OTA's Biggest Part Of The NFL Season

This is The Rich Eisen Show from The Rich Eisen Show Studio in Los Angeles. With guest host Kirk Morrison. I'm in your hood.

I'm in your house right now. Love it. Rich doesn't ever say hello to us. He just gets going and we're off and running. What's the name of the show?

I want to hear it please. The Rich Eisen Show. Boom. Earlier on the show, senior NBA writer for the athletic John Krasinski. Pro football hall of famer Jerome Bettis. Still to come, yahoo sports college football writer Ross Dellinger. And now, filling in for Rich, it's Kirk Morrison. Hi as I come back to hour number three here on The Rich Eisen Show.

Kirk Morrison here. Been filling in for Rich and excited as I get ready for this upcoming Memorial Day weekend. Is it the unofficial kickoff to summer as we all call it.

Much needed time off. The WNBA is going to be in Los Angeles. So I'm trying to figure out how I can maybe go to the Kaitlyn Clark game. But you also have the Western Conference Finals in full swing. We saw that last night. The Timberwolves lose 105 to 108 to the or 108 to 105 as the Mavs take game one. We'll get game two tonight of the ECF. The Eastern Conference Finals.

Will the Boston Celtics make it another overtime game or do the Indiana Pacers find a way to pull off a victory? So we got a lot to get to still in this hour number three. But college football has kind of found its way in many different ways so far for me. In this time off that I would say when college football you think is oh we just wait till summertime before it starts to heat up.

But news has been trickling out. And this Jayden Rashada situation. Quarterback now at the University of Georgia. Started off in Miami, then decommitted. Then he goes to Florida and then something at Florida happened in which he had to go.

But I can lay it out for you but I got some help in doing that too. Ross Dellinger is my guy from Yahoo! Sports college football writer. A great follow on Twitter by the way. If you want news about college football trust me he's the guy to follow. And Ross I want to start here. Kind of take me through this Jayden Rashada I guess timeline to speak.

All I know there's NIL. There was 13 million promised. There were payments that were promised.

And those payments never happened. He decommitted. Goes to Arizona State. Plays a year. And now he'll be enrolled in the backup quarterback at the University of Georgia. Man please help me kind of digest what's been going on. It's pretty crazy that we could have a Georgia quarterback suing or I guess we do have it right?

A Georgia quarterback is suing the head coach at Florida. His main rival. Probably indicative of the situation that college athletics is in right now.

It's in an interesting strange place. And about three years ago you know the NCAA of course lifted its rules allowing players to earn compensation on their name image and likeness. And that opened up boosters and booster-led collectives.

Like groups of boosters basically funding football teams and paying for recruits under the guise of NIL. And this is what happened with Jayden Rashada except his payments never went through right? He was promised over 13 million dollars by the Florida Collective. Booster Collective specifically from one booster was going to fund much of that. And basically before he signed the payments didn't arrive. Only one payment. I think a small portion of the money arrived and then the Gator Collective cancelled basically the contract. But you know just got rid of it within a few weeks of the agreement.

So that kind of started this spiral. But Florida obviously still wanted to keep Jayden Rashada right? He was a highly ranked quarterback. And so apparently according to the lawsuit that was filed Billy Napier the Florida head coach promised Jayden Rashada at least 1 million of that 13 million at least 1 million dollars on signing day I believe to sign with the Gators. He did write and then he got out of it obviously.

Transferred to Arizona State and then transferred back east as we know to Georgia. So kind of a crazy confluence of events there. But no surprise with the lack of rules around NIL that we have broken promises and unfulfilled contracts in the world of this booster-led NIL world. I think it happens a lot.

Jayden Rashada was one of the more public ones. You know Ross the big question here is was there a signed agreement or was this a handshake agreement? And is this also a cautionary tale in the NIL space? Especially with college basketball. Obviously football is a monster of its own. But it's one thing to sign a contract and have an NIL contract made out that has to be fulfilled versus a sort of handshake wink wink kind of agreement where a lot of these guys who enter a transfer portal don't visit don't know it's all about phone calls and they go sight unseen. Is this what you're talking about in terms of the NCAA has to find some kind of some kind of groundwork so that this doesn't happen to other athletes?

Right yeah and we've seen it now for three years. You know the broken promises, the unfulfilled contracts. I think you know the contract with the Gator Collective I think is in the lawsuit there and it was a contract. It was in paper and a lot of these are but they still get they still get broken and they they don't they don't become as public as this one has become especially now with the with the lawsuit.

But we're seeing kind of how how they often they play out. And I think the NCAA is in college athletics in general is making strides into preventing these things from from happening. One of the ways they're doing that obviously right now in the New York area is the settlement of of a bunch of antitrust cases that will create a new model for college athletics moving forward which they hope will prevent a lot of these things that have happened to probably hundreds of players in including Jay Marshada.

Yeah you mentioned it right. Talk with Ross Dellinger, Yahoo sports college football writer. These antitrust lawsuits that are being that are going on right now. I'm seeing conferences who are agreeing to the payout but where's the money go? Is it going to the players?

Is it going back to the institutions? What does this payout from these antitrust lawsuits that have been going on? I'm trying to keep up Ross and I'm like how does this what does this involve the players or no?

Yeah it definitely involves the players and it is complicated. You know the the settlement and it should be finalized by the end of the week by by Friday. I will say a portion of it should be finalized. At least the NCAA and the power five conferences which are the six defendants in the case they will have authorized the settlement by Friday. It's got a long way before it's actually finalized but the settlement right now according to documents of sources who are knowledgeable about it will will include kind of three parts. So the first part is the back damages to athletes owed NIL payments before NIL was implemented.

They're four years before NIL, four years before athletes could earn compensation from their NIL. Those athletes around 12 15 000 of them is the estimate will get will be distributed 2.8 billion dollars. That's the that's the back damage and settlement to those athletes. So that's the first part of the settlement. The second part of the settlement is kind of the forward-thinking part where schools will be permitted not required but permitted to share revenue with athletes. We don't know exactly the specific amount but it will probably be around 20 to 21 22 billion dollars a year per school can can share with athletes. It's kind of like there's a salary cap that'll be put on that of around 21 22 million but that will fluctuate as the settlement which is 10 years in length goes on.

So that's the second part. And the third part it's kind of a restructured NCAA where power conferences will have more control will be able to create their own rules and probably enforce them. They'll probably be a new enforcement arm. There'll be some changes to some other kind of granular things scholarship limits roster things like that. So we know that the money's going to be coming in Ross is that what you're saying with all of these expansion of conferences.

I saw that yesterday now that the college football playoff will now expand its viewership opportunities not just from ESPN but now TNT will now hold a first-round matchup I believe two first-round matchups in the first couple years and then they'll have quarterfinals and we'll see where that goes along. But it just shows you now that college football has expanded viewership opportunities that's more money and now this money can now go into the pockets of these student-athletes. But if I'm a volleyball player or water polo or soccer am I entitled to what the football revenue brings in from these tv contracts or is this going to be something the NCAA is still trying to figure out how to disperse these collective television contracts coming into each university.

That is that is a key issue is is how are we going to make sure that we're doing it. It's a key issue is is how you distribute you know if you hit the cap if a school hits the cap around 20 say this around number 20 million because of the federal title 9 law which requires higher education and in education institutions to share opt to offer equal opportunity to men and women do you have to split down the middle that 20 million does 10 million go to football say, and then 10 million go get spread out to women athletes. A lot of these women's sports, obviously, in the grand scheme of things, right, call schools millions of dollars. They lose money. Most of this money, as you mentioned, is coming from, is generated from TV contracts and ticket sales around football, in a little bit of men's basketball.

So how do you do that? Do you follow the Title IX law? Are you required to follow the Title IX law?

And do you split the payments? Or is there a way around this where you can give more of the money to the players whose sport generated, right, which would be football and men's basketball? It is a key question in all of this.

And so is these booster collectives. Do they continue outside of the university offering athletes money? And does that money count toward the cap?

I don't think it will. So there's a way to potentially, for schools to circumvent the cap by going outside with their booster collective, and there's a way to potentially circumvent Title IX by either not doing it or going outside as well. So a lot of questions still on the disbursement of the money to athletes. Yeah, Who's Force College Football writer Ross Dellinger joining the Rich Eisen Show with Kirk Morrison here filling in for Rich. I'm excited to get caught up on all this news because all this stuff is coming at you quick.

I'm trying to dissect it. There's always a new story, a new lawsuit. And then finally, I'm watching it. We're less than 100 days away from actually football kicking off the college football season, unlike we've seen before, where now every network has their own sort of gimmick, I would call it, right? You have the SEC on ABC and the Big 10 on CBS and NBC. And then yesterday I saw the news of Fox Friday football.

How confusing is it for us? Or is it something that you really have to sit down and grab the old TV guy, Ross, and start to mark our appointment television viewing for the weekend? Because our football is going to be over so many different networks.

So many different networks and so many different days. We've got we've got midweek major college, midweek football, which we don't often have. You often see the MAC and other programs, Sunbelt, Comfort USA, these smaller leagues play during the middle of the week. But now you'll have Big 10 football on Friday. I think almost every Friday you may have a Big 10 football game on Fox, Friday night games.

So that's going to be different to get used to. And then, of course, you move to Saturday and the Big 10 has a lineup of a game on Fox right at noon, the big noon kickoff, a 3-30 game on NBC or CBS. CBS and NBC has the night game. And then you go to the SEC right there on ABC and ESPN. Big 12 is on ESPN and Fox as well. So lots going on there. And even you throw in even the CW, which the ACC will have some games on on the CW. Yeah.

I saw Washington State and Oregon State got some games on the CW as well. But it leads us to the countdown. July 19th, 2024 is a day that I've got circled on my calendar. I cannot wait. I feel like it's going to be the precursor to what's going to be an unbelievable college football season. But college football 2025, the video game on EA Sports. It's been a long time coming. They've had to get a lot of signatures, a lot of players on board, a lot of people involved in this. But I feel like this is going to be one of the biggest game releases we've seen in a very long time. The buzz has been there.

I know you get the same information that we're all seeing. I can't wait for it to come out, but I feel like it's going to give us a better appreciation and more fandom for what we want to see come this fall when college football 2025 comes out. Ross, just your thoughts on the video game as it gets ready to be released in July.

Well, I'm really excited. I mean, I grew up playing the game, right? I mean, it was like the thing that we did in high school and college. When we were supposed to be studying and going to class, we were playing college football 20.

At that point, it was it was I'm going to date myself. It was like, oh, four college football, oh, four college football, oh, five. And so I'm pumped to see the video game. It's been a huge storyline, obviously, to build up to this point. And it kind of it kind of encapsulates all of what we've been talking about when it comes to NIL and college athlete compensation, because the game obviously ended, partly because of an ongoing ban in court case against the NCAA for athlete compensation. And so the game ended back in 2014.

So it's been a little over 10 years since we've had a new release of the game. And you can you can feel it through the college athletics world that people are excited. Yeah, man, it's buzzing, man.

I can't wait for it as well. But Ross, man, I appreciate the time. By the time we talk again, hopefully all these lawsuits will be settled.

We can kind of clean the desk and get ready for an exciting college football season. Mayor Ross, I appreciate the time. Thanks for the knowledge today, brother. Yeah, thanks. That's Ross Dellinger, Yahoo! Sports college football writer. You can follow him on Twitter at Ross Dellinger.

He's got all the info that you need. I follow you. There are certain guys who I follow to keep up with college football because it comes in fast and furious.

He's one of those guys to do it, man. When it comes to like the are you guys big college football fans? Like for me, this game feels a little nostalgic for me.

I go back to one of the great games that no one ever talks about. 1992 Bill Walsh College Football, Sega Genesis. That was college football.

Stanford. He's on the cover. The option was just unbelievable. The graphics.

I was like, there's nothing. This must be heaven. It can't get any better than this. And the graphics got better and better. But look, I love the NFL. Madden has been, obviously, it's been a foundation of football for so many years. But college football just was always fun.

It was just always like you could be any university. NFL, we get it. It's 32 teams and you kind of got your allegiance. But you turn on the college football and it's like today I'm Nebraska. And tomorrow, you know what? I'm going to be a Wolverine just for one day, for one hour. Tommy Frazier, Peyton Manning.

I'm Charlie Ward. But that's what I think that this college football game is going to just be amazing because it's bringing out so many different memories of just watching college football, being a part of it. And I think it's a great time that is being released in the middle of July that leads us up right into the college football season, which I think is going to be one of the best that we've seen. Obviously, the NFL will have Madden come out, but I just think it's going to be a record. I don't know how many people will buy this football game, but I know I'm going to be one of them.

I will be playing. It seems like there's a crazy buzz. And this is how I know, look, Syracuse hasn't been good for a long time in college football. It's the 25th anniversary of Donovan McNabb getting drafted this year. Wow.

25 years. That's the last time we were good and relevant. But here's how I know we're almost back. Syracuse made the trailer.

I saw that. From the college football game. Kyle McCord. Kyle McCord. Get me in the couch.

Bring me back to the couch. Kyle McCord. I saw that he made the trailer. Everybody was excited except one fan base who didn't necessarily make the trailer. They made the trailer, but they were getting stiff armed. The Ohio state Buckeye fans are in a rage. They're an uproar. They were an uproar because they were getting stiff armed. I think by even Illinois player too.

He said it wrong. They got the stiff arm. They got the stiff arm.

A Michigan player was stiff arming an Ohio state player. And then I believe also too, this is from, this is like I said, I find so much information that Ohio state is also upset is that Illinois was holding up the trophy in the matchup between like the Ohio state, Illinois matchup. There's a trophy. I'm not sure what they play for because all these big 10 teams play for all kinds of stuff. An ax, a wooden oak, a chair, you know, like think about all the big 10 teams. They all go up against each other and they got to play for something. Right. I don't know.

Why is it, why does everybody got to play for something? Just what do they call it? What do they call it? The ill buck trophy. The ill buck trophy. Yeah. The ill buck trophy. Yeah. So I guess in the trailer, Illinois is holding that up and it signifies that they beat Ohio state.

So yes, Ohio state fans or something, a picture of it. All right, man, coming up, man, we got more of the rich eyes and show me Kirk Morrison here filling in for rich steel more to come right here. What's up everyone.

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Grainger has the right product for you call click Grainger.com or just stop by. OTA's are in full swing. They call it, I think phase three of the off season for the NFL. And again, OTA is just a fancy word for saying practice, organized team activity.

And so look, I know what OTA's are. I went through them as a player. The first part or the different phases of the off season program was three phases. Phase one is kind of the weightlifting acclimation part. So you go in there, you lift weights, get in and get out.

That's it. You get into phase two. Now phase two is a little bit different. Phase two is on field instruction.

Ooh. Yeah. On field instruction. So basically you'll lift weights and you'll go out there with your position coach. And shorts, helmets only?

Yeah. No, not even helmets. Not even helmets. Just shorts, skit cleats, and you'll do some drills. I always thought it was kind of interesting that your position coach would take you out to do drills. And in the second part or I call phase two of the off season is usually in that beginning part of April. So you go do drills with your coach and then when the coach gets done, he's got to go up to draft meetings and go find ways to go draft over you.

He's got to go look at film to go, yeah, you know what? I just worked him out. I think we could do better. I've always laughed about this because I've had coaches who have worked out like, so who we drafted? What round are we thinking?

Okay. So that's phase two on field instruction of just working out in terms of getting football movements going. Now we're in phase three of the off season.

Phase three is the OTA, the organized team activity. And look, there are some guys who are not showing up due to contract situations, right? The challenge of contracts. I get it. And I understand it. I've never been a guy who was upset at a player who was holding out for his money.

I get it. Every player is different. I view the off season different. And I wasn't that type of player that could hold out because I'm just being real with you. I wasn't the type of player where if I held out, they would be like, oh man, we missing out.

They probably just say, cut me or release me. So I knew that where my place was in OTAs, but I also treated it where I can find ways to be better at my craft, learn more, understand more, go through things. And this is where you can be on the page with your coach. For me, it was in my defensive coordinator. I was a signal caller.

And so I would like to try out things, testing. We would go through different play calls and situations. And for me, I know I got better as a player, but there's also another couple of elements to it that I truly loved about the organized team activity because the OTA usually happens around this time, right? The middle of May going into the early parts of June. And it's always usually in the final stages of the NBA playoffs.

And so you got a lot of guys, you know, rookies, free agents who have just came in. For me as a leader, this was the biggest part of the season in order to build the off season and going into the season team camaraderie. You have to build that camaraderie. And this is when you do it. Hey guy, what are you guys doing tonight? Hey, let's go watch the game tonight.

Let's go watch basketball. And those are some of the best times that you have because it wasn't about football practice. It wasn't about missing an assignment here or missing a coverage here, dropping a pass here. It was the first time where you just got to relax and you learn your teammates.

Know about them. Know about the guy who you think that when the season comes along, that I got to trust that on third and two, he's going to be where he needs to be. He's going to make that catch.

So that's what the off season OTA was for a guy like myself. And I think it's like that for a lot of the quarterbacks. I've seen Aaron Rodgers do more of this.

It feels like he's done more of that in New York so far. Be a part of his teammates. Develop those relationships. Build that trust that when you get to the regular season, you know the guy who's next to you.

OTAs bring all of that out. But there's also situations that I remember my rookie year in the National Football League. I was drafted by the Raiders. And at the time, Charles Woodson was on the franchise tag, right? You know, Hall of Famer, Super Bowl champion Charles Woodson. And my locker was right next to Charles Woodson's. Well, my locker was right next to locker number two, which was locker number, next to that was locker number 24. I remember Charles Woodson had two lockers. So he had the NFL locker and he had the college locker and then 52, that was my locker. So I'm right next to Charles Woodson.

It was so fun. But his locker was, nobody was ever there. He'd never, he didn't go to OTAs. I remember he showed up at the mini camp, but he like worked on the opposite field. Like he was there so that he didn't get fined and he just did workouts.

I'm like, man, you know, and as a rookie, I'm like, I thought OTAs meant everybody. It's mandatory. And I realized it's voluntary mandatory. I mean, it's voluntary to be there, but it's mandatory for you to be there.

But if you're other players, yeah, a little bit different, you don't have to go. Charles Woodson was one of those players that I was a part, that I was around that I realized he's not at the OTA, but I wonder why, like, would he want to be here? You know, and I didn't, I didn't, you know, I barely knew him. Didn't go to OTAs, showed up at the mini camp. Didn't even really do anything at mini camp. Got to training camp, practice here and there, you know, didn't, wasn't really full speed. I'm like, man, like everybody else is busting their butt. I'm trying to make the team.

I'm trying to do everything. And then finally we got to the regular season and we got to week one and I was out there. I didn't play like the first series, the guy in front of me messed up, Morrison you're in, and I never came out the rest of my career with the Raiders, but I remember being on that field and there was a play that happened and I'm running and I just saw this number 24 come out of nowhere. I said, whoa.

And I realized not all guys are created equal. I realized that Charles Woodson was that dude, that some guys have built up a resume. They have the cache that they don't need the off season program the way that younger players or other players would need it.

He, I watched that film and I said, that's what a Hall of Flamer is. That's what a great player is. So I say that is that we see some players who are not showing up for the OTAs, but I think that a CeeDee Lamb will be fine. I think a Justin Jefferson, he'll be okay. I think Mark Parsons, he'll be fine. There are some players who it's not necessarily a big deal and people will say, oh my God, this guy's not at OTA.

He's not at OTA. We go through this every single year. As long as they're there that open weekend in September, when it's time to put the pads on, it's fine with me. But you got to go play. You got to show up and ball. Don't come in there and be not who we expect you to be. You got to go out there and be the player that has shown that, hey, if you want to be, you know, you want to be in an off season and kind of do your own thing, your own work being, that's fine, but you better show up come season.

And those are some players who I think that will. So it's not necessarily guys a big deal. When I see the reports, this guy's not at OTA.

He's just out trying to get his contract. And this is all voluntary, but for some people it should be mandatory. But I think it should be just for the younger players. Like younger players understand that though, like when a guy's kind of not there knowing that he's got a contract, it's kind of cool or understood the other players who are there that it's fine or.

Yeah, it's fine. I honestly, I believe that only because it's funny, like that doesn't control what I'm doing. Like that guy not here, that's fine, but I'm about to, I got to make the team. I got to do what's best for me.

Like he may be in a contract situation. I'm still either trying to get to the contract or trying to maintain what I'm doing as a player. So I don't really think about the other.

That's the cliche answer from coaches. They always say, Hey, let's just always talk about the guys who are here. I can only talk about the guys who are here. I can only talk about the guys who are here, which honestly is the right approach. And that's, I think how players see that, Hey, I can't really speak about this guy. He's not here, but I do know that he's working out and he'll be ready to go for the season. I choose to be here. A lot of the many quarterbacks are all there, right?

For the most part. I haven't heard any, I think Tua went to Nick Saban's golf tournament as an excuse day. So that was the only thing that I've heard, but all the quarterbacks are there because they realized that, Hey, I gotta be, have the chemistry with my wide receivers. My running back always felt like, and maybe this partly, one of the reasons why I always had to go to OTAs was because I played for six coaches in eight years.

So it's like there was a new regime, new system every single year. So it was like, I had to be there because I had to learn a new terminology, learn a new philosophy, how the practice format would be. But the OTA or the practice, you're only there for four hours. They can only keep you for four hours. It's a morning lift for an hour. It's a meeting for an hour. It's on field instruction for 90 minutes to our one, yeah, about 90 minutes.

And then you have a post recovery and you're done. You're out by 12 o'clock. I wasn't playing golf then. Had I known I would have been playing golf. Man, 1230 tee time. 1230 tee time. I'd be going out with all the specialists, right?

Quarterbacks and punters and kickers and all of that. I'd have been hanging with them. But I spent time hanging out with the fellows, going to go watch a game, going to a bar, going to somewhere where we just go have a little fun. It's still summertime. And then you got responsibilities as you got older.

But for the most part, that's what the OTA was really for me. And I enjoy watching the videos and the clips. But I do say this, every social media account for the teams, they're never going to show a bad play. You know that? Unless it's the Dolphins and they show like a wobbly to a deep ball. No, I saw that, right?

That's what they've been doing the last couple of years. I know. I just saw, I remember earlier in the conversation that, you know, I was having with John Skowonski. I remember I asked him, I'll be Kowonski when I say that. I was talking about the Minnesota Vikings and kind of what they put out there.

And I'm great. The answer that he gave us was like, yeah, they're doing this so that we can temper the expectations of J.J. McCarthy. We're telling everybody QB one is Sam Darnold. He's still, Sam Darnold's still good, everybody.

Please look at, look at Sam. And they're showing all these Sam Darnold throws during training. I mean, how many Caleb Williams throws have we seen on the internet so far, right? A million.

Oh, that everybody's, I mean, chicagobears.com, chicagobears, social media, Instagram, Twitter, all that. Look at Caleb Williams. We got us one.

QB one. Look at this y'all. I'm like, y'all show us the highlights. Show me some of them interceptions too. Show me. I saw Jayden Daniels a couple of throws. Drake Mays had some throws already. So look, I just kind of sit back in my life.

I'm asking one Joe Milton through like 80 yards. Oh man. It's like, cool. Oh, Bryce Young looks amazing right now. I heard that.

Did you hear that too? Look, his players on me, the guys, wide receivers. Oh, Bryce Young looks great. He's taking a big step.

Yeah, big league. We're in shorts, people. We're in shorts. But don't you love it? It gets the juices kind of flowing a little bit.

Yeah, but I feel like old takes exposed should keep all of these. And then when the season starts, start to explode. But you remember he had a great off season. He looked good in shorts.

He looked good in the OTA. And then come week one, it's always the biggest disappointment. And that's why we got to have overreaction Monday because we've been hyped up and built up all off season about how this guy has taken a step. I mean, think about it.

We're in the end of May, getting ready for Memorial weekend. And the biggest NFL story is that Lamar Jackson's 205 and not 230. Skinny. Skinny LaVar. Is he too skinny?

Is he too skinny? That's... What week is that coming? That's coming. Let me just write that one down. If he gets it, write that down.

I need that locked and loaded for like week four. LaVar's too skinny. Because first it was like, did you see him? He bulked up. He's ready to take the hits.

And now he's like, oh, he wants to be more agile. So he's smaller. If Lamar Jackson was coming out in the NFL draft and he weighed 205, what would we say? He's too thin. Too thin. He can't play that position.

What are we doing here? Take him off the draft board. He's too small.

Where's Bill Polian? Make him play wideout. But you win a couple of MVPs, you can do that, right? Two-time MVP, Lamar Jackson. Now he was in the conference championship just a season ago. Now he's got to progress.

So we'll see what this big issue is as we see all these pictures of the internet. A slim Lamar. I'm like, slim?

220? He still looks slim. I don't see the difference. He was the same thing.

Maybe he got a little bit more bicep a couple of years ago. But again, man, that's the stories that are being painted throughout the OTAs. I just write them down.

I try to keep receipts because when September comes around, I don't want any excuses. This is what you told me. This is what you fed me. But this is all for the fans. The fans get excited. They get pumped up.

They get ready to go. And then all of a sudden you get, and you're defeated during the season. So I'll leave it at that, man. I'll leave it at that. Love it. Start bench or cut. Let's do it.

My first time doing this, man. Start bench or cut. That's coming up next year as we wrap up the show here, Kirk Morrison filling in for Rich on the Rich Eisen Show. Oh, welcome back into the Rich Eisen Show, man.

That was amazing. Kirk Morrison here filling in for Rich. I can't wait to play Start Bench Cut. It's been a while since I've done that. I mean, I see it with different restaurants I've seen before. And there's like the food items that I've seen before. Like, oh, would you start bench cut?

Which of these food items? You know what? I'm just gonna throw it to you, Brockman, because I can't wait to get in on this one. All right, ready?

I'm ready. Play my music. Start. Start now. Bench. Just sit down and be quiet.

Or cut. Get out. All right, Kirk, here's the game.

Mike, let's get some music going on. Start Bench Cut. Now, you know the F Mary Kill.

You're familiar with that game? Yes. This is what Start Bench Cut is. I'm gonna give you three options.

You're gonna tell me which one you're starting, which one you're benching, and then which one is cutting. That's third place. Okay, got it? Okay.

All right. Which quarterback would you pay $50 million a year on a new deal? Tua, Trevor Lawrence, or Jordan Love? Start. Bench. Cut.

Kirk Morrison. Oh, wow. Sound it out. Talk it out like Millionaire.

Okay. These guys are all getting paid. They're all getting paid.

Probably getting paid right before, maybe not Jordan Love, but the other two guys are getting a new deal this year. Very soon. I am going to cut. Wow, this is tough.

I'm gonna go backwards. I am going to cut. Oh, it's not easy. It's not easy. Come on.

It's easy. T.J., think about yours because I'm going to ask you in a second. I'm going to cut Trevor Lawrence. I think that's... Oh, I like that. I'm going to cut Trevor Lawrence. I like it. I am going to... I know, T.J., you're cutting Trevor Lawrence.

Stop. I'm going to bench Tua. I'm going to start Jordan Love.

I agree with that stuff. And the only reason why I start Jordan Love is because Jordan Love plays in a place, in a climate in Green Bay, Wisconsin, that he's shown and that ball can cut through. And then he can also play indoors.

He is the man of the elements. And I think that Jordan Love, what he did last year with a group of infants, if you want to call them, the youngest receivers in the National Football League. I got four good ones.

I'm going to start Jordan Love. And I learned under Aaron Rodgers. I've got to bench Tua because Tua in cold weather, it's a thing. We talked about narratives and stories. That's the narrative right now. That's the narrative right now. Tua, hey, he's great when it's in South Florida, when it's hot. But man, watching him, especially on the hard knocks last year, the end season.

I love that by the way. I did. But December Tua and playoff Tua was not good. That's just the narrative right now.

14 degrees below zero in that one play. And I'm still on the fence about Trevor Lawrence. I mean, I really am on the fence. People are, and Doug Peterson has said it, hey, we're working to get a deal. After three years, I'm still not sold on Trevor Lawrence yet.

I need to see more. For him to be at the top of the NFL quarterback market? What, 55 million a year for Trevor Lawrence? That's insane. No way.

Did you like this? You like Kirk? I'm dead on. I'm right there with Kirk Love.

Really? Tua Lawrence. All right, let's keep moving, Mike. Hit the music. Oh, there's more.

We got three more. Oh, perfect. Oh. Quarterback, you'd bet on to win a ring first.

That press cut. Start. Not on the list.

Joe Burrow, Justin Herbert, Josh Allen. Start. Bench. Cut. That's easy too.

Oh, this is easy for me. I think I'm going to go. I'm cutting Herbert. I am going to even with Harbaugh now when the ring first, no matter what, you're still behind Patrick Mahal.

You're in a division with Patrick Mahal. That's just I'm going to bench Joe Burrow and I'm going to start Josh Allen. It's a big year for Josh Allen. Big year for Josh. I think big year for all three of these guys.

Big year for all three for sure. Yeah. But Josh Allen, the first year without Stefan Diggs, he's going to have to show.

Yeah. But I'm going Josh Allen. I think he's in a division that allows him to get more wins and get himself in a better situation.

Pretty easily, I would imagine. And I think that I would go Josh Allen. Joe Burrow, if Joe Burrow ends this season on IR, that's three out of five seasons he's in an IR. Had there be any other quarterback. We'd be killing that. We'd be killing that quarter. Think if Daph Prescott ended his first five seasons, three of them on IR, what would we say about that? By the way, going into last year, all we talked about Lamar Jackson.

Yeah. Couldn't finish the last two years. Couldn't finish the last two years.

He finished. Now he's got two MVPs. Two MVPs trumped the one Super Bowl appearance? I think so.

I think so. Remember, the Super Bowl appearance, you can't control what the defense is doing, right? No matter how good you might be on offense. You don't want MVPs. All right.

Okay, two more, two more. Start bench cut. Old face in a new place. That player to have the biggest impact this year. We're talking about... He's in the same policy. Just tag Prescott for everything. Saquon Barkley. Kirk Cousins. Derrick Henry. Biggest impact in the new place.

Okay. Well, Kirk, if I could jump in, I mean... Go ahead, go ahead, go ahead. Your namesake right there, he's the QB. So obviously, he's going to have the biggest impact, I would think. So I think I'd have to start Kirk.

He might get benched. Okay. I'm benching.

No, I'm going to... For real. Not just in the game. Yeah. I'm going to cut Kirk Cousins. Oh, I see you. That's Kirk on Kirk Bias.

Yeah. I'm going to put on the bench Saquon. I'm going to start Derrick Henry. I'm going to start Derrick Henry. I don't hate that. Because there is no way that if you get to a late or mid to late January football game, you don't hand the ball off to number 22 if you're Lamar Jackson. I don't care if you won two MVPs or not. You have to. They didn't do it last year. Come on, man.

Okay. He is the X-Factor. At number 20, have you seen him in that all black uniform? He looks amazing.

Like no one has ever in a football uniform. Look, I mean, he's got a helmet. He looks like the predator.

He's got the dreads coming out the back. I'm like, come on. If you're a linebacker and you're staring across at that...

Especially when it's cold, right? You don't want to hit that dude. That all black... No one has ever looked better in a uniform than Derrick Henry in the all black. In the all black uniform. That is scary. Like Lil' Kim said, dressing all black like the omen. I mean, he's already dressed for some defense's funerals already.

That's what it could be. Last one. Let's go fast. Start, bench, cut. Rookie quarterback from this year's draft class to win a Super Bowl in the next four years.

That... Oh, wait a minute. Rookie quarterback. Caleb Williams, Jayden Daniels, or the field. Or the field.

Oh, wow. From this year's rookie class. So the field is obviously Drake May, Pennix, Bo Nix.

Who am I missing? JJ McCarthy. Our buddy, JJ. All right, I'm going to cut Caleb Williams. Oh, I like Kirk's thinking on the height, but I think right now, I'm going to go with the field as a starter. I'm going to start the field and I'm going to bench Jayden Daniels. I threw the field in because we've just seen that. I mean, Brock Purdy is the field, right? Like, I mean, I know he's not, he's not, you know, a rookie, but watching Brock Purdy come in and do what all the other rookie quarterbacks couldn't do in their first two years. You said over a four-year span, which team is going to be Brock Purdy?

You know, so now I'm looking at maybe, we're not even sure. Kirk Cousins, I'm not Kirk Cousins, but Mike Pennix. That's the field, right? So he counts. He counts. JJ McCarthy counts. Sam Hartman. He combined it with somebody else.

Yeah, Jayden Daniels, I don't know, man. Got to see. Great job, Kirk. You got it, man. Appreciate it, guy.

That's, uh, that's awful. That'll do it on Tuesday. John brings his skewed sense of humor. Jeff brings tips to cut strokes off your next round. Together, it's those weekend golf guys.

They'll pay a lot of money to PXG and Tylus and Callaway and blah, blah, blah, blah. How many yards do you think you're going to pick up with that extra effort? I think I can get an extra five to ten. What if I give you fifteen to twenty?

You'd pay me more. Jeff Smith teaches on a sliding scale. Those weekend golf guys. The podcast. Part of the Believe Network, just search BLEAV on YouTube or wherever you listen.