NFL Training Camps Are Underway w/ Will Brinson

This is the best of the Adam Gold Show Podcast, brought to you by Coach Pete at Capital Financial Advisory Group.

Visit us at capitalfinancialusa.com. This is Adam Gold. What's the goal, by the way, of the Panthers? Yes. You know what?

That's sneaky brilliant because it's hard to discern what the goal really is. It is the Adam Gold Show. It's the Adam Gold Show. I'm Adam Gold. Dennis Cox on the ones and twos. That's one of my favorite rejoins because it is so simple and accurate about the Panthers.

It's hard to tell at times. They did open training camp today, J.C. Horn, already not practicing. Outstanding. All right, Will Brinson, I miss you so much.

Senior NFL writer, CBSSports.com, Pick 6 Podcast moderator. How are you, my friend? We have football things to talk about. I know, actual football to discuss. It's kind of nice, right?

It is very, very cool. All right, let me start here because yesterday, actually I guess this was from Monday night. We knew that the contract that Kyler Murray signed, $230.5 million, $160-some-odd guaranteed, and it's $110 roughly for $105 for performance. The other part is for injury. We knew that the contract fell short of Deshaun Watson's, and that was probably a good thing for a lot of other NFL owners.

But then we found out Monday night about the clause. And when I heard about this, where he has to do four hours of film study, there's a lot of things I thought about it. But my initial reaction is, wow, is that embarrassing?

And it's embarrassing for a lot of people. So Steve Keim is your guy. He's a state guy. How come that conversation wasn't had just privately? Well, I mean, have you read the actual clause? They have to define independent study, and it basically is like it cannot be while watching TV or playing video games or on your phone.

In other words, the way I read it is, they likely imparted on Kyler, like, hey, man, we want you to do some more film study at home. And he's like, all right, yeah, sure. And then they're like, hey, man, you're not logging into your iPad at all. Are you even working at home? He's like, oh, right, right, right.

So he's logging in and playing Fortnite and letting the iPad run so it made it look like he was doing four hours worth of work. And now they're like, no, no, we're going to define this. Yeah, I mean, it's embarrassing.

It's very embarrassing. On the other hand, I think it was like, we're going to give you this monster contract. There have been rumblings about maturity issues and work ethic stuff for a long time with Kyler. Like caring about football. I mean, obviously, baseball passed. And the other thing in the contract, if he fails to meet this four-hour weekly requirement during the first year of his contract, he would default on the contract, which would mean that basically, I haven't read the entire thing, but I would assume that it means he would lose all his guaranteed money.

And the Cardinals could walk away from it. So I guess that's sort of the logic for having this written into the deal versus just having it as like a private, casual conversation. To me, it said a couple of things. One, to me, it said that it was obvious to them that Kyler Murray during games seemed like things caught him by surprise that shouldn't have. Which is what led them to putting the clause in.

Because again, to me, this conversation has to be had privately, can never be in writing, can't go to the public because it's embarrassing for everyone. It's embarrassing for the Cardinals because what it says is like, yeah, we feel like we have to give you this deal because, yeah, you've got all this talent, but we're not getting enough out of it. So it's embarrassing for them and it's embarrassing for Kyler Murray because they just told the world that he's not working hard enough. And the first player that came to mind was Michael Vick because Vick admitted late in his career that he didn't put the time in to film study earlier. This is how great Michael Vick was, and he could have been. I don't even know if the work ethic ever really got there for Vick, but if we had ever been able to marry that work ethic or a top-notch work ethic with that ability, we might have completely changed the game in the NFL.

Yeah. And I sort of wonder, is it coaching? Cliff Kingsbury and Jim Moore both strike me as guys who are not exactly taskmasters or not exactly get guys to really engage.

And then Vick goes to the Eagles and Andy Reid figures out how to sort of unlock his work ethic. That's when he started talking about it. He said, man, I wish I'd worked this hard before. So that definitely makes me wonder.

Sure, this is on Kyler, but is it part of it like Cliff Kingsbury is enabling it to a degree? Ryan Wilson said, I guess today on the podcast, technically, we were talking about this, and he's like, how long have we been doing this? I was like, I don't know, like 12 years? He's like, have you ever seen this? I was like, no. I've been covering the NFL for over a decade and I've never seen this. It's ridiculous. It's absurd. And it's really not getting, I mean, I don't know who to credit for this, but it's not getting the attention that it, I know we're talking about it now, but it's like, it is the most demeaning clause in the contract for a quarterback I've ever seen. I mean, it's just like, Hey, Hey, you are a 10 year old. This is like, this is like, this was like, I wrote up a deal like this for my 15 year old. It's like him to pay attention and act like he forgot that we had the conversation.

If I don't, if I don't write it down, so we have a contract and it's like, you must study your homework for four hours and you can't watch TV while you do your homework. It's literally that it's, it's humiliating for Kyler. I think it's less humiliating for the Cardinals, but I agree with you that it's not like, it's like, why would you, I guess it speaks to the value of the quarterback too. It's like, you're kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place cause you don't go with, you don't pay Kyler and he holds out or something and your team stinks. But you know, if you don't, so, I mean, I understand like, they're like, all right, look, we want, we, we're going to get you a deal. If you want to get as much money as you believe you should get, then you're going to have to agree to this fairly embarrassing cause. And Kyler's probably like, sure, whatever, give me the cash. The whole thing blows me away.

All right. To a quarterback who hasn't yet gotten paid. And I have already predicted that Lamar Jackson is going to play next year on the franchise tag because I think he wants to apply as much, as much pressure as he can, unless the Ravens come at him with a massive deal and it will be better than this one.

And I'm sure it will not include the homework clause. Where are we? Do you think with Lamar Jackson, people are apparently surprised that he's, he has reported to training camp. Yeah, I think he's just, I mean, this is, he's making more than, remember he was a late first round pick when he was, when he was taken.

So his, the amount of money he got up front with his rookie deal was much, much smaller than, you know, Baker or Sam, all the other Panthers quarterbacks. And but, you know, he said he's making like 24 million this year because he's, you know, because he had some, he made a pro ball and that bumps up your foot, your option. So, I mean, he, you know, for him, like, I have to think he's like, man, I mean, I'm getting, I don't think the idea of getting 24 million this year and then, you know, maybe I'll, I think he'll play in the franchise tag next year as well. It's just, you know, part of the problem is, you know, he doesn't have an agent, he's his own agent. So, you know, I mean, having to negotiate, you know, I understand that agent, you know, people can dislike agents all they want, but having somebody who can negotiate for you with the team and like, that's their job and they're, they're trying to make money off of that, you know, they're going to spend their time doing it. Like, I would guess that Lamar doesn't want to deal with negotiating, like doesn't want to deal with like breaking down, you know, contract discussions. Like he wants to, you know, I mean, I'm not, you know what I mean? Like he's like, you know, we got football in like, you know, two weeks.

Like every month, you know, I gotta, I gotta, you know, I gotta prepare for football. I don't care about this contract. No, and I also think that like playing for $45 million next year is probably appealing. And it automatically makes the value of the following year's contract negotiations go up because we all know what's sitting out there in year two, and that's nearly 55 million. And I don't think the Ravens want that as a cat pit.

So it puts a ton of pressure and jacks up the value. And it's funny yesterday, and you're right, we probably, the Kyler Murray contract clause should have been a much bigger deal because it was the first round, first pick in the draft a few years back. Ryan Clark lost his mind about it and he was right. But Ryan Clark also lost his mind about one anonymous NFL executive who basically said, Kyle Lamar Jackson could win 12 MVPs and he's still not going to be a great quarterback in his eyes.

And, and Ryan Clark just could not believe it. And look, I'm team Lamar Jackson. I think he's one of the five or six best quarterbacks in the league.

I don't care how you define quarterback. He's a quarterback and he puts up yards and points and he was hurt last year and still nearly dragged the Ravens as far as anybody could drag them. They didn't have a great team. He's a great player. They put more, you know, more great players around him.

I think they're going to be excellent. But they had, they had, they had, um, so they football outside of those adjusted games loss, which is basically like how bad was your injury luck? Right. Um, well, good or bad was your injury luck. Um, in, in 2020 or 20 after, after, during the 2020 season, the San Francisco 49ers led all NFL teams and that included this includes for 2020 games lost to due to COVID. So you're thinking it's a lot. They had 160 adjusted games lost, which was 30 more than the next closest team in the NFL. Last year, the Ravens had 190.

That is wild. Like they were by far and away the, like the biggest, uh, bad luck injury team in the NFL. And typically speaking, you know, I mean, just, just sort of regression to how this works, just regression to the mean. Um, you know, like you, you tend to see that bad, that bad injury, like come back towards the middle or sometimes wildly swing back and you have a really healthy season when you have a really healthy season in the NFL, you can do some really big things. Yeah.

And I, and I think they're, you know, ideally suited to, to take that step. And I still, I, I contend that I am not wrong about this, the game they lost on the two point conversion try against, I think it was Pittsburgh in the middle of the season. Green Bay was gross. Green Bay.

Right. Greensboro Greensboro. I got to win the championship. Me too. Me too.

I'm going out there on a Thursday of next week. So the, I think if Mark Andrews has it over and he, Andrew says he should have caught it. I think he just misjudged it. It would have been a really good catch, but I think a court, a tight end, the quality of Mark Andrews makes that catch. They convert that, that play and they win that game.

And who knows what it means the rest of the way. I think they lost their last eight. They just kind of went in the tank, but Lamar Jackson was hurt. All right. I've got a couple of things before we have to let will Brinson go. Senior NFL writer, cbssports.com. You and I think feel the same way about Mike McCarthy. He's just okay. Jerry Jones feels the same way.

I don't know. I, to me, Jerry Jones thinks that Mike McCarthy is a legitimate Superbowl head coach. I think he's convinced himself of that. I think people who think that Mike McCarthy's job is on the line, forget that Jerry Jones let Jason Garrett be the head coach for a decade.

That's true. But I also think that you got to remember that Sean Payton is out there and there is Charles Robinson of Yahoo sports had a good column yesterday from Oxford, California, just talking about how, you know, it's like, look, what Jerry said yesterday. While it technically an endorsement of Mike McCarthy was also like, you know, he added that everyone needs to know that, you know, the Cowboys need to be like, you know, have success in the postseason, like getting to the playoffs is not enough. And if he does fire Mike McCarthy, I mean, Sean Payton is going to be interested in that job and Jerry Jones. This is the first time something has been a free agent. Like technical tech, an actual free agent since he left the Cowboys in 2006. And I mean, Jerry Jones has long thought about what would, what could have been if he kept Sean Payton hired him as the head coach. And so I think that that is a major, major factor with Mike McCarthy.

All right. Maybe I'm giving Jerry Jones too much credit for staying the course and being patient. Adam Gold here from my man, coach Pete DeRuta with the capital financial advisory group. We are talking retirement.

All right, coach, simple. When do we start tax planning in retirement? We should start as soon as possible because here's one thing, Adam, taxes are not going away.

And so the game here is we know the rules. A lot of people want to ignore the rules or act like they don't are familiar with them, but the IRS knows the rules. And so when we get to retirement, they're going to reach in and start taking some of their money out of your accounts. So the secret here is to put a force field around as much as possible by strategically moving some of our money to Roth IRA or some of the other vehicles that aren't taxed, like special life insurance policies.

You can borrow against your money there and never have to pay tax on your money that you build up inside your cash value. So there are a lot of strategies here. The one strategy that does not work is ignoring it. So let's make sure to not ignore it.

The next 10 people will do for you your very own tax and retirement plan that will help you minimize taxation all the way through retirement. 800-661-7383. All you got is call or you can text Adam to 21000 for coach Pete DeRuta. All right, Julio Jones to Tampa.

Good idea. Yeah, it's whatever. He didn't do anything in Tennessee last year. They were right for Agent Brown was missing. It was just Julio and still didn't do anything. I wasn't I wasn't overwhelmed.

I wasn't underwhelmed. I was just whelmed by the Julio Jones news real quick about back to Mike McCarthy in Dallas for a second. By the way, I love the new white helmets or the old white helmets for the Cowboys. But is Dallas or Philly going to win that division? I think Philly. I like Philly to win the division a lot. I do too. I think Philly Philly's, you know, maybe getting too much height now.

I was on the I was on the high train early with them. But I mean, I think if Jalen Hurst takes any kind of step forward, they have so much talent on both sides of the ball. They should win that division. I agree wholeheartedly.

All right, final question. Speaking of white helmets, I know I know it got pushback from Cincy fans because technically a Bengal Tiger is orange. But am I the only one who absolutely loves the white Bengal helmet?

It's the same, you know, stripe the black stripes only on a white field as opposed to an orange field. I think that that that look is awesome. Yeah, I think it's icy as the kids say very good. Yes, very icy, very icy ice frozen really damn cold here kids.

Am I right? Yeah, I like the white helmets. I think I really did. I see is like a great description. But actually, I do think that I think they look really cool. And I'm all for teams like trying out new stuff when it comes to uniform because, you know, like just, you know, you sit like I mean, as long as it's like not just like like slime. I like I like teams messing around with uniforms.

I'm not one of those old fuddy duddies who wants to just demands just tradition, but the bumblebee the Pittsburgh bumblebee. Well, that's all that's it. That's an old Ben Roethlisberger always looked so good. No, he didn't.

That's right. And by the way, Ben's not very popular in his former locker room these days with Cam Hayward who didn't appreciate Ben saying, well, there's too much meagre there's too much me going on in today's NFL. He got old very quickly, didn't he? Yes, he did.

He got very old very quickly. Just be quiet and go away. Will Brinson you're the best man I will I will talk to you later. I'll see you soon. Thank you, sir. You got it at will Brinson on Twitter pick six podcast moderator. He is the best June 19 2006 but it all started May 6 1997 with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina.

It's a story of transition of heartbreak of figuring it out on the fly the canes corner. Look at the 25th anniversary of the moon presented by the aluminum company of North Carolina. Listen now find James 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcast.

Wow, very very heavy. That's right. And his training camp is on the way. Gosh, I feel like I want to go out and hit somebody you should Adam Gold show. I'm him. Dennis Cox is here.

Dennis Cox is actually playing the bass there facts. We're going to talk to chip Patterson top of the hour as our usual Wednesday conversation. What a treat will Brinson and chip Patterson within the same portion of the show my gosh an embarrassment of riches. So big 10 Commissioner Kevin Warren, I'm going to talk about this with chip Patterson coming up in about 10 minutes. He is all in on the expansion train. He's got lots of luggage. He's planning on staying for a while.

Here is Kevin Warren from yesterday. I'm excited. We have meetings coming up in September and October to be able to talk about these issues. I'm 100% supportive for college football playoff expansion.

You know what is that right number will figure out. I'm confident we will get college football playoff expansion resolved. I still feel strongly that we need to open it up to have multiple media partners that we need to have from the college football playoff standpoint.

We need to take a holistic view. We need to make sure we protect some of the critical bowl relationships. And so as we work through all these whether it's automatic qualifier, whatever the case may be. I'm confident as we get these new individuals in the room. Get these issues on the table that will be able to reach some resolution. And again, make sure we ask ourselves the right question for the right reasons at the right time for our student athletes and our fans, but I look forward to the day that we can expand the college football playoff and I'm confident that it will happen.

All right, my mistake. I thought that was going to be about Big 10 expansion because yesterday he did say that we will expand and we will we will not expand just to expand. We will be strategic but expand expansion will be done for the right reasons at the right times.

He talked openly about. Oh, yeah, there are schools out there that will add value to the Big 10 blah blah. I mean, he is all in Dennis Dodd has a story today at CBS Sports.com that the Big 10 is interested in Oregon in Wisconsin, not Wisconsin in Oregon in Washington in Cal in Stanford. They would ultimately be a 20 team league. They would have a West Coast arm. They would have a Pacific Coast arm with Southern Cal UCLA and those other four pack 12 schools. All right here, Dennis has Kevin Warren being aggressive and regarding expansion.

I get asked every single day what's next. It may include future expansion, but it will be done for the right reasons at the right time with our student athletes academic and athletic empowerment at the center of any and all decisions that we will make regarding any further expansions. We will not expand just to expand. It will be strategic.

It will add additional value to our conference and it will provide a platform to even have our student athletes be put on a larger platform so they can build their careers, but also that they have an opportunity to grow and learn from an education and from an athletic standpoint. Yeah, some of that is true. And some of that, of course, is bladder. And that's fine because that's what all the commissioners all the I'm like, I'm not criticizing Kevin Warren for blathering. They all blather. They all pay lip service to the well we're doing this for the student athletes.

No, you're not. If Kevin Warren were being completely honest, he would say, we're doing it for money and and to eliminate some of the competition from the marketplace, because if you go out and you add Oregon and Washington and Cal and Stanford, you are eliminating the pack 12 from the marketplace. You are eliminating it. Because of those four schools go. The Arizona schools are going to end up in the big 12. And the PAC 12 is over, over.

Oregon State and Washington State ain't a conference. It's just that's just the way it's going to be. And that's it is what it is.

I'm going to say it's sad because the whole thing is sad. But it's not about anything other than money. We treat our student athletes or students.

Yeah. Now the big 10 is a great academic league. I'm not even they like the ACC openly talks about the academic part of this. The big 10 does too. And I think both of those leagues mean it. They do. But that ain't why they're expanding.

It just isn't. But we can move on. We can move on from that. Here's one thing I'll say about Kevin Warren. We'll talk with Chip Patterson, top of the hour. He seems awfully brazen. It's refreshing in a way, because all the other commissioners for the most part are kind of slow your roll type of deal.

It's good for now. Kevin Warren's like, nah, man, we're looking around. What do you like? Like, sell yourself to us. I said, I'm being aggressive. I'm not going to lie. It's refreshing to hear that. Kevin Warren will throw deep on first down. And I like that.

I like that. This is the Adam Gold Show. Off of the crossbar, and the Hurricanes have won the Stanley Cup. June 19th, 2006. But it all started May 6th, 1997, with the announcement that the Hartford Whalers were coming to North Carolina. It's a story of transition, of heartbreak, of figuring it out on the fly. The Canes Corner look at the 25th anniversary of the move. Presented by the Aluminum Company of North Carolina. Listen now. Find Canes' 25th anniversary wherever you get your podcasts.