Shaun King | Former NFL QB; Super Bowl Champion

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Search for NCAA March Madness right here in the Odyssey app to get started. Sean King making his second appearance here on the show from Visa Live. His show is three to six Pacific, six to nine Eastern Time on that network based in Vegas. But Sean, obviously a former NFL QB, a Super Bowl champ from his time with the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. And Sean, why don't we start with Les Snead, who says that Matthew Stafford is not available. In fact, calls him a pillar of their franchise moving forward.

And yet we're hearing reports that the Rams are shopping him to other teams. Why would they do that? Well, I think they're in a position that not a lot of organizations have been in. Like they made a conscientious decision to not build their team through the draft. To sacrifice draft capital capital capital. I'm sorry to acquire veteran free agents to make a run at a Super Bowl. They accomplished that and won a Super Bowl.

But now the bill is due. So they're trying to figure out how do we reconfigure our roster to make ourselves relevant moving forward? So I'm assuming that they are exhausting every avenue to try and make that happen because they don't have draft capital, but they have a roster that's devoid in certain areas. Yet they are maxed out salary cap wise because they've acquired all these high priced veterans. So I think they're trying to make a decision.

It'd be interesting for me. How much football does Matthew Stafford have left? I mean, he was the number one pick before the draft changed from a compensation standpoint. So he came into the National Football League with a huge deal, got paid again by Detroit, traded to LA.

Another big deal. I mean, coming off of a year where he really battled injuries, he's already won a Super Bowl. How much football does he have left? So if they can move him with the understanding that he's probably not going to play too much longer and get some of their draft capital back, it makes sense. It's a supply and demand problem for those teams that desperately need QBs. I feel like there would be a market for him, even if it's only for a couple of years.

Well, absolutely. I mean, Daniel Jones just got paid what? Derek Carr just got paid what? Like, no offense to either one of those young men. I'm glad that they got the bag, but I mean, the market has created this cash windfall for starting quarterbacks. Like, even if you're not elite, I wake up every day and like, damn, I wish my draft class was like born like 15 years later. Like, this is crazy. Well, then thinking about the highest paid quarterback currently who is Aaron Rodgers, and we don't know exactly what his decision will be, but let's just say for the sake of argument that the Jets do get their man in Rodgers.

How do you like that marriage? From a business standpoint for New York, it makes sense. But let me put context on what I'm about to say. Winning a Super Bowl is difficult. The National Football League has the most parity of any professional sports league in the world. It's the only league where every fan base legitimately has an opportunity from one offseason to the next to go from a not even in the conversation to a Super Bowl champ. Look at the Tamale Buccaneers, the team that I grew up rooting for. Think about pre Brady and then with Brady.

And so I get what the Jets are doing. The difference was Brady was motivated. He was going to try and put everything he had into winning a Super Bowl without Bill Belichick, because that would separate him legacy wise. I don't know that Aaron Rodgers has that same thing. Like when you listen to Aaron talk, when you really focus in on what he's saying, he seems more like an athlete that's accomplished a whole lot individually. Who knows he's going to be in the Hall of Fame? Who doesn't really care about the hierarchy of his legacy? Five, six years ago, people were talking about Aaron Rodgers and maybe the best quarterback ever.

Now nobody has them in that conversation. So I just don't know for what the Jets would have to give up. Is it worth it to ascertain a what will be 40 year old Aaron Rodgers who's talked about retiring the last three years? But what else is there if you're a team that feels like you're a quarterback away?

Well, if I was Woody Johnson's right hand man, and trust me, I think Woody is leading this cavalry. Yes, he wants Aaron Rodgers. He has not had a legit elite quarterback since Brett far and he wants Rogers.

He feels like in the AFC in order to go up against Patrick Mahone's Joe burrow, Josh Allen, Justin Herbert, all those guys, you have to have an Aaron Rodgers type player. My thing would be Woody Lamar Jackson is 26 and Rogers is 39. We're going to have to give up basically the same thing because I'm assuming the Green Bay New York Jets deal for Rogers is going to mimic in a lot of ways the Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos trade last all season for Russell Wilson, right? Which included multiple players going back to Seattle. So if you're Green Bay, how do you give up Aaron Rodgers and it not include sauce Gardner or breeze Hall or Garrett Wilson. So you can get Lamar Jackson at the same price point and give up two first round picks. Like that would be the avenue that I will be going down if I was a Jax.

Sean King is a former NFL QB a Super Bowl champion from his time in Tampa, and now part of visa and live based in Vegas and he's on primetime, which is three to six Pacific it's after hours with Amy Lawrence on CBS Sports Radio. Alright, let's talk about Lamar Jackson. I understand why teams and in this case is the Ravens would bulk at a fully guaranteed deal if you're Lamar or if you're advising Lamar.

Are you sticking to that Sean or at some point do you have to come back off it a little bit for a comfortable position for your future? At this point, I don't think you can compromise. Now I don't advocate professional athletes not having representation.

Once you get into corporate America and you get in the business ownership and different things you understand negotiations are volatile because both sides are trying to do what's best for them. So to be personally involved as a professional athlete, I don't know that you ever would feel your current boss is the same because they're going to offer you things that you think are disrespectful, but that is the art of negotiation. How does Lamar Jackson ever walk back in that building after not getting on the plane with the Ravens and attending the playoff game versus the Bengals? Like that was when I felt like, OK, he's played his last snap with the Ravens.

I don't know how you walk back and take back and rework that relationship. Do you sign the franchise tender or do you say heck no? Absolutely not. I mean, you've basically gotten what you wanted, which is if there was a team willing to pay Deshaun Watson, he hadn't played for a year and you knew he wasn't going to be able to play for the majority of the year they signed him. You've got to think that at 26, a team will be willing to give Lamar Jackson the same thing, right?

He's already won an NFL MVP. I know the NFL is moving away from it, but they're currently the only professional sports league in America that doesn't regularly offer guaranteed contracts. So we find in life, everything's about evolving.

Everything's about pivoting. There's a time in America where people were like, nobody's going to use a cell phone. Nobody wants to drive and talk on the phone. So, I mean, things will change like that we thought would never happen. So what's the issue with not having guaranteed contracts? Like that's the question I always have for the league side of this debate.

What's the issue? Explain that to me, like give me something rational in 2023 that is a legitimate argument about why contracts in that league should not be guaranteed. Especially with the quarterback position, you're talking about guys that are taking a lot of hits and if someone suffers an injury, it isn't the same again. You're talking about a league in which you can go from worst to first in one season. It's because of the salary it kind of changes a whole lot if you are paying a quarterback or any player who is not able to play or isn't the same guy anymore.

Yeah, but the New York Giants just extended Daniel Jones. They can't get out of that deal. When Dallas gave Dak Prescott that deal, they can't get out of that deal. Like those deals, even if the money is not guaranteed, aren't easily sent off.

You can't like easily get out of those deals. Yeah. Russell Wilson in Denver, same thing. Right. Interesting debate.

Sean King is with us here after hours on CBS Sports Radio. So we'll see whether or not Lamar gets a guaranteed offer from another team. Obviously then the Ravens have to determine if they want to match or if they want to allow him to walk. What did Kyler Murray just get guaranteed from the Cardinals?

180 million I think. Right. It was pretty close to Watson, not quite Watson, but it was up there. Like what are we talking about with Lamar? Come on. Like Lamar is five X Kyler Murray currently true until like this contract thing became like the main topic of every national platform.

This happened probably about a year and a half ago. You had never heard anything negative about Lamar. I mean, Lamar is from Florida.

Like Florida boys like play football, like for the love of the game. You know, this is, this isn't Aaron Rogers who talks about retiring at the end of the, every, the last three years. This isn't Aaron Rogers. Who's what is the Hayabusa or Maya Watson or whatever.

Like this isn't, somebody's going to sit in a dark room for four days. Like Lamar hadn't been on any podcasts. Like Aaron's on and I love Pat McAfee's doing a great job by the way. He's on Pat McAfee's like podcast during the year.

Like this isn't the same thing. Nobody's ever questioned Lamar's desire to pursue a championship and do everything necessary for his team to win that championship. Why the hesitancy to pay him, but yet no hesitancy to pay Derek Carr. Who's had multiple coaches with the Raiders, Oakland and Las Vegas. He's had Amari Cooper. He's had Devontae Adams. He's had Darren Wallace. Like he's had multiple players that are better than anything that Lamar Jackson ever had in Baltimore. But again, I ask you if you're Lamar in his camp, do you take 180 million guaranteed or do you draw the hard line and go, no way, we are not taking anything less than fully guaranteed.

It's interesting because do you want to be a martyr? Lamar could be the player that changes how the NFL does business. He really could. You're talking about a guy that's 26 years old that plays the premium position in this league.

That's already won an NFL regular season MVP. Who doesn't want that? And if nobody wants that, then there's definitely collusion involved in this situation.

This is definitely the owners getting together, trying to push back on one. There's more than rogue owner, but Haslam's one of the rogue owners from what I've been told in the national football league, Daniel Snyder being another, this is them pushing back on what they thought was a bad business decision by Cleveland. Cause you can't tell me that if I'm the New York Giants owner paying Daniel Jones, that amount of money is better for us than pursuing Lamar Jackson. Like there's no way that you can justify that. The only thing I can say that I feel like would potentially justify is that if you are left without a quarterback right now, you're in a dire situation because there just aren't enough to go around. So if the giants lose Daniel Jones, what the hell do you bring in instead? Sometimes teams are worried about losing their guy, even if it means they have to pay more because there's just not anybody else out there.

I guess I would only push back, like what is their guy? What does that mean? Because I have the best current available option in the big scheme of things. Where does that place us? If I find Daniel Jones, this longterm Jill deal, the kid Dallas Cowboys, if I find Dak Prescott to this longterm deal, the Minnesota Vikings, if I find Kirk cousins for this longterm deal, does that really give us an opportunity to win a championship or did we just pay for what was the best available option at the time? So a lot of times that is what happens though, right? I'm kind of upset that I'm 45 instead of 25 because I'll be in the market and probably get on these deals and I'll be great. But I'm just saying like there's a separation in this league between the elite quarterbacks and everybody else.

And if you don't have one of the elite ones, then I think you're definitely operating at a deficit. Like let's be honest about Aaron Rogers, as great of a talent as we thought he was in 2010, what has he accomplished team wise since 2010 or 2015 like the last three years they've lost at home in green Bay because Aaron Rogers played bad. If they beat the lions, they go to the playoffs. Who played better in that game and Rogers the year before they had the Niners at Lambeau, they score what seven points who played back and Rogers, Amy, the year before that in the NFC championship game, they had the bucks at Lambeau who played back and Rogers Tom Brady did too actually, and they still couldn't beat him, right? So my point is for the last three years when it really mattered and Rogers wasn't Aaron Rogers. So like my thing is to whom much is given much is required.

Agreed. Like we hold our superstars to a higher level is why Charles Barkley's never in the conversation with Michael Jordan. That's when you expect the guy that makes the most money that allocates the most or the largest portion of salary cap to be the dude.

And yet in those three games, he hasn't been, and they were at home. So I'll be very worried if I was a jet. Okay on the surface and from a business standpoint, this makes sense. We're going to sell more jerseys.

We can raise ticket prices. I mean, we can do everything that makes us money, but does it really make us viable in the AFC to win a championship? Yeah.

That's my big question about the Jets is does it make him one of the best teams in the AFC because the AFC is stacked and I don't know that it does. It's a good question. Although I'm not sure what he Johnson is buying it. I think he's kind of all in as you point out. Absolutely. And I get it because it makes business sense.

Yeah. Like it makes that brand much bigger than it would be without Aaron Rogers. Like if Aaron Rogers goes to the Jets, they'll be at the forefront and the lead topic on every platform nationally available that covers the National Football League and people will be talking about them. And guess what? At the end of next year, they won't have done anything different than they did with Zach Wilson.

That's just my opinion. If Aaron is sensitive in Green Bay, think about what it's going to be like in New York. Rogers is a domino. The Lamar Jackson conversation continues on as well. But Sean, there are other teams out there that desperately need quarterbacks. The Carolina Panthers, the Washington commanders. Think about the Colts and the Texans, maybe even Arizona, if Kyler's not ready to start the season.

And what do we have? Baker Mayfield, Sam Darnold, Carson Wentz, Marcus Mariota, Annie Dalton, mania, Jamis Winston. I asked my audience, now I'm asking you, after the top few QBs, where do you go if you're one of those teams? Well I think Jimmy Garoppolo will be the most sought after quarterback once the agency opens. But I also think that there are two legitimate quarterbacks in this draft and Bryce Young and C.J.

Stroup. I mean guys that have actual game film that says they're really, really good players. And with the new salary situation involving drafted players, you now get a very team friendly deal at a position that in a lot of areas or a lot of other situations takes up a lot of your cap. So I think there'll be a lot of trade conversation with Chicago about moving up, conversation with Arizona about moving up, trying to get in front of Indy at four.

And we'll see how it plays out. But at the end of the day, paying a quarterback that you know can't win a Super Bowl for you is just like not having one. What about the Geno Smith going back to the Seahawks?

Because it was a reasonable amount. I mean they may draft a quarterback as well, but they decided that they're good with what Geno brings to the table, even though he's not an elite quarterback. He's played really well last year. Yeah, and I think Geno is a perfect example of what happens when patience and talent intersect. So Geno was a super talented player coming out of West Virginia, but he went to the Jets. There was an immaturity there. He never got any patience. He was expected to be elite right from the beginning. Emotionally, he wasn't as mature as he is now. This is what I think Carson Wentz has done. It's hard for a guy like Carson Wentz, who was a first round draft pick, to continually get cut after one year.

That means they don't like you. And I think Geno came to Seattle, humbled himself, looked in the mirror, said, okay, the situation in New York didn't work. Let me fix what I'm looking at. Let me not blame anybody.

Let me not seek comfort, but let me address the issues that are dealing, that involved me. And he sat behind Russell Wilson. He got himself prepared for if he ever got another opportunity that he would excel. And that's what he did.

He went out and played his way into this job. If you were to ask anybody, and this is me included, when Denver and Seattle made that deal, if you would have asked anybody which team would be in the playoffs, nobody would have said Seattle. And yet Geno went out and led them in the playoffs. And they were actually ahead at halftime at San Francisco in the wildcard game.

Yes. So Geno earned this deal. And I fully anticipate that if Anthony Richardson is available, I think Seattle's picking fifth, but they'll select Anthony Richardson. And they'll do what San Francisco didn't understand which was when you take a quarterback that's physically gifted but hasn't been productive, you can't expect him to produce early in his career in the National Football League. So Anthony Richardson, by the time he plays and Seattle takes him at five, people would have forgot about the combine.

People would have forgot about like everything except the fact what the Seahawks have done. And he'll get to learn behind Geno. And then whenever he's ready to play, whether it's two years from now or three years, we have a lot more experience and reps than he does currently.

Yeah, really interesting to see how this will play out. But it is always advantageous, especially if a player is a project or is raw talent but not ready to be able to sit behind another quarterback because you throw them into the fire too soon. And it can blow up in not just his face, but in your team space. That's why I thought Trey Lance never had a chance. I mean, Trey Lance played one year at North Dakota State, right? How are you going to go to a team that has Super Bowl aspirations?

Like what is he going to get like a six game stretch where nobody cares and he messes up? Like that was almost impossible. And as smart as John Lynch is, who I played with, and Kyle Shanahan, who's one of the, you know, best offensive, you know, wizards in the game, they always baffled me that they didn't understand that those two were never going to mesh.

And I know Trey has been hurt. But you can't put an inexperienced quarterback in that situation where if you tell him, if you don't mess up, we win. How does he ever develop and grow?

Right? Like Peyton Manning threw 20, what, four 26 interceptions in year one? Like even he's one of the greatest ever. Even he had to go through the growing pains of figuring out what he can and can't do. And, you know, how is this league and what are we looking at defensively and how do I make adjustments? So the things that are Trey Lance or Anthony Richardson, these guys that have only played one year of football in college are going to come into this league and be successful.

That's ludicrous. You were talking about Geno taking ownership of needing to grow up and needing to mature and taking care of himself and turning that into a positive situation. I thought instantly of Calvin Ridley. I was very impressed by the way that he took ownership of his mistakes. Whether or not we agree that a year suspension is appropriate for what he did, he didn't blame anybody else. He's come out, he's talked about it. He said, I screwed up.

This was on me. I'm so excited for another opportunity. And maybe the year away will turn out to be a great blessing for him as hard as it was. Hearing what you heard from him and now putting him on that Jaguars roster. What do you think, Sean? I love everything that Calvin really has done. And I'm really hoping that this time next year, Amy, when you have me on, we're talking about the same thing about Cala Murray. And I know Calvin got suspended and college injured, but hopefully Kyle looks at Calvin and uses as an example of how to take something that was a negative and turn it into a positive.

And I mean, you got to if you're a Jaguar fan, you've got to be excited. Trevor Lawrence looks like the real deal. The thing I love about him is that he screwed it up and didn't fold. He didn't blame anybody else.

He didn't seek comfort. He came back in that playoff game against the Chargers when he was terrible early, but he was great late. That's a sign of a real dude, because we see so much bad body language in professional sports.

And we see so many of these athletes who want to blame and displace the responsibility of their own performance. And to see Trevor handle that situation at that elite level like that has to be encouraging. Hats off to Trevor, man, because I really felt like this was a rookie year because obviously, and I said this when the Jaguars hired Urban Meyer, that might've been the worst hire in NFL history.

Pretty close. That's terrible. Outside of the next thing you hack it, not being able to make it to the end of one year, that's a terrible hire by the Jaguars. And yet he didn't fold. Good point.

He managed to stay in there, be a leader, and then look what happened when he got a real coach who could speak his language and get it ready. Absolutely. You never heard him say anything bad about Urban.

No. That's why I respect Trevor Lawrence. And that's the maturity it takes in professional sports to really become a real elite player. Hey, man, hats off to Trevor. And listen, I'm super happy with Calvin Ridley.

He owned it and he's willing to move forward. And I think that the arrow is definitely pointing out for that Jaguars organization. Agreed. Agreed.

This year, winning the division, kind of giving them a step up and helping them build that winning foundation with Doug. Yeah. Awesome stuff.

And we're not even to the actual start of the new league year yet, but it's coming. So you can find Sean on Twitter at Real Sean King, former NFL quarterback, Super Bowl champion, part of Vison Live, and has got prime time from three to six P Pacific, but six to nine Eastern. Great to catch up with you. Really cool discussion. So we'll do it again next time. All right, Amy, thanks for having me.