What the Football with Suzy Shuster & Amy Trask: NFL Week 3

Where is A. A. Ron right now?

Boy, that is what Rich Eisen would like to know right now everybody. Welcome to today's episode of What the Football brought to you by GameTime, the fast and easy way to buy tickets for all the sports, music, comedy, and theater events near you. Stay tuned later on the podcast because we're gonna give you a code for $20 off of your GameTime account.

And I'd love a deal, Amy Drask. I love it. So before we get into that, we're gonna talk about something that is near and dear to your heart. And by the way, every Raiders fan out there, stay tuned. This is a very Raiders heavy edition of What the Football and Will It Should Be, Amy Drask. I mean you spent 30 years with the Raiders, the princes of darkness next to me, by the way, dressed in Raider black today.

I'm looking quite great. Devante Adams, not a very happy man coming off of that loss to the Steelers. And let's listen to Devante talk and I want to hear your reactions on the other side of this. I don't want to act like it's all crazies, you know, it's week three, but I don't got time to wait around, you know, and it's not a personal thing. I mean, it is a personal thing, but it ain't just about me. But I mean, it's not my mentality to sit here and try to take all season to figure it out. You use these early games like this to establish identity. We're not doing things the right way to establish a winning culture early in the season, so we got to do something to turn that around. Doing something about it so that when we go out there the next time, it looks different. It's not supposed to just be a week of just talking about it, we got to go out there and do it. You know, that's the theme of this year is doing it, not just talking about it and figuring out what we need to do. We did all that last year.

This year we got to be about it. And Amy Drask, this is coming right off on local channel 8, coming off of the loss, 23-18 to the Steelers. Devante Adams is a very unhappy man right now. And you don't really hear that often with receivers who get the ball as much as he did in the game against the Steelers. So what are your reactions when you hear a player sound off like that?

I have no issue whatsoever with Devante sharing those views. He was frustrated. He was sharing his frustration. That interview was immediately after the game. And it's always perplexed me, and maybe perplexed is a nicer way of saying bothered me, that fans want players, insist that players play with emotion and play with passion. Well, you can't just turn off that emotion and turn off that passion the minute the game ends.

And I am just, again, I'll say perplexed but bothered when fans who want their team's players to play with that emotion and passion, then criticize them for reacting with emotion and passion. Susie, I was with players after games, close losses, losses by a lot of points, heartbreaking losses, devastating losses. I remember sitting with the defensive back, a corner in the locker room after a loss in which he gave up the winning touchdown to the other team. He was in tears.

He was crying. Who was it? Well, you know, I don't want to name him because I just think I shared a little bit much. People can conclude what they want, but first rule of Fight Club, you don't talk about Fight Club. Or in this instance, I am talking about Fight Club. I'm just not naming the names of the people in Fight Club at that moment.

You can't expect and demand that players play with emotion and passion and then criticize them when they react with emotion and passion. That's my strongly held view. I don't take issue with Devante expressing his frustration. But I wonder who he's talking to.

That's my question. Who is he talking to? Is he trying to let the front office know? Is he basically angling at the coaches? I mean, I'm wearing my Bill Belichick shirt today, guys, because we're coming off a win. And, you know, I don't have anything else that's going to humiliate my poor husband as much as me walking around in a Bill Belichick, get your job, do your job t-shirt.

But Devante, I mean, he's making an announcement. And think about this. Let me set it up this way. You and I are doing this podcast together because we want to play together, right? We want to do this together. We're friends.

We feel like we bring out the best in each other. He wanted, he left to go play with his QB from Fresno State. OK, so he went, he left Aaron Rodgers to go there to be with this guy. His guy then gets replaced because Josh McDaniel says, I want to have Jimmy Garoppolo in the Patriot way, blah, blah, blah.

So who do you think Devante Adams is really addressing? I'm going to react to that in a couple of ways. But first, I want to comment on your shirt, because I got a great Bill Belichick story to tell you. And you know how people use that expression humble brag?

Yeah, yeah. There's no such thing as a humble brag. That's an oxymoron. If you're going to brag, brag. So if we have a chance to talk about Bill at some point, I'm going to brag, brag. But back to Devante, a couple of things.

You're absolutely right, of course. He left Aaron Rodgers, a magnificent quarterback, to join his college dear friend, Derek Carr, who was then cast aside, I guess is the best expression by the Raiders. They replaced him with Jimmy G. And you know what? Devante responded very wisely and very maturely to that. I think a lot of people were wondering, how's Devante going to respond? I thought his response was terrific. As to your question about to whom was he directing those comments?

Let me pose a theory to you. Again, talking about the fact that he was reacting immediately after the game, he was frustrated, he was passionate. He may have been doing what you suggested and directing them to someone, or he may just have been venting with no underlying purpose. There may not have been an intent on his part to direct that to the team owner or the GM or the head coach. He may have simply been spewing his frustration, as by the way, I know I sure did after we lost games, I would spew frustration. I didn't do it to the media, many times, but sometimes you spew frustration without an intent.

I don't know if he had an intent. Well, it makes all the sense in the world then that Josh McDaniel becomes the betting favorite, and I can talk bets, you and Rich can't, but I'm a free agent, I can talk about whatever I want. He becomes the betting favorite to be the first NFL coach fired, surpassing Ibra Flus, which by the way, that doesn't say very much. What do you think is going to happen with McDaniel?

Obviously, we've talked about this. He's trying to recreate the Patriot way there, but it's not working. I don't know if there will be a decision to terminate him during the season, to terminate him after the season. If they don't terminate him during the season, maybe he turns things around.

I mean, look, right now, three games into the season, there can be an entirely different feeling, three games, six games, nine games from now, if things play out differently. I did work for a man who was not hesitant to terminate coaches and did that twice during the season. So, I was with the organization when Al terminated Mike Shanahan in season, and boy, did that end up in an interesting manner.

All right, walk us through that, because none of us were in the room where it happened, so walk us through what that was like. Well, Al made a decision to terminate Mike, and he did, and to back up, when a team has a contract with a coach, if the team terminates the coach before the end of the contract, the team is obliged, unless they can show some sort of cause or other reason that exonerates them, is such that they don't have to pay the coach. The team has to pay the remainder on the contract. Other teams try hanky-panky.

It's a very technical legal term. They try hanky-panky. So, when the Broncos then signed Shanahan, not as a head coach at that time, but as an interim coach, they paid him a very, very, very reduced amount, figuring, well, look, the Raiders are on the hook. They didn't fire him for cause. They're on the hook for paying the rest of this contract. We'll just pay him a little bit, and the burden will fall on the Raiders. Well, we then learned that what the Broncos did was, in addition to the little bit they were paying him, they took a chunk of money and put it in an account at a country club for him to spend as he wished. Well, you know, that sort of blew Al's mind.

And by blew, I mean his brain almost exploded. All of this ultimately ends up in an arbitration. We believe the Broncos are trying to play hanky-panky.

Mike Shanahan accuses us of not paying out his contract. Our view is, well, look, they're playing hanky-panky. It all ends up in a grievance. And there we are sitting in a grievance, and it's Pat Bolin and the Bronco lawyer, Al, me, our lawyer, and then the league's general counsel who's acting as the arbitrator, handling the grievance. Well, we're going back and forth.

It's getting pretty heated. At one point, Bolin looks at Al and says, why don't you just question me? You're not letting your lawyer talk. Every time your lawyer tries to ask me a question, you're interrupting.

Why don't you just question me, Al? Well, all hell breaks loose. And Bolin's lawyer's screaming, and our lawyers, everyone's screaming. I'm screaming. I think the only person not screaming was Al.

Maybe Bolin wasn't yelling, but there was yelling. Finally, finally, the arbitrator calms us all down. And looking straight at me, he says, all right, now we're going to start up again, and I don't want any more jump-inskies. And he's looking straight at me. Well, our lawyer is then asked to resume questioning Bolin. And he says, I'm going to resume, but before I do, I want to point out that Amy was not the first jump-insky.

And I'm like this now. You know, I've got my arms up. Oh, yeah, he had my back.

He had my back. All hell breaks loose again. Ten more minutes of screaming, and we finally finish the grievance. What was the screaming, though? It wasn't even the point of the screaming.

People were just hot-tempered. But my point is, when you fire a coach in mid-season, unless you can show cause, and I didn't explain that well before, so I'll say it again, if you can demonstrate cause as a reason for the termination, you can perhaps get away from having to pay the remainder of the contract. But if you can't do that, you're on the hook for paying the full contract. Other teams may try to sign that coach as an assistant or otherwise, and they're going to try to play hanky-panky and not pay a lot. The league has tried to really, really, really clamp down on that.

And the reason they tried to was because of that whole Bronco-raider argument, and they tried to, you know, put an end to the hanky-panky. My point being, if the Raiders decide to terminate Josh McDaniel before his contract is up, they're on the hook for whatever he's owed. And that's a big decision for the organization to make. That's a lot of money.

How does it even get there, Amy? How do you think it gets there, and with your experience, obviously, with the Raiders, how does it get there to where a coach is actually let go mid-season? Different owners will handle things differently. Boy, there was one owner, I think it was Shad Khan of the Jaguars, who actually fired a coach before they flew back home. And then he let the coach fly home with him so the coach could fly on the team plane, but having been fired before they got on.

I mean, different owners do things differently. Look, there were two times Al fired coaches mid-season, and in each of those instances, I was the one reminding him, there's going to be money owed. Now, in one of those instances, he was very, very confident he could show cause, and we wouldn't owe money. That was Lane Kiffin.

I did not agree with him. But my responsibility for the organization included finding us money. We were not well off financially during those years with the team, and I was always the one who had to go find us money, go find a line of credit, go find a credit facility. And so I was the one saying to Al, well, wait a minute, wait a minute, wait a minute. If you want to terminate this head coach, this is how much money we're going to owe. And he would look at me and tell me to go find it.

That's incredible. So here you are out there basically shopping for money, and he's out there worrying, you know, slinging and dealing, and trying to figure out what's next. You know, once I said to him, and this was one of the most touching things he ever said to me, and I actually think I'm going to get a little lump in my throat when I share this with you. We were in a very, very, very gosh, what's the word I want to use for this? A very, very existential negotiation. Had nothing to do with team location, nothing like that. Al was very clear he was never going to move the team out of Oakland.

It was not about team location, but it was a negotiation that was financial in nature and really existential. And at one point, and it was so stressful, Susie, at one point I said to Al, I don't know how you sleep at night. And his response to me will forever just touch my heart. He said, I sleep at night because I know you don't. And you don't either too, which is so nice. I mean, look at this.

This is playing right into your 115 email. But it was just very special that he was expressing to me he didn't need to worry because he knew I was worrying. It's incredible. I love it when you pull the curtain back on your time there, because nobody else has this experience. This is why you are the princess of darkness. And I know somebody actually commented, you guys praise each other a lot. Too bad.

It's our podcast. We can do what we want to do. And by the way, here's to being honest. If you are, it's always been my view. If you are going to be critical of someone or something, if you are going to offer a critique or criticism, you darn well better be intellectually honest and offer praise when praises do. And that's why I'm okay with what Devante Adams said.

I would much rather have a receiver, a running back, what have you, any player be honest. If you want to use the press to do so, that's your prerogative. But at least he's being honest.

What do you think? Well, and again, you know, this is right after the game and players are obliged to meet with the media. You know, you come off the field, you go in the locker room.

There is a very, very limited period of time. Teams are allowed to seal that locker room. And once that period of time is over, those doors fly open and the press comes in and players will be just pilloried if they flee out the back door or avoid a conversation. So here, Devante was approached by the media. He did the right thing from the perspective of the league and the club, which is talk to the media. He didn't try to avoid it and he shared his frustration. So going back to what I said at the beginning, you can't expect and demand and count on a player for your team being emotional and passionate when on the field and being able to turn that off the second he comes off.

No, I totally agree. TJ Jefferson, by the way, will be with us soon to talk about fantasy. I want to let everybody know that TJ is a part of the show every week and he will be with us momentarily, not momentarily, but soon.

Just chill. He could go by TJ. I might go by AJ. You should.

You could be TJ and AJ. Cute. I'm here for that. Wait, are you gaming on a Chromebook? Yeah, it's got a high res 120 hertz display, plus this killer RGB keyboard. And I can access thousands of games anytime, anywhere. Stop playing. What? Get out of here. Huh? Yeah, I want you to stop playing and get out of here so I can game on that Chromebook. Got it.

Discover the ultimate cloud gaming machine, a new kind of Chromebook. On October 5th, Loki is back in a brand new season. Reunited.

That's right. The countdown is on. I've been waiting. Don't miss the return of Marvel's most watched Disney Plus show. Loki, Loki, Loki. I'm all over the top, don't you think? I thought it was spot on. His time is running out.

Marvel Studios Loki, season two, new episode streaming October 5th, only on Disney Plus. Let's talk about something that I wasn't planning on talking about, but you reminded me of something. And this is all to do with Al.

And this is all to do with coming off the weekend, things that are sticking to me. And we were going to just push ahead and talk about a great Belichick story, a Lane Kiffin anniversary, which it just happens to be the 15th anniversary of a thanks for the reminder. Well, actually, now that I think about it, let's just go right there. OK, is the 15th anniversary of Lane Kiffin getting let go with a projector projector. All right. Well, and I had that and that you had.

And I want to know your memories, of course, because, you know, look, we're talking about these coaches getting let go in the beginning of in the middle of the season. We were going to talk about who's in the hot spot. Rich said, oh, God, it's not hot yet. I said, kind of is. It's it's it's pretty warm, Rich.

It's pretty darn warm for some guys. But before we go on, let's hear about your recollections of the projector gate. Well, Lane was one of the two coaches Al fired during the season while I was with the team. So I don't know if he did it before I joined the team, but during my almost 30 years with the team, he fired two coaches in season. One was Mike Shanahan. We just talked about how that ended up in a big whoopty doo. The other was Lane.

I knew Al wanted to fire Lane. The argument I was having with him leading up to the termination was several fold. Number one, I raised the and do what? If you're going to terminate a coach, you better be able to answer and do what? And the answer that you have needs to be at least as good as the status quo, if not better.

Otherwise, what the heck are you doing? And he did have a plan in place that he believed was better than the status quo. By the way, I'm pretty sure Al would have thought me coaching the team was better than the status quo. He just was done.

And he wanted to terminate Lane. My issue with him once he made that clear was then do it. Just do it the right way. Do it calmly.

Do it. You know, someone once told me, if you're going to terminate someone, just do it and then be done. Don't make a whoopty doo out of it. Well, we went back and forth and argued. So he goes to have a press conference to fire Lane.

And I was so angry with him and we were at each other's throats that I behaved rather childishly. I refused to go to the press conference. So I sat upstairs in my office with two other staff members and we turned on the TV in my office to watch the press conference. Press conference starts. And the first thing I say is, Oh my God, they didn't even put our backdrop down. You know, we had a backdrop with sponsors on it and we were contractually obligated to use the backdrop for press conferences. So now I'm harrumphing and huffing and puffing that he's having this damn press conference and he didn't even pull down the backdrop.

So now the sponsor is going to be angry. And now as I'm staring at it, I realize, oh, the backdrop's there. That's a screen in front of the backdrop. Why is there a screen? And the camera pulls back and I see the overhead projector. I didn't even know we had an overhead projector. Well, he goes on to have the press conference and we're just sitting in my office on there.

These two other employees, two of my fellow employees, staff were there. And the three of us are just staring at the television, speechless. Well, after the press conference, all hell breaks loose.

And I'm not just talking about the media coverage. Sponsors are calling, advertisers are calling, season ticket holders are calling, fans are calling. Our customer service department has to be prepared to answer all the calls. Our sponsorship and advertising and PR and every department is getting pummeled with calls.

And we have to be prepared. And so I gathered a staff meeting. We had a staff meeting. The next three days were crazy. Things start, you know, calming down a little bit.

I don't remember whether it was three days later, four days later, and we can finally take a breath. And I said to my husband, I am going to go into the office and I am going to find that overhead projector. And I am going to get an ax and I am going to smash it and break it into millions of little pieces.

I'm going to smash it to smithereens. And my husband just looks at me and says, oh, no, that baby's going to Canton. And I laughed, and it was the first time I laughed after that press conference. So, yep, those were my two in-season firing experiences. I don't know whether the Raiders are going to terminate Josh McDaniels in-season. I don't know if they'll terminate him after the season, but I do know this.

I hid that overhead projector. So unless they found it when they left Oakland, they don't have it. Lane Kiffin was 9 and 23. He was 1 and 3 when he was fired. I remember when he went to you guys because he came out of USC and I had been covering USC at the time. And everyone was captivated to see if he could bring the Pete Carroll magic with him from USC to the Raiders. Kind of reminds me a little bit of the Belichick magic that Josh McDaniels was trying to bring with him. Yeah, there have been a lot of coaches who have worked for Bill. Josh is not alone in this regard. They've gone on and a number of teams have hired, you know, whether you want to call them prodigies or disciples or someone from the Bill Belichick tree.

And they don't succeed in the manner Bill has succeeded. Listen, Al involved me one time in the almost 30 years I was with the team. He asked me to participate in one coaching search. Had me meet with every single candidate, called me in afterwards and said, which one would you hire? And I was unequivocal. I said, Bill Belichick, absolutely unequivocally.

Al did not hire Bill. And I thought the fact that I had told him I would pick Bill would remain between the two of us and never come out publicly. And then Al had the just really the grace and the generosity. That's a better word at a press conference saying I was at this press conference and I was popped my heart. He said, Amy told me to hire Bill.

She was right. And from that point on, he would look at me and say, kid, you know how to hire a coach. And by the way, you know how people talk about humble brags? I just brag bragged. There is no such thing as a humble brag.

That's an oxymoron. So, yeah, when I tell you that I recommend hire Bill and that's before New England hired him, that's a brag brag. Who'd he hire instead? He hired John Gruden, which at the time worked out well. It was not a bad hire at the time, but I thought he should hire Bill. You must have been thinking about that during the Brady game, right? The forward pass game? No, I was thinking of other things. Yeah, I was thinking of other things. Well, good to know. Raiders are, of course, one and two right now.

We'll see what happens heading into this weekend. Reminder, Game Time is the sponsor for What the Football. Download the Game Time app, create an account, use the code WTF for $20 off of your first purchase. Restrictions apply, visit gametime.co for terms, last minute tickets, lowest price guaranteed.

That's very cool. By the way, and I do all the ticket buying for our house, and I use Game Time, and I can't do anything on the internet. They make it so easy that even a moron like I can buy tickets for my family, and that's the five of us.

You're not a moron. That's for surely sure. I get so bad and they make it easy. Thank you, Game Time. You know what?

And that's something to be said because a lot of those sites don't make it easy, says the girl who has trouble with a lot of those sites. No, Game Time makes it easy. Time for TJ, and that means time for ice cream. And TJ Jefferson, I want to explain to you why we're having Carvel Flying Saucers.

I don't think an explanation is needed, but please. So I made a bet with the great writer Damon Lindelof. He of lost fame of Watchmen, and as he tried to act like the Jets were going to beat the Patriots this weekend, I said to him, I'll give you a Randolph Duke bet. I'll bet you one dollar. My only kind of bets I make? One dollar that the Patriots win. He says to me, I'll bet you one hundred dollars. I said, I'll take it. So, of course, he loses.

Of course, he sweats and he's sweating and I'm sending him nasty, nasty texts. So when he loses, I said, I'll take it in flying saucers because he totally loves Carvel. So we are eating Carvel Flying Saucers today.

Care of Damon Lindelof. You suck. You lost. Your show's called Lost. You lost. So anyway, the only thing I ever, ever, ever, ever will bet is ice cream, because then even if you lose, you win because you get ice cream. And TJ, you're going to educate us.

But I just want you to know, while you're doing that, I brought sprinkles for our flying saucer. I mean, that's how you do like LeVar Ball once said, even when I lose, I win. So I see what you're saying. Look, week three is in the books, ladies. And, you know, a lot of teams are starting to go a little crazy. I shouldn't say teams.

I should say fan bases. They're acting like Chicken Little right now, right? They think the sky is falling because their team lost a week three game.

Well, I'm the heart back to my first ever acting role in third grade when I played Foxy Loxy and Chicken Little. And I'm here to tell you that the sky indeed is not falling yet. People were only in week three. Right. So you can't really throw in the towel for the season. That's very Aaron Rogers of you, you know, relax free.

But I have had no ayahuasca and I tend to keep a light on the room. But I love that you did the Henny Penny, Henny Penny, the sky is falling. Henny Penny, loosey goosey. They all thought, oh, no.

And then Foxy Loxy had to sneak in. So I just want to throw that out there, everybody. You could be three and oh, you could be on three in your fantasy season. But don't worry, the season is not over yet. So what I want to do is I want to get everybody ready for week four of fantasy football. Now, I'm going to tell you who to start. Last week, I told everybody to start Kenneth Walker, the third of the Seattle Seahawks.

And I look pretty good there. He had a hundred fifty six total yards, two touchdowns. Great pick by you, TJ. But then then I also told you to sit Jordan Love last week. OK. And for 56 minutes, I'd say that pick looked pretty good.

Yeah. And then not so and then not so good, because for three and a half quarters, Jordan Love had no fantasy points. And then at the end, he led them on an eight, them being the Packers on an 18 point unanswered streak. The Saints couldn't even score a point once David Carr left.

So I'm going to flip this. I'm going to say Jordan Love. People don't look at you right now. Jordan Love has made himself a must start each and every week for fantasy football teams. Look, he has exceeded, I think, everyone's expectations. No one really knew what to think about the guy.

They knew Aaron Rodgers was leaving. But I think you Green Bay Packer fans, you should be pretty happy because you've got yourself a quarterback and just think when Aaron Jones and Christian Watson come back and they're healthy, what this Packers offense could look like. So Jordan Love, I'm going to tell you the role with him. He is a must start now each and every week now going to the sit. I think this guy has tremendous talent.

I think he's a great wide receiver. But the one thing you can't do is like be like Mr. Perfect Kirk Henning and throw a pass to yourself, run 50 yards and then catch it.

You just can't really do that. So therefore, Garrett Wilson, I'm sorry to say he's going to have to sit for the time being. Look, he's averaging seven and a half targets per game, and that's great. And he's got two touchdowns. But come on, man. Zach Wilson ain't him. He is not him.

And until the Jets figure out a way to make someone actually him at that quarterback position, then Garrett Wilson's talents are just going to be wasted, unfortunately. So I'm going to say sit him until they get someone who can toss the rock to him because it's just I know your house must be awful on Sundays when Rich is watching the games. She probably doesn't know. She probably runs like hell to get out of there.

Like, how am I supposed to know? I'm at I'm at Legacy Baseball in Santa Clarita trying to, like, follow an ESPN. Well, Rich's home with nine televisions on. I barely thought you just ran out the door when the Jets game came on. So you didn't have to be there. I like to sit there and watch. I would understand that.

No, no, not not because of the Jets. It's because he reaches watching it. He paces. He sweats.

He throws things. It's great. Keep going, TJ.

All right. So now I'm going to tell you who to pick up. These are some guys I think you need to grab. Devin, the chain. Look, the running back for the Dolphins. He had 200 yards rushing and four touchdowns last week. He's still running. He might. Well, isn't that him right?

Yeah, I think he's still running. Look, you can't expect those numbers every week. But with this Dolphins offense, as I dubbed them yesterday, the greatest show on surf and turf, you're going to want to pick up some pieces.

Get wherever you can on this team because they're putting up massive points and you don't want to be left out. Josh Palmer, wide receiver for the Chargers. Look, Mike Williams had a great game on Sunday.

Seven catches for 121 yards in the touchdown. But sadly, he tore his ACL, just adding to the list of injuries that we've seen this year. Just take one moment on that, the Chargers over the last three years, I looked at the numbers of significant injuries to significant players, and I have never seen anything like that. It's year after year after year, and they've got to try something different. I don't know whether they need to go to Venice Beach.

I'll meet them there by some crystals by some chakra. I mean, yeah, I mean, they might need to have like a little ceremony and get it out of them. I mean, it's year after year. Yeah, and them and the Ravens as well, it's almost like these. But these teams, they get injured so much. They should be used to playing with backups and next man up, because like you said, every year there's someone getting hurt. And now Mike Williams is out for the season. So look for Josh Palmer.

I think he's going to step up. I have a question for Amy. When you listen to all the fantasy talk and you've actually sat there in a team office for 30 years, what's it like to listen to all these people try to play fantasy ball with real guys?

That is a great, great, great question. And fantasy is something that as someone who was with a team all those years, I never dove in because these are real people and you root for your team. You root for everybody.

You don't root for someone on one team and someone on another team and someone on another team. So it's not part of the consciousness within a team organization. Now I will tell you, teams are aware of it from a marketing standpoint and an advertising standpoint. When we put fantasy football on our Raiders website, Raiders.com, we were the first NFL team to do that. It wasn't for betting. There was no betting platform.

There was no link to betting. We simply put something up on Raiders.com explaining fantasy football, how could people play information about it within, I don't know, two minutes or so of putting it on Raiders.com. Private line at my desk rings. I pick it up. It's an executive from the league office in New York.

Four words, Amy, take it down. That shows you how far the league has come since we first mentioned fantasy football on our website to now where teams are monetizing fantasy football. What year was that? That was about 100 years ago. I don't remember. Look, it was while I was with the team. It was before I resigned and I resigned in, I think, 2013. So it was before then. But we were the first team to even reference fantasy football on the site. And that phone rang within minutes, just less than five minutes of putting it up.

Amy, take it down. Now it's a multi-million-billion-dollar industry. So yeah, we're looking at Josh Palmer from the Chargers. Also, Quentin Johnston, the rookie.

They used the first round draft pick on him. So you got to imagine they're going to want to get him ingrained into the offense. And also defense is going to be looking to shut down or at least slow down Keenan Allen. So Palmer, Johnston, I'd look to picking them up. I think Palmer is only he's only on about 8% of sports line team. So he should be available in your league. And also Jalen Warren. You know, I always talk about head or gut with fantasy football. You know, you can either look at the stats and use your head. You can reach deep down in your gut. Jalen Warren, I'm going to tell you, is a gut pick because Najee Harris just doesn't seem to be getting it done for the Steelers.

And it might be time for the stees to hand the rock over the Jalen Warren just to see what he can do in that offense. But that's all I got. TJ, can I interrupt you with a question for a moment? I'm fascinated by your head versus gut point because it's so, so, so well taken and stated. My question is, have you ever looked at the results when you go head versus go gut and see if there's a difference or I'm just is there a significant difference when you choose with your head versus your gut? That's a great question. I don't think I've ever really broke down the picks, but I will now going forward. But no, I've never really thought to say which of the two work better.

I know that's a great. Fascinated to know whether there's a correlation or a causation as between going with your head and going with your gut. Well, I think from now on, we're going to be keeping track of these and probably by about week 13, I'll have an answer.

What's your gut say about the boys after that? Lost the I'm going to I'm going to go back to my original point about Foxy Loxy. This guy's not following. You know, every talking head on every sports show, with the exception of your husband, Rich Eisen started off Monday show and they had a team scoring 70 points. Why are we not leading off with that?

Someone had a 50 burger plus 20 put on them. And yet these guys just want to get on here and talk about the Cowboys and then also say that they hate Cowboys fans and they're sick of talking to them. And yet, as far as I know, the Cowboy fans aren't the producers of these shows and they're not the ones on air. These are people who want to talk about the Cowboys for clicks. I it's it's frustrating for me. It seems like Groundhog's Day. Sometimes no one wants to take into consideration that the Cowboys were down three starting offensive lineman, right?

And a D back. But it is what it is. And that I guess, you know, that's what gets the clicks. We are America's team for a reason, and people care about the Cowboys either want to see us lose or they want to see us win.

And most of them want to see the Cowboys lose. TJ, I loved you already. I love you even more for your Henny Penny. The sky is falling reference. I use that all the time in business. I tell people the sky is not falling. We don't need to run around screaming Henny Penny, Henny Penny. The sky is falling. I use that all the time.

So you know what? You and me. Same TJ. Thanks for your time. Let's see how you do gut head.

What wins next week? We'll have you back. Thank you. Something you should know wherever you listen. All right. Thanks.

Always good information from TJ. You know, I always forget with a podcast. You can say, Oh shoot, I dropped something and get your glasses. Or I could say, Amy, talk into the mic. Or I can say, move forward. We're so used to doing TV and having everything look so perfect.

I forget that you can just be kind of relaxed because, you know, I don't go through life. And that was Susie's very polite way of saying during the TJ segment, she was trying to look at me and like, get me to talk into the mic. And I wasn't picking up on that very quickly, but I got you now because I'm so used to thinking like, okay, TJ is talking, like give you a look, a little whisper and a wink.

And they can say, Amy, talk into the mic. It's a podcast. Right. And now I'm getting, you know, we're learning each other's winks and nods.

It's not easy. All right. We did promise our listeners and we're so psyched that you're out there and thank you so much for joining us that we would take questions because I'd like to look through in the comments. I tend not to look at comments because a long time in television, you don't look at comments because be aware of what you see, you know, early in my career. And this was before Twitter and before X and before Instagram and all of the social sites. There were fan websites that talked about the Raiders.

And I remember one night I walked into the area in our home where we had our computer and I pulled up the fan website and my husband uttered the following words. Don't look at the comments. Oh no. Never look. No, I listened to him. He said, never look at the comments.

I think it was very good advice. And then of course I went and snuck and looked at the comments. You know what you learn when you work with like playboy playmates and those kinds of girls all the time? No, I really don't know that. I really don't know that.

Don't look at the comments. We're going to take a question. This is by the way, like never thought I'd say this into a microphone, but from gangster Yid.

That's what it comes by on it. Okay. And, and, and yes, it's the day after you were when we're taping this.

So I feel like I have to ask a question from gangster Yid, but I thought it was really interesting. He pointed out, Amy, you said, and do what in episode two of what the football referring to Joe Douglas, when you said, and do what, what's he going to do? Move on, find another, find another quarterback and do what? So he says, what should they do Amy?

Not an easy answer because it is going to involve the following analysis. And of course they did bring someone else in since gangster Yid sent us that question. Trevor Simeon is now part of the team. Yes. And Rich is still crying.

You're going to have to like bring him some of this ice cream home. They've got to do an analysis of the following. One, are they willing to trade a draft pick for a player? And the problem is, of course, they've got draft picks wrapped up in the Aaron Rogers trade.

And so there are constraints in that regard. And then query, are they willing to give away more draft picks? You've already traded for Aaron. Are you willing to give away more draft picks?

Okay, that's an option. Two, plenty of free agents out of there. There are a lot of free agent quarterbacks, varying ages, varying backgrounds, varying level of skills.

They just brought in Trevor Simeon, who I believe was last with the Jets like three years ago or so. I may be doing that math wrong. That happens a lot. So you trade, you sign a free agent, or you go with what you have. But even if you go with what you have, it doesn't mean you can't change your mind. When the coach came out and said, Zach's our guy, he's going to be our guy, my immediate thought was, don't put yourself in a corner like that. Because he didn't just say Zach's our guy now. Zach's our guy, we're sticking with Zach.

Zach's going to be our guy. Don't box yourself in a corner. There may be another alternative. But what you've got to believe is that those alternatives make sense for the team from a draft capital standpoint, a cash standpoint, and a cap standpoint, as well as a performance standpoint. So those are all the things that you bake into that analysis. And if anybody wants to learn more about cash, we talked about that a lot in episode one of What the Football.

Go back, take a listen to that one as well. You'll hear more about the cash. I'm glad you mentioned that, Suzy, because as I said, everybody is so focused on cap, cap, cap. And they don't understand that cash is a very important consideration to some teams, not to all teams. I mentioned earlier that I worked for a team that for many reasons was cash poor and cash flow poor.

So that did factor into discussion, except when it didn't. And then Al told me to go find more cash. You know, we talk a lot over the weekend.

Amy and I talk back and forth and try to talk about what's important to us, what are we seeing out there that kind of catches our eye. The Deion Sanders loss to Oregon obviously caught our eye. And as we look ahead in college football, they're playing against USC this weekend. Everyone's going to Boulder to take in that game. Fox is going.

All the national pundits are going. I want to point out that I really liked how Deion lost. If he's going to lose, he lost with class. And I can't get over how the tide has turned in terms of the relationship, how people have with Deion before the loss and after before it was the sunglasses and Chador and the Heisman and what have you and how amazing he was.

And has he changed coaching forever? And now it's like, oh, Deion Sanders lost. It's all over in Buffalo. It's all over in Denver, not Denver, Boulder, whatever. I've been there. I did the game.

Just stick with Colorado. My point is this. I thought he lost with class. I thought he lost. You know, I agree with you. I would phrase it only slightly differently.

And that's just because we use different words. I thought he lost with grace, but with strength and grace. And I thought the manner in which he handled that loss demonstrated leadership. And he was conveying to his players. This is how you handle a loss. Just like he stepped out and said the week before the week leading up to that, he condemned players who were threatening the life of the player who took out their player. And he said, no, no, no, no. He's demonstrating leadership. And I think you use the word class. I don't disagree with that.

I would say strength and grace. How close was Deion to becoming a Raider ever? There was a lot of flirting. The flirting never turned into dating. We never made, you know, it obviously didn't happen, but Al liked Deion.

Al liked every, first of all, from the time I joined the organization, throughout my years there with Al, one of the things he said to me regularly, and this is a quote, kid, don't ever leave a team without corners. He liked Deion, everything about Deion. So yeah, was there a flirt?

Absolutely a flirt. It never came to be. He would have been a perfect Raider. Wouldn't he have?

That would have been great. Oh, and by the way, I will forever remember when the Cowboys came to play us in Oakland shortly after Al moved the team from LA back to Oakland. I don't remember the exact year, 97, 98, something like that, and we're going into the game and everybody's talking internally. Don't throw the ball to the guy Deion's covering. You just, you don't throw at Deion. You don't throw at Deion.

It's sort of obvious, right? Our coach comes out, we're throwing at Deion, we're throwing at Deion, we're throwing. Oh, there's a pick. Oh, there's a batted ball. After the game, the coach was asked, you know, what'd you do?

We talked about this. You weren't going to throw at Deion. The coach's response was, I wanted to show him we could throw at him. I said, what did you show him?

It was absolutely ineffective. Yeah, you. Beautiful. You know, I think that we probably missed the boat with you. Maybe you should have done some coaching. Oh, I used to say to Al all the time, all the time I said, I mean umpteen times, you know, if I was defensive coordinator and before I got another word out of my mouth, his response?

You're not. Well, I guess he told you before we go, I want to go over one thing about the Travis Kelsey-Taylor Swift effect after the game on Sunday, Travis Kelsey gained 325,000 Instagram followers, a 400% uptick in his merchandise sales, the top five selling Jersey in the NFL. Most importantly, Chief's viewership went up by 63% for women aged 18 to 49. And this is what I want to say, Amy. I love how all of these grown men who have to talk about football and just, you know, they're out there for downs and distance, the tizzy, the absolute tizzy that grown men have been in this week talking about Taylor Swift at the Chiefs game is just insane to me. And you're focused on what you just shared, which is the reaction of football, male football fans. My focus on the information you just shared is if I'm in the front office of a team or I'm in the league office, my immediate thought is, how do I get her at every game?

How do I get her equivalent? Not that there is an equivalent in terms of the eyeballs and the spending she draws, but how do we get other people to do that as well? Because if you can raise viewership that much in that demographic and you can increase sales that much, my immediate thought in the league office and every team was, could you go to every game every week?

Could we just put you on rotation and have you go around the league? I mean, it's hysterical, and by the way, for Travis, it's kind of what it feels like when everybody's asking female athletes who they're dating. Now it's getting a little piece of it because no matter what, she's going to be the bigger starter wherever she goes. She's the biggest star in the world right now, and it's kind of fun. I mean, I was there for it.

I took it in, my 15-year-old took it in, my 10-year-old took it in. We're all kind of taking it in, which cannot have enough of it, by the way. He is like, he's excited. Is he a Swifty?

Oh, beyond. Does he wear Swift bracelets? He doesn't, but would you like to make him one? I think so. I think he'd try this. You want to make him a bracelet, drop him your number?

I think that'd be really cute. All right, guys, thanks for taking in this edition of What the Football. We'll be back next week. We're going to smooth things out. We're kind of figuring each other out. We're going to figure out this podcast thing.

Until then, stick to football. Hey, guys, it's Susie Schuster, and I am so excited for my new podcast coming out this fall. It is called What the Football with Susie Schuster and the Princess of Darkness, Amy Trask. If you're looking for a new podcast to listen to about jargon, heavy-legged, wastebenders, this is not for you. We're going to have big-girl conversations. We're going super deep to bring you weekly guests that you won't find anywhere else. It is What the Football with Susie Schuster and Amy Trask, wherever you listen.