2-7-23 After Hours with Amy Lawrence PODCAST: Hour 3

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The trick? Simply start with bite-sized steps, like Goalie's Apple Cider Vinegar Gummies with added B vitamins for daily health. Or Goalie Ashwagandha Gummies to help you relax, restore, and unwind.

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Learn more at Goalie.com today. The flock of eagles has, in fact, made its migration to the desert, as have the Kansas City Chiefs. Chiefs and Eagles just a few days away now. Super Bowl 57, it all comes down to this.

It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio, halfway through. And I'm so excited that many of you are finding our second installment in our Super 6 game. And I'm so excited that many of you are finding our second installment in our Super 6 series. So check it out. It's about the snooziest Super Bowl snoozers of all time.

And it's only available in one place. So that's kind of the fun of this week. At least we think it's fun. I hope you don't mind. For those of you who love to see our videos, and many of you do. And I'm doing this for you because I do not enjoy being on camera. I do not enjoy the process of looking into that green or red light. It makes me break out in hives. I'm a radio girl through and through.

So it's way out of my comfort zone. But you love the videos and Jay loves the videos. And so I'm doing the videos because I know you all appreciate them. And we want to generate some fresh content this week.

So because of that, we've come up with six different categories or six different themes for six different videos. Leading us into Super Bowl weekend. But we're making it more of a scavenger hunt, if you will. You've got to go find them. We told you where the first one was. It was on our YouTube channel. We put the link up on both Twitter and Facebook. So ALawRadio plus our Facebook page. Although all you really have to do is just go on YouTube and Google the name of our show and it will pop up.

That's really easy. While you're there, please like and subscribe because producer Jay is getting ready for another birthday. And so he would love it if you would subscribe to our YouTube channel. He watches the numbers like a hawk or like an eagle, if you will. Not while he's on vacation. But if you would go ahead and subscribe and like, he would be thrilled.

It's an early birthday gift for him as he's getting old. And so that's on YouTube. Easy to find. The other videos the rest of the week, we're not going to tell you where they are.

You just have to go and look for them. So whether you're joining one of our other social media sites or whether you've got both and you're tooling around, whatever it is, we just want to be a full service operation. And so we invite you to be part of it. And who knows, maybe you're procrastinating at work. Maybe you're unable to sleep. Maybe you are doing something else that you shouldn't be doing. And so instead, you can go ahead and fool around on social media and find our latest videos.

Like I said, we're here to help. And we'd love to hear your snoozies as well. Your Super Bowl snoozies. Actually, I kept trying to type snooziest on the page and it kept autocorrecting to snoodiest.

No, no, no, no, no. We're not looking for your snoodiest Super Bowls. We're looking for your snooziest Super Bowls of all time. Get It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. I mentioned this to start the show.

I spent the entire hour. So this is now two Mondays in a row or two weeks in a row, I should say, when I've spent more than an hour of my time listening to an athlete's podcast or a podcast that comes from football players themselves, because what I've found, and I'm sure it's the case with you too, when we're not just listening to clips and soundbites, you get a much different perspective. And I love the Kelsey brothers. I think they're hysterical.

I'm learning so much about the two of them. And I'm big into the sibling stuff anyway, simply because I have a brother that I was very close to that I grew up with. And because I really adore the idea of brothers and family and it being a family affair. So this is great. I don't care if we call it the Kelsey Bowl.

Some people are upset by the fact that it's been branded that. But they are hysterical. They're a hoot. They go back and forth at each other.

Jason Kelsey likes to poke his little brother still, despite the fact that they're both NFL players and millionaires. And so I've really enjoyed their podcast. But my goodness, you have to wade through a lot to get to their actual football talk, because that's not even remotely the most important part of their podcast in their opinions. And the success of their podcast, by the way, has given them a lot of open doors.

They were actually the emcees of sort for opening night. As for Tom Brady, I believe that we're getting a different perspective on Tom and from Tom in his podcast. He's more authentic.

He's more open. The number of times I've heard the man cry on his podcast or get really angry at Jim Gray for a question he didn't like, he laughs. With guests, he's very self-deprecating a lot of the times, but also he very much defers to his guests.

He's got a lot of people that he admires and he looks up to. And so what I've learned about Tom Brady, and I know a lot of people are tired of Brady, he's the greatest quarterback we've ever seen. He's about to be a broadcaster come 2024. He's going to be on Fox every week, every Sunday with the game of the week. I really enjoy getting to know a little bit more about him beyond the football field, because for so long he was tight lipped and a closed book.

And that's not who Brady is anymore. Now this special edition of his podcast on Monday on Sirius XM Radio was one that Jim Gray really orchestrated. Now I think Tom was probably privy to some of it. Bill Belichick was their first guest. Peyton Manning was their second guest. And then toward the end of the hour, his parents jumped on the show, and his mom, very sweet, his mom Galen, she gave, well she spoke for both her and her husband Tom Sr., and gave this really sweet tribute to her son. But in the context of family, what it's meant to their family to be able to support Tom, and how much it's a bittersweet retirement for them, because it's been such a neat thing for their family to be able to root him on and to watch him play, how much they've enjoyed it as a group. And she said it's really kept our family together in a different way. And so that was awesome. He cried, of course, when his parents were on the show. Oprah dropped in. Patrick Mahomes gave a special message in which he said, I'm really happy for you, but I'm also happy to see you go. We'll be chasing you for all time. Snoop Dogg with a classic tribute that only he can make. And then Jack Nicklaus recalling when he and Tom Brady met at the Masters.

So really cool stuff. But for you, as football fans, I wanted to share a few clips, because these are conversations and admissions I've never heard before from Bill Belichick and from Tom Brady, but also from Peyton Manning. So just a few things here that really jumped out at me. What is very often a common, I will call it a misconception, but a common assumption about Belichick and Brady? How often have you heard that the two of them don't like each other? They respected each other, but their relationship and the friction between the two of them was the catalyst for Brady leaving. That he bristled at the way that Belichick treated him like everyone else on the team, and that he bristled at how Belichick was all football all the time.

The two of them were together on this podcast. And what Belichick said, first of all, it was the type of compliment that you don't very often hear from Belichick. He was raving about Brady, raving about him.

And yeah, it's easier to do once the guy's retired. But I think if you hear the emotion in Brady's voice as he's hearing this, you know it's not just Belichick blowing smoke. He actually means what he says about his former QB. Tom's had just a tremendous career. It was funny, I was out at the East-West game last weekend, and of course Tom's picture is up there everywhere as a player in the game, along with a lot of other Hall of Famers.

I think I had like 70 Hall of Famers playing that game or something like that. That's kind of where it all started, Michigan, the Orange Bowl, the East-West game, and the greatest player, the greatest career, the great, great person. It's such an opportunity and an honor for me to coach Tom.

And I guess it's got in at some point. It's the greatest one ever. So congratulations, Tom.

Appreciate it. Tom, what did Bill do to bring out the best in you? I think it's more what did he not do to bring out the best in me. I was just very lucky. I think part of it, I came into my career and got drafted by the Patriots. I always joke, I had no idea where New England was when I got drafted. I flew into Providence, which really confuses you if you're coming from the West Coast, because I'm like, Boston, Providence, and it was Coach Belichick's first year there.

And we came in together. I always think for so many young players, who's going to be there? Anybody could get drafted to a place. Who's going to turn you into something? Who's going to develop you?

Who's going to take you under their wing? And sometimes it's a player that does it, and I definitely had a lot of players do that. And obviously, I had someone that really saw something in me that not a lot of other people did. Remember, Tom Brady was a sixth-round draft pick out of Michigan.

He wasn't a highly touted pick. And Belichick went on to tell the story of how Brady won the job, going back and forth with Drew Bledsoe and then some of the quarterback competition and what was a really young class when Brady was early in his tenure with the Patriots. So what you hear in Brady's voice is the emotion. Bill Belichick, who many would say is one of the greatest football coaches of all time, he is raving about his former QB in a way that Brady clearly doesn't hear very often because it makes him extremely emotional.

But did you catch the one sentence that he started and didn't finish? So Jim Gray says in the middle there, what did he do to bring out the best in you? And Brady starts to say it's what he didn't do that brought out the best in me. And then he kind of reverted to the story about thank you, Bill, for taking a chance on me. Thank you for seeing that I had the potential.

Thank you for drafting me and kind of the joke. Brady's no different than a lot of people, right, when he gets emotional. What does he do? Make a joke, right, to kind of diffuse the mood, so to speak. But he starts to say it's what he didn't do. Now, fast forward a little bit in the conversation and Jim Gray kind of brings it back and says, what about this idea, Bill, that you treated Brady the same as everyone else and that Brady bristled at that, that he wasn't treated like a superstar. So Jim just kind of lays it all out there. And Belichick actually says, no, no, you guys have got it all wrong.

It wasn't me who needed to treat him the same as everyone else. That actually came from Brady. So he goes back and he talks about how he would call out Brady in meetings and then he would catch up with him after the fact. That was as much a part of Tom as it was me, you know, because there were a couple of meetings where I would say something to Tom after the meeting, like, hey, you know, I didn't really think that was that bad, but I just want to include you in there with everybody else. And Tom would say, Coach, you have to, if you don't yell at me, then what am I going to do with all the rest of my teammates? I've got to be in there with all the rest of them and say, hey, he's yelling at all of us and we've all got to do better.

But if you leave me out of it, then I don't really have a platform to work from. So, yeah, go ahead and rip my ass too. Go ahead. I got the green light on that.

I went ahead and took it. But the thing that players always, they always come back to me and say, hey, the first meeting, Bella checked out on Brady. I'm like, he's going to talk to Brady like that.

I better be straight. You know, I know what's going to happen to me. And Tom's, you know, acceptance of that and also then his ability to lead his teammates by putting himself in the same boat with everybody else. Like, yeah, we all got to do a better job. You know, he's after me just like he's after everybody else.

Let's go. That's a tremendous platform to lead from. And Tom recognized that. And, yeah, you know, was he our best player? Did he make the fewest mistakes out there and all that? Yeah, but everybody can do better. Every coach, every player, no matter how great they are. Is it possible that a lot of people have had it all wrong?

Now, am I going to sit here and tell you it was all sunshine and roses all the time? No, these are two very strong personalities. These are two guys who are so driven that, of course, there's going to be friction. Of course, they're going to disagree. Brady said over and over in this conversation with Bella check, which lasted, I don't know, seven, eight minutes that he and Bella check met multiple times per week. They didn't always agree.

But the common goal was one that kept them together. And how about that? Bella check says it's Brady who gave me the green light to rip my ass. That that's his word because he didn't want to be treated differently than anyone else. That's a tough sell in the locker room, right? Isn't that one of the questions, one of the issues surrounding Russell Wilson right now? That he sets himself apart in the Broncos locker room and in the Broncos facilities, that he doesn't look at himself the same as every other guy in that locker room. It's something Sean Payton addressed.

We're going to hear it before the end of this hour. He was asked about Russell Wilson having his own personal staff in the facilities. He was asked about Russell Wilson getting his own separate set of rules. Bill Belichick is known for being ruthless as a GM doing whatever is best for the team. But he says he wanted Brady to know, hey, I don't really have a huge problem with what you did here or there. Of course, you're the best player on the team. And Brady said, nah, I can't stand in front of a locker room full of guys.

And have any credibility if you treat me differently. In order to lead, I need to be on the same level, quote unquote, is all these other guys. Not saying their relationship was perfect. Neither one of them said that. But Belichick raved about Brady as the greatest of all time and raved about him as a leader and the fact that he did not see himself as better than everyone else. Brady went on to say in response to a question from Jim Gray, and I thought this was really interesting, this is kind of where they ended. Jim Gray said very often in sports, you're associated with someone else, part of a duo, a winning duo. And obviously in their case, they are the winningest coach quarterback combination in NFL history.

I don't know that anyone will eclipse it, though. If A.D. Reid and Patrick Mahomes get ring number two, they're a third of the way there. Anyway, Jim Gray said to Brady, what's it like to be associated with a duo? And he said, this is Brady, there is no one I would rather be associated with. Whatever you may think about Belichick chasing Brady out of town or that relationship being the reason why after 20 years and six Super Bowl rings, they couldn't work together again, you've got to think again. I get it.

He's retired now. It's easy to say all the right stuff. But Belichick doesn't go out of his way to flatter people. That's not who he is.

This was eye-opening for me. I'd never heard this before, though I wasn't completely on board with these two guys hating each other. Brady mentioned it multiple times. It's so stupid. It's so dumb, the narrative around Belichick and I. You don't have to be best friends. You don't have to be BFFs to win together.

We know that's the case. I mean, relationships change over time. But the respect that these two have for each other and the care that they have for one another, what they built together, that relationship will withstand the test of time and certainly has withstood the rumors and the conversation around it being a breakup when Brady left for Tampa. I'm telling you what, you should go back and listen to the Let's Go podcast on Sirius XM, narrated by Jim Gray, but really more of Brady and Belichick back and forth. You just don't get this kind of stuff very often.

Now, Peyton Manning was also a guest, and he actually reveals something about his career that directly ties to Brady that he said in prefacing it, I've never told anyone this before. I tell you, good stuff. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on Twitter, ALawRadio, also on our Facebook page, After Hours with Amy Lawrence, our YouTube channel as well.

Two videos now, two down, four to go. We're glad to have you with us as we morph into a terrific Tuesday, right? Right? It's going to be a terrific Tuesday here on CBS Sports Radio.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Relax, restore, and unwind. Tastes like wellness just got a whole lot better. And when goals taste this good, it's easy to achieve them. Goalie, taste your goals. Learn more at Goalie.com today. Goalie gummies get you so close to your goals, you can actually taste them.

The trick? Simply start with bite-sized steps, like Goalie's apple cider vinegar gummies with added B vitamins for daily health, or Goalie Ashwagandha gummies to help you relax, restore, and unwind. Tastes like wellness just got a whole lot better. And when goals taste this good, it's easy to achieve them. Goalie, taste your goals. Learn more at Goalie.com today. Goalie gummies get you so close to your goals, you can actually taste them. The trick? Simply start with bite-sized steps, like Goalie's apple cider vinegar gummies with added B vitamins for daily health, or Goalie Ashwagandha gummies to help you relax, restore, and unwind.

Tastes like wellness just got a whole lot better. And when goals taste this good, it's easy to achieve them. Goalie, taste your goals.

Learn more at Goalie.com today. In what may be the final game of his Hall of Fame career, he and the Denver Broncos are world champions. They have won the underdog. Denver Broncos have defeated the Carolina Panthers, 24 to 10 as the confetti flies. Denver is your Super Bowl 50 champion.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. Seven years ago on this Tuesday, it was not only the coronation of Von Miller as the Super Bowl MVP, it was the last we would see of both Peyton Manning and Demarcus Ware. And if you remember those two guys, remember the story, those two veterans, whether or not they knew it was the end of their careers, maybe, maybe not, they spoke to the Broncos locker room the night before and the tales that have come out of that, how emotional it was, how motivating it was for Denver.

They really wanted to win for those two veterans and ultimately both then retired going out as Super Bowl champions in San Francisco or Santa Clara that was. So yeah, wow, six years ago this morning. And yes, the Broncos, what, six years ago? You said, oh, seven years ago this morning. Seven years ago, it was 2016.

And yes, I did. And it's been a long seven years for Broncos fans since Peyton Manning retired and they have yet to sniff the playoffs. It's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio, that of course Cam Newton, too, the MVP of the regular season. And man, how his career changed after that Super Bowl appearance. I'm not 32.

No, definitely not anymore. And so the walk down memory lane, actually one of you posted on our Facebook page that that is the biggest Super Bowl snoozer of all time. Can I tell you, even though I had to work that night, I could not sit down. I was pacing around my damn living room.

I could not sit down. It was tense. Anyway, back to Peyton Manning because this is really more about him, but thank you Kevin Harlan on Westwood One. Peyton Manning, in addition to Bill Belichick, was a premier guest on the Let's Go podcast that Brady did on Monday and it was really a retirement edition. So no Larry Fitzgerald, just Jim Gray kind of working in and out of the various guests who wanted to honor Tom Brady's career and also share memories of him.

And so of course Peyton. Now I don't know if you guys caught this, but Peyton said when Brady retired, he and Eli did kind of a two-off on NFL Network, right, last week. And Peyton said, he was joking, that Tom had invited him to be on the podcast. So Tom invited him over a week ago and he was giving Eli crap because Eli was not invited to be on the podcast. Eli, did you get invited to be on his podcast?

No, probably not. He's never invited me to anything. So yeah, very different relationship that Brady has with the two Manning brothers. So Peyton shows up and a couple of the revelations we got. One, he sent Brady a handwritten note to congratulate him on his retirement.

And also, as he's doing the podcast on Monday, he shares a couple of funny stories that I really appreciate. I mean, Peyton's funny, he is. He says that he was really thrilled when the Texans joined the NFL because there was realignment. And so the Colts were no longer in the AFC East with the Patriots, so they didn't automatically have to play twice a year.

So he told that funny story. He also said that he told every single new member of the Colts roster and the Colts locker room that they had to beat New England in the opener. And a lot of times it was the opening game of the season because they were two high-profile teams and obviously two high-profile quarterbacks.

So he shares this funny story about how some of the younger players thought he was Cray. I would tell our rookies in this opening game of the season, we have to win this game. This is the most important game. It's opening day.

What does it matter? We got 16 weeks. I'm like, no, if we don't win this game, we're going to have to come back here in January. This is a tough place to play anytime, but it's really tough in the playoffs. And that was the approach when you played these guys. Yeah, he's saying you have to win this game now because home field advantage in the AFC championship game could be on the line. So talk about the foresight of looking ahead from the opener. So a couple of different elements that Peyton Manning was sharing, but this is the one that I'd never heard before, and there's good reason for that. Peyton thinking back to his days when he was a free agent.

I mean, he prefaces it by saying, hey, this is new. Now, I've never told anybody this, but Tom was a big reason why I decided to stay in the AFC after I left the Colts. I easily could have gone to a couple of NFC teams, but I thought, no. Look, I played against Tom a bunch in the Patriots, and eventually you're going to have to play them at some point. Even if you go to the AFC and you make the Super Bowl, you're probably going to play them. I said, you know, let me at least try to earn it in the AFC, you know, seeing them in the playoffs. So I enjoyed those games. I enjoyed that rivalry.

And so that was actually one of the reasons I decided to stay in the AFC in Chapter 2 for me. And you hear Brady say, wow. So clearly when Peyton says I've never told anyone this before, I mean, just when you think you've heard and seen everything of Peyton Manning that you need to see and hear, because he's everywhere. It's not like he's gone away.

He's still extremely popular. He shares a lot of funny stories on the podcast. I'm sorry, not the podcast.

The cast that he does on Monday Night Football with his brother Eli, so the Monday Night Mannings, as I call them. I mean, he's constantly telling stories. We hear him on the golf course. Every time he gets interviewed, he's got some kind of a goofy story. But he prefaces that by saying, I've never told anyone this before. So, yeah, that was one thing I put out there on Twitter on Monday as I was listening.

I even paused it to make sure I went back and listened to it again and I had the details correct. He actually chose to remain in the AFC when he was a free agent. He picked the Broncos because, in large part, he wanted to have those yearly battles with Tom Brady. He liked those games against the Patriots. He really looked forward to them as much as it seemed like for most of his career, Brady and the Pats had the upper hand against Manning and the Colts. But, yeah, there were a couple of real good AFC championship games that took place once he went to Denver as well. So, good stuff on the Tom Brady, Jim Gray, Let's Go podcast, the retirement edition. I really enjoyed hearing what Bill Belichick had to say.

It's just rare form. You don't often hear Belichick in that space. And Gronk was on it too, though I feel like Gronk is, well, you know Gronk.

He's not going to tell you a whole lot that he's never told you before. I love puppies. They didn't talk about puppies. So, Bill Belichick, Peyton Manning, and then, as I say, there were a bunch of cameos moving forward from Jack Nicklaus and Patrick Mahomes who had just recorded a message. Oprah, she lost me somewhere in the middle of her inspirational message, but Tom was really touched by it. And really, I think my favorite part was his mom sharing how much his career, an extended career, had meant to their family and how it had kept their family together. She even said, as much as we're thrilled for Tom in retirement, it's bittersweet because we loved supporting him and because we've had such joy in our family around watching him and watching his career. And, of course, Brady got all choked up. So, the two times when he got choked up and you could hear the emotion in his voice, Belichick and his mom. I mean, that's saying something. We don't have time for that.

Yeah, it's a time when it's okay to be emotional. If you didn't hear it, by the way, he has revealed that he will wait until 2024 to take over in the Fox broadcast booth. Brady himself trying to explain why he retired, that was a little more complicated, a really funny exchange with Jim Gray that we'll save until next hour, but I swear to you, this is why I tuned into the podcast originally, was to hear it in his own words why he retired, and I still don't really know, actually. James heard it. When you heard that exchange between him and Jim Gray where Jim tries to pin him down and Brady responds and actually makes fun of Jim, he contradicts Jim. I don't really feel like still I know why Brady retired. Something about a fresh start, but that's really it.

Yeah, not many answers. If anything, it's more questions to be asked after hearing that. And just as a side note, he didn't want to prolong the questions of whether or not this was final, this was it, but he very much refused to say never. He very much refused to look ahead.

All he would talk about was living in the moment. It is what it is. Really good stuff, and I know I spent an extended amount of time on it, but again, greatest quarterback of all time and some revelations I've just never heard before from Bill Belichick and Peyton Manning as part of that podcast. If you are a serious XM subscriber, it's always, and I have it on my phone, but it's always on demand to their Let's Go podcast. It's not like you have to hear it live. It's preserved in a special on demand, similar to our show where you can get it on demand every single day. Every single day, I still get people who ask me, can I find your show somewhere online? Is it possible to listen to your show even though I'm not awake when you're on the air?

Every single day. I feel like I talk until I'm blue in the face about our various ways that you can listen, but I think that's good because there are new people. Let's assume they're new to the party and not oblivious.

We'll just assume they're new and they're joining the party late. We're glad that you're asking. Thank you. Thank you for asking. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence.

You are listening to the After Hours podcast. Learn more at Goalie.com today. Goalie gummies get you so close to your goals, you can actually taste them.

The trick? Simply start with bite-sized steps, like Goalie's apple cider vinegar gummies with added B vitamins for daily health, or Goalie ashwagandha gummies to help you relax, restore, and unwind. Tastes like wellness just got a whole lot better. And when goals taste this good, it's easy to achieve them. Goalie, taste your goals. Learn more at Goalie.com today. Goalie gummies get you so close to your goals, you can actually taste them.

The trick? Simply start with bite-sized steps, like Goalie's apple cider vinegar gummies with added B vitamins for daily health, or Goalie ashwagandha gummies to help you relax, restore, and unwind. Tastes like wellness just got a whole lot better. And when goals taste this good, it's easy to achieve them. Goalie, taste your goals.

Learn more at Goalie.com today. Last month I said we were looking for a strong leader who could build a winning culture, one with accountability and discipline, and also build a really strong identity on offense. I couldn't be more proud of where we came out, and we have the perfect coach in Sean Payton.

This is After Hours with Amy Lawrence. That is the voice of Broncos owner Greg Penner on the hiring of Sean Payton, introduced on Monday in Denver. And it's still such a strange dichotomy to me always, when you've got two teams, the last two who are standing, and they're building toward a Super Bowl, and all the hype, all the buzz, all the electricity this year in Arizona. And then you've got the rest of the NFL, who's now moving on to the business of next year.

And in some cases, there is a benefit to having this early jump. Now, no team would trade it, right? Every team would rather be where the Eagles and the Chiefs are right now. But we still have head coaching vacancies in the NFL.

The Cardinals' candidates are down to two, I'm not sure if you heard. But Brian Flores has been hired as the defensive coordinator in Minnesota. So remember, Kevin O'Connell fired his DC. I mean, the Vikings had a rough defense this year, specifically against the pass.

It was bad. It seemed like teams were able to rack up all kinds of passing yardage against them, and ultimately, it turned out to be their downfall. And so the Vikings hire Brian Flores as the DC, but you may or may not know this, he was one of the finalists for that job in Arizona. So he was the head coach of Miami. Remember, he got fired there before they hired Mike McDaniel, and he filed a lawsuit against several teams in the league, as well as the NFL as a whole, citing discrimination because he's an African American, and there are others who have spoken out in support of him. He also accused the Miami owner of giving him incentives to tank, so giving him incentives to lose games on purpose, right? So that lawsuit is still ongoing, though the NFL has done its own internal investigation, and surprise, surprise, has found that the owner did not engage in that practice. Anyway, Flores has not withdrawn his lawsuit. It's still active, this discrimination lawsuit, and it was Mike Tomlin who gave him a job in the NFL last season. So he was the senior defensive assistant and the linebackers coach under Mike Tomlin, and he spent that year there, and I know I heard multiple times, either players or Tomlin himself raving about the addition to have this former head coach, this guy with so much experience who, of course, came from the Belichick coaching tree, part of their brain trust there, and now he will take over the Vikings defense that desperately needs an overhaul, finished 31st in the NFL in yards allowed, and so even though they're keeping Kevin O'Connell and even though they won 12 games this year, they're also replacing a bunch of different coaches.

Right, so you've got Flores taking his name out of the running in the desert. Meanwhile, the Cardinals' coaching search is down to two. Don't tell me. I feel like I know the names. Don't tell me.

I'll remember them. Anyway, to get back to Peyton, and I'll share those before the top of the hour, but to get back to Peyton, he was introduced on Monday now that the Broncos feel like they've finally got their man. So D'Amico Ryans goes to Houston. They can't lure Jim Harbaugh away from the Michigan Wolverines, and so it's Peyton not saying in any way that they're settling for Sean Peyton, but maybe the compensation required by the Saints was a bit of a deterrent. So the question now becomes, the most important question for Peyton becomes, what do you do with Russell Wilson? How do you get the best out of Russell Wilson? And Peyton says he believes that we've not seen the best days of Russ, right, that they're behind him, that there's still plenty more that he can contribute to an offense, and it can still be a high-level QB. But the comments that made headlines were not so much about how he can tweak the offense and how he can use Russell Wilson and put him in a position to succeed, but about Wilson having his own personal coach and members of his own personal staff in the Broncos' facilities. Now, what has been a criticism of Russ lately? Not just in Denver. We're hearing the rumblings of it. In fact, our guest last week, a former Denver Broncos wide receiver, Mike Pritchard, mentioned Russell Wilson alienating himself in that Broncos locker room.

Depends on who you ask. There are some players who say no way. There were members of the Broncos who spoke up and said, you know, Russ is one of us.

He's working just as hard as the rest of us. But he did reportedly have his own quarterbacks coach and members of his own staff in the building. And Sean Payton was asked about that on Monday.

Is that something that he will allow? That's foreign to me. That's not going to take place here. I mean, I'm unfamiliar with it, but our staff will be here, our players will be here, and that'll be it. Our staff will be here, our players will be here, and that will be it.

Payton was then questioned more about Wilson and he went on to say, the last couple of weeks of the season, there was a little more of what I expect from Russ. And he talks about evaluating players, figuring out what they do well, trying to put them in that position. So highlight strengths, minimize weaknesses, that's what any boss, what any head of a corporation, a GM who's in charge of hiring personnel, that's what they would tell you to.

Doesn't matter what industry you're in. You figure out what your employees do well, and you put them in a position where they can utilize those talents and skills and abilities. I loved his answer, and maybe we can find this at some point, Jay. He was asked about fitting an offense around Russell Wilson to, in fact, accentuate the positives, if you will, and Payton says, quote, none of us want to be at a karaoke bar with a song we don't know the words to.

In essence, I understand. You've got to put Russ in a karaoke bar with a song that he knows, plays that he knows, notes that he's comfortable with, if we're using the singing analogy. So Payton did talk a lot about Russell Wilson. As you can imagine, that was the most important part of him getting hired there in Denver, is do you have a plan?

Can you figure this out? Because whether we like it or not, and I don't know whether or not the Broncos' owners would tell you that they're thrilled with this, the problem is their wagon is hitched to Russell Wilson's store for now. For the temporary, for the short term, there's no one in the NFL who will take that contract, so they can't trade him away, and they really can't afford to cut him because the cap hit would be so astronomical that they would essentially be starting all over again at the quarterback position. So yeah, Payton talked a bunch about his offensive philosophies, but really was kind of noncommittal in terms of how he would make changes to Russ, only that he's got to evaluate and only that he's got to figure out how they can put the quarterback position where he's comfortable, thus the karaoke bar reference, and where he is using his skills and what made him an above-average quarterback, a Super Bowl winner, a Pro Bowler for 10 years in Seattle. It's After Hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio, one more with the GM of... Actually, we're going to skip the GM because I really want you to hear...

I just looked at the clock and realized we're running up against the clock. Melvin Gordon, who's a free agent now but was with the Broncos this season, says people have it all wrong about Russell Wilson. Russell's been dealing with injuries since week one, since we played with Seattle, and he a warrior, so he like me. You deal with injuries because it's part of the game, you don't make it out to be an excuse. You deal with it, you take it under the chin when people say you're not performing well, but he wasn't healthy as people think.

People don't understand how hard he worked. He dedicated his life to making that Broncos team better, and it just didn't fall how he wanted to, and sometimes that's how life worked. And Broncos country, they tough though.

They tough. They want to win as they want to because they had some great ones come through, but he going to get them there. It might not have been in the first year, maybe not might be in the second year, but I know who he is as a person and as a player, and he going to get them to where they have hope again. Melvin Gordon not the only one who has spoken out publicly in defense of Russell Wilson. You have to take everything you hear with a grain of salt, but there have been multiple reports in both Seattle and Denver that he does have a way, whether intentional or not, and I don't believe it's intentional. It doesn't seem like there's any malice with Russell Wilson. He doesn't seem like he's that kind of a guy.

He's kind of nerdy, kind of goofy. Now, is he in a stratosphere that most NFL players don't know? Sure, because of the money he makes. It's the same thing with Aaron Rodgers, right? And people asking whether or not Rodgers hangs out with his rookie teammates.

I mean, we heard that refrain last week. So it's not as though he's going to be BFFs with everyone in the locker room, but part of the issue is that he makes a ton of money. He can afford his own personal trainer and personal quarterbacks coach, and he's got a $25 million home with his superstar singer and actress wife. I mean, there is going to be some separation just by virtue of a lot of the rank and file, and the NFL can't identify with that, but there are ways to play that down and to feel more like you're one of the guys, and how often have we heard that about Tom Brady? To kind of go back to where I started this hour, Brady didn't want to be treated any differently than anyone else, according to Bill Belichick, because he felt like in the locker room that would, again, set him apart, alienate him with his teammates, and he didn't want that. Can Russell Wilson find a space and find a way where he is also one of the guys in Denver? By the way, Gordon was on KOA in Denver.

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