know, it's like you come out and you play your hardest. And when you change quarterbacks, when you change quarterbacks, everybody else, the play caller, the blocking, the receivers, the running back, it's like, okay, they switched quarterbacks, so we can't blame the quarterback now.

That's literally what happens. Everybody, when they change quarterbacks, everybody steps their game up. And I love Andy. I think Andy's going to do a good job. He'd be serviceable, but Andy would be a guy that you can win with him, but you're not going to win because of him. What about Caleb Williams?

What are you seeing in him? And are there comparisons to what you saw with Peyton Manning's first year in Indy? It's, yeah, it's the struggles that he's going to have. You know, when you're confident in your talent, as he is, as Peyton was, you're going to challenge the narrative.

You know, he's trying to see how good he is. And if he can deal with the backlash in Chicago, and listen, there's a lot of experts who know a lot of football in Chicago that sit and watch games that knew exactly what they should do with him, but they've never played a doubt. And those people, if you can drown out that noise, learn from what you're going to go through this year and take that and get better and come back a better player next year. But if he can withstand all the criticism that he's going to take, all the bumps and bruises, and he doesn't get hurt, and he plays all 17 games this year, he's going to be, he has it.

Like, I'm telling you, the kid, he has it. Well, he also has to withstand, and you just mentioned, not getting hurt. Not only does he have to withstand the criticism, he's got to withstand how many times he's getting hit. They have got to find a way to make sure that he's going to protect him. You made him your first pick. He's your future. You believe he's your future.

Find a way to protect that player. Yeah. And listen, hey, Chicago Bears fans, Justin Fields wasn't that bad.

That's exactly right. I mean, what do you make of that? What do you make of him? We heard Mike Tomlin. Someone asked him if he was going to name him the starting quarterback, and Tomlin dressed him down as only he can, but what do you make of Justin Fields right now? Here's what I'm going to say, Suze. Good coaching is hard to find.

All right? When you know how to develop people, and you know how to, you relate to them, and you find out their strengths, and you coach to their strengths, not to your strengths as a coach, not calling players that you know like as a coach, to the player's strengths, look at what Arthur Smith is doing with him at quarterback. They're running things that the kid is good at doing, and then they're bringing along all the timing stuff that needs, but they're doing what he's good at.

Marshall, I wish I could jump through this screen and hug you right this minute. The best coaches, best positioners, the best coaches, best position their players to be their best. They don't force players into a scheme for which they're not suited. They devise a scheme around the talent of their players, and you know, Suze, you nailed it. We saw Justin in Chicago. We now see Justin in Pittsburgh. The best coaches, best positioned players to be their best. Marshall, you have a thought?

No, that's it. You know, the narrative used to be when quarterbacks came to the NFL, you had to get them NFL ready, and I just say, man, just think back when a Steve McNair or a Michael Vick or a Vince Young, when they came to the NFL, if you just allowed them to be who they were, what would they have been? Because today's quarterback, guess what you better do? You better do some RPOs.

You better run some spread. You better put him in a gun, because that's what we're getting now, because we don't have a minor league system. We have to deal with what college gives us, and that's what college has given us. A bunch of kids who they've never taken a snap from under center. A lot of them, they've never even been in a huddle, call to play, and now this is what we have to deal with, and these teams that are trying to turn those quarterbacks into pro quarterbacks.

No, you play with the quarterback's tools that he has. I love what what Houston did last year. They literally took the kid, Stroud, and they worked with his strengths and got his weaknesses stronger instead of trying to get him to do stuff he wasn't good at.

And then he got better at what he wasn't good at and developed into a guy who was able to go and play good ball in the playoffs. So, just impressed with what they did, what Danico Ryan did, and just pay attention. Pay attention to the guys whom are having these conversations and developing. They've been around players. They've either played as a player and they're saying the things that need to be said to get the best out of guys. Case in point, I'm gonna tell you right now, Shanahan is not asking Brock Purdy to do things that he doesn't do well. And in fact, when Steve Young was on last week on What the Football, he basically laid out what Brock Purdy had to do to have a game. And by the way, when we taped it, we didn't know that Kittle was out yet, but we had no idea that he was going to have to do exactly what Steve Young said, which was use your legs, create. He's going to have to become that quarterback we need him to be. And you're right, Shanahan lets him develop his game the way he should play his game.

Yeah. A lot of coaches get stuck in their play calling in the playbook and calling what they want to call. Now, call what your quarterback is good at. I remember Mike used to always ask Kurt or he'd ask Trent, what do you like? Tell me what do you like. Okay.

Now, tell me what you don't like so I can stay away from that. And that's how we went about in games, knowing what the quarterback like, knowing what he didn't like, and making sure Mike was putting him in the position to be successful. When Al Davis named Hugh Jackson, the head coach of the Raiders, that's the first thing Hugh did.

He sat down with Darren, he sat down with other people. What do you do best? How can I put you in a position to be your best? And it was really something to see the difference he made.

Yeah. That's how you help players. You first ask the player what he likes, you get him to do what he likes, and then sometimes you got to ask him to go do the dirty work. Anytime Mike called my plays and they need to ask me to go cut a defensive in, I was happy to go do it. I got my plays called. Because I know that you like to get out there and do the dirty work.

But here's my question for you. I watched the other night Lamar Jackson, and I said to Rich, I said, God, I wonder how many people, if he'd gone to a different team, they would have fixed, quote unquote, his mechanics. And it's funny that you mentioned Vince Young, because I remember at the Rose Bowl watching him play that game against USC, and he drove Pete Carroll insane. And he had that crazy delivery too. And I just thought when he got to the NFL, they didn't know how to coach him.

And all they did was focus on his delivery. Whereas maybe if Lamar Jackson had gone somewhere else, they would have tried to tinker with that a little too much. I think that plays into what you said about having a coach that lets you play to your best abilities. I'm wondering what you think of that. Yeah. It's right, Suze. That's a huge part of it.

Good coaches can work with what you have. You know what I never heard? I never heard anybody trying to change Philip Rivers' throwing style. I never heard of it.

Nobody never tried to do it. It was how he played the game. And he played the game effectively for a lot of years playing and throwing the ball the way that he threw it. So when you get an AFT by the quarterback, for whatever reason, you feel like you need to fix some things. I'm so glad that Jalen Hurts, a guy that, you know, Nick Saban, as great as Nick Saban was, Nick Saban couldn't figure out what to do with him. He ended up going to Oklahoma, figuring it out.

And you get drafted and you go to an organization that's willing to put the time into you and allow you to get better. And now a premier quarterback in our league. Well, look, we all know that quarterbacks often take the brunt of the blame, and they do get quite a bit of the compliments when the team wins. But you've got to control for a lot of variables when you're assessing a quarterback's performance.

And we talked about Chicago a couple of minutes ago. You can't assess him, in my view, until you properly protect him. And does he have a running game? And how's your defense? If your defense has given up a huge amount of points per game, then you're asking your quarterback to score and score and score and score. So what are a quarterback's two best friends? The running game, because if you have to defend the run, less pressure on the passing game. And a defense, because the fewer points your defense gives up, the less points you have to score. I mean, it all works together. Yeah.

Oh, man. These quarterbacks, when you look at just the money that was given out and where teams are at right now, if I'm the Jacksonville Jaguars, I'm like, what? If I'm a fan of the Jacksonville Jaguars, I am irate. And listen, I don't want to say Armageddon, but there's no way you give Dr. money you give him and you have the record that you have right now. It's not possible.

It's just not possible. I know he doesn't play defense, but the here's what happens when you give a guy that kind of money and you get in the games that he got into, when you have to outscore, if you have to outscore your defense, not planning, you got to outscore. You have to, you have to put points up on the board and that's what happened. That kind of money means it's, it's playing defense by putting points on the board.

That's what you're doing. So was this DAC contract a bad contract then? I can't say that because the Cowboys need him. They need him. Jerry, Jerry, Jerry's not selling Jerry world without, without, without, without DAC as his quarterback, you know, and they're stuck in a rock and a hard place.

What do you do? You can't just let him go without a replacement. Well, you know, you go, okay, well, Hey, we're going with Trey Lance. Hey, sweet holding.

You just paid 800,000 for a sweet. We're going with Trey Lance. Oh hell nah. He's right. You're right. You're right. You're right. You're right.

Hell nah. But we talked about this. All them damn marketing banners going to come down so fast.

We talk about this all the time though. How frustrating is it for you then to see these quarterbacks get these massive deals? And we know that the running game continues to be devalued. And yet this is right now in 2024, 25, we're seeing the running game bigger than it's been in years and valued more than it's been in years. I'm happy for, I'm happy for the quarterbacks.

I'm not going to lie. I'm happy for that. I'm happy for any position that gets paid.

I don't care if you get overpaid. I know a lot of people talk about Kirk cousins. I'm happy for Kirk cousins. Kirk, hey, keep getting the bag, Kirk.

I'm happy for you. Now for my fellow running backs, what I need y'all to stop doing is, excuse my French. I don't know if y'all going to roll with this. Stop taking your ass out of the game. Stop taking your ass out of the game. Stop wanting to have two, three backs play. You got to play fresh. If you want the bag, show them that you can play and you can play the majority of the game and you're not just tapping your head to come out. I mean, don't ask for money. If you want to share time, they got to pay three of y'all. They got to pay three of y'all back there. So you, you can't get the big money that the quarterbacks are getting or that the receivers are getting. You, you, you, you proven you devalue yourself by coming out of the games. Who's running the best right now?

Oh man. That's a tough one. Well, up until last week, obviously Alvin Kamara was, he was looking good. Saquon's doing really good.

You know what? And it's crazy that it looks unconventional, but Derrick Henry, when they line up in the eye and they run the football, that don't look like football, but that is football. It's so much football that teams don't know what to do against it. Dallas was like, they didn't even know how to line up to eye formation. It was like, like they hadn't seen it in so long because it's been the spread and you just, you just can't do much with him. I, I, I liked, I liked the tandem. I liked the tandem that they had, um, uh, in Kansas city, uh, just two power guys, uh, in the, in the, in the young kid, I can't think his name with the ball statement at UCLA.

Look, man, when you get your chance, you make the most of it. He's trying to play every snap. And when you watch Pacheco running, when he's playing, he's trying to play every snap. Um, I'd also go with, uh, with cook, uh, in Buffalo, love what they're doing with him. Uh, he's playing very well. Um, but you know, those are the guys that I've seen, um, uh, Aaron Jones, uh, playing really well.

I like what I'm watching from him. Uh, there, there's some guys really getting it done. Okay.

Since you brought up Buffalo, Josh Allen was saying it's nice to have players who don't care about stats and there had to be a dig at Stefan Diggs, right? I mean, there had to be. Yeah, man, I might, you know, sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, you know, you gotta, you gotta know when to just shut up. Yeah. You gotta know when just, just to shut up, you know, it's like, that's that, that was a, that was a comment that was uncalled for.

Um, you gotta take the high road. It was after the win. It was classy.

You just, you just blew the socks off of somebody. And you know, that, that wasn't called for, you know, that was not called for. I felt like that was, you know, a little classless of him. All right, Marshall, you raised the issue of sometimes needing to know when to not say something. I have a question for you in that regard about Antonio Pierce and after the Raider game coming out and saying there were men out there who made business decisions and now we're going to make some business decisions. Um, that grabbed my attention because we know those are things that when you're within an organization, you hear those things said internally.

You don't often hear them said publicly. What were your thoughts about Pierce saying that publicly? You know, AP has always been a guy that I played against him and, um, you know, he's true. He's, he's not going to sugar coat it.

He is what he is. And, um, you know, I, I don't think people really understand that, you know, he's not just the coach of the Raiders, like the kid, I mean, as a kid, he's a Raider fan and now he's coaching his childhood team. And the identity of the Raiders, um, was they were, they were, they were big, they were bad. They were fast and they were going to kick your ass. That was the Raiders. That's what they tried to do. And it was some guys making business decisions.

It was some guys like, I'm a hold you, you hold me. No, that's not how you win games. That's not how you win games. And when you got an old school coach, you know, a younger guy, that's an old school coach that played the game.

Like I'm talking, you know, balls to the wall. Uh, uh, he, he will knock you in the dirt. Like Antonio Pierce. That's the way he, he, if you're not playing like that, you're going to see other people subbing in, just watch.

He's going, he's going to find some guys who want to play. I, Susie, I agree with Marshall. Marshall, I agree with you.

Um, my motto, and it was taught to me from the time I was a little child to thine own self be true. And that's what Antonio was. He was Antonio.

And I've said this before, he has them playing like Raiders. Um, and that's what he was saying publicly. I'm going to tell you, there's coaches when they get up to the podium, Antonio Pierce is one, Mike Tom is one, Dan Campbell is one.

There's no sugar cold. They're not tap dancing around anything. Like they are going to tell you the truth and they're going to let you know. And, and, and if they can't tell you, they're going to be like, we're going to handle that internally. You're going to hear one of those.

We're going to handle that in turn, but, but they don't take it true. Marshall, we love you. Thank you for your time. As always, come sit here next time.

It's just a little bit more. You have my word. You have my word. And I know what that means. Marshall Falk.

Thanks for your time, babe. Thanks, Marshall. I always learn so much when we have Marshall on. And I think today what I'm taking away from this more than anything is his thought that these kids need some kind of system in a way to mature. I mean, not everybody can come out like CJ Stroud. And I, as a former college football reporter, I watched these kids who spent the more time, spent more time there in school and learned how to be a better player.

I understand this is a billion dollar business. And as we talked about with Steve Young, that there isn't the time that the collective bargaining has changed everything, but you had to have seen that in the games this past weekend. Jayden Daniels looked like a grown man and made such mature decisions.

And the game is played in the red zone. He was calm, cool, and collected in it. And you, you can't help think that what Marshall just said about having that time would just so greatly impact these players. And I enjoyed his comments on coaching.

I agree with him entirely. The best coaches best position their players to be their best. And I thought his coaching insights that he shared were terrific. Enjoyed going through all the different positions we discussed with him. It was a really fun conversation. I hope anybody out there will go to WT football podcast and will reach out to us with your thoughts, comments, and questions. We're developing more guys coming on and women as we go throughout this season.

But always interested to hear what is interesting to you as well. But go back and listen to Steve Young, by the way. He was spot on with how the 49ers needed Brock Purdy last week. It was a pretty great conversation. Our thanks to Marshall Faulk.

We love, of course, having him on. And Amy, it's great conversation with you. I like this new version of what the football just in-depth conversations. And that's exactly what we promised when we started this podcast. Smart conversations. That's and I love it.

There is space for it all. Thanks again for taking in this week's edition of what the football we will see you next week. React or overreact with us. This one makes it much easier. So thank you for making it easier. Tune in next week. Overreaction Monday, wherever you listen.