Hey everybody, you know we're living in a new age of football with the expanded college football playoff, NIL, conference realignment, and increasing popularity of the draft.
The landscape is changing and it's changing quickly and it can be confusing but you know you're still into it. That's where the new podcast, The Triple Option, comes in. Each week, Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, host Rob Stone, and three-time national champion coach Urban Meyer team up to bring on the biggest guests in college football, pro football, and anything related to the culture of the game. They cover it all from top stories to recent changes and shifts in the game, the culture surrounding it, and everything in between. So get in the game today. Follow and subscribe to The Triple Option on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Triple Option on YouTube as well.
New episodes drop Wednesday mornings. The football is back. Susie and Amy, thrilled to be with you. Follow us on Instagram, believe it or not, at WT Football Podcast. Looking forward to hearing from all of you. The great Steve Young joins us now and our guests are pretty slammingly.
I'm kind of excited about this. We'll talk to him about Brock Purdy. We'll talk to him about Bryce Young. We'll obviously talk to him about Tua because that is an important conversation to have and very few people with the experience that Steve Young has to have that conversation. Agreed.
Agreed. I'm going to go from here to Basketball Practice for Taylor. This is the book that my kids got me.
Thank you so very much. The Idiot's Guide to Coaching Youth Basketball. I think they feel strongly about my abilities to coach. Looking forward to that as well. You should just cut the word idiots out and give it back to them. Just say the guide to coaching basketball.
That's right. I'm going to make them run extra labs just because of this, but whatever. Let's talk about what's happening in Carolina. I'd be so curious to hear from your perspective of what's happening in the front office when a quarterback in his second year is benched.
It is a great question and it is entirely organization specific. I'm going to use a Raider example to draw a comparison because we don't know one thing about what's going on. Well, we don't know a lot of things that are going on within the Panthers organization. Al made the decision to draft Jamarcus. He then made the decision to move on from Jamarcus. In other words, it was very clear within the Raider organization who had total control over the football decisions. He could incorporate other people into those decisions, but ultimately the decisions rested with him.
We don't know how that is currently set up within the Panther organization. When David Tepper interviewed the new head coach, the head coaching prospects, and before he hired the current head coach, did he make any representations? The decision as to the quarterback is yours. You get to decide if and how we proceed with this quarterback.
You will make a unilateral decision as to whether to bench him, move on from him, continue him. Or did David Tepper say, those are going to be decisions you are going to discuss with me? Now look, we know that when you own a business, when you're the controlling owner, you have ultimate authority, you have ultimate responsibility.
You can delegate that authority, but you can also yank it back. We don't know what authorities and latitude he gave the head coach. So we don't know if the head coach did this on his own or consulted with the owner. You know what I found really offensive? I saw somebody had written that Young wasn't responding to Dave Canales' head coach that he was credited for, obviously, for bringing back Baker Mayfield, and how it's apparent in two games that he hasn't absorbed the information and the guidance from Canales. I found that offensive. It's two games, and this is a kid with two head coaches and two offensive coordinators in as many years, a kid who was the Heisman Trophy winner just three years ago in 2021. Don't ask me to do the math.
I probably did the math wrong, but I think that's kind of offensive. And the question now, of course, is has he lost his job? It's clear he hasn't lost the team. Let's listen to what Adam Thielen had to say, the wide receiver from Carolina. I love Bryce to death, man.
He works his butt off. He's a great player. This is not a Bryce Young issue. This is an offensive team issue.
We are all in this together. I know football is why I love this game with everything I have, because it is the greatest team game, because it's not about an individual. It's not basketball where you can have one or two good players and have success. In this league, in this game, you have to have 11 guys on the same page to have individual success. So there is no individual on this offense that is to blame.
It's a collective thing, and I'm excited about where we can go, but we need to figure out a way to have urgency to get that done. Suzy, I agree with you, the comment you made that I agree with you entirely, and I agree with Adam entirely. The other point is this. As we know, any player can go down on any given play. It's entirely possible, and no, I'm not wishing this on him, and I don't want it to happen. But Andy could get injured on any given play, and then you're back to Bryce. So they do need to keep him interested and incorporated and involved, and I do hope he's able to come back, because as you just aptly noted and wisely noted, he's a good quarterback. Yeah, and this is not just some kid that gets basically picked up on the curb. This is a kid who earned his spot at the top of the draft, and let's not forget that this is not a great team, and that you get that first pick for a reason. Right. And let me give you an example. Jim Plunkett did not have success where he began, and he had phenomenal success after he came to the Raiders, and he was given that time to come back and find his footing.
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Just go to LinkedIn.com slash direct and get started. Hey everybody, you know we're living in a new age of football with the expanded college football playoff, NIL, conference realignment, and increasing popularity of the draft. The landscape is changing, and it's changing quickly, and it can be confusing, but you know you're still into it. That's where the new podcast, The Triple Option, comes in. Each week, Heisman Trophy winner Mark Ingram, host Rob Stone, and three-time national champion coach Urban Meyer team up to bring on the biggest guests in college football, pro football, and anything related to the culture of the game. They cover it all, from top stories to recent changes and shifts in the game, the culture surrounding it, and everything in between. So get in the game today. Follow and subscribe to The Triple Option on Apple, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. Watch The Triple Option on YouTube as well.
New episodes drop Wednesday mornings. As promised, Hall of Famer Steve Young joins us now, and we will talk about Bryce Young in a moment, but first, Amy, I think you wanted to hop in with an old story. I do, Steve. Thank you for joining us. Thrilled to have this discussion with you, the moment I learned you were going to be joining us, and frankly, this is something I think of whenever I think of you, the magnificent job you and your team did on that Monday night in San Francisco when Napoleon McCallum was hurt. I don't know if you recall it precisely, but Ken Norton Jr. tackled him, and he went down, and it was clear something was wrong, and our doctors and our trainers went out there and very quickly realized that he had ruptured the artery in the back of his knee, and I will never forget them saying to Ken, you can't move at all, and help us keep Napoleon from moving. And Ken Norton Jr. wrapped his arms around Napoleon, held onto him until we got him off the field. Honestly, I tear up about it because it's the spirit of... Ronnie Lott used to preach about competition and how competition is a sacred place, and if it's just about winners and losers, he didn't want to be a part of it. The only reason why he wanted to be a part of it is because whether you won or lost, you learned and you grew, and if you disrespected the loser or the winner, if you did something that disrespected the... and he would just be violently opposed to anyone that wanted to disrespect that sacred space, he called it. And I think that's the epitome of it. We compete, we compete, we compete, but we never lose track.
People do lose track, but we try never to lose track of the sacred ground that we're on, and how we can help each other grow through the challenges, through the losing, through the winning, whatever's happening. And I love that story about Ronnie, and then you tell me about Ken, think about... I remember Kenny, he would have given his own life to make sure that nothing happened to Napoleon. Like a minute before, he was tackling him to the ground. And then all of a sudden, we're all like, oh my gosh, we're in a life or death situation, and here is... Kenny is saving his life by hugging him, essentially. That's exactly right, that's exactly right. He hugged him and saved his life, and wise words from Ronnie, wise words from you, and the same is true in the business end of football.
Competitors on the field, colleagues off the field. You got me crying already, I haven't even said hello to you guys, I'm tearing up. Me too. What do you remember from that night? I remember the drama of it, like you go to pregame meal, and you go on the bus, and you do everything, and then all of a sudden, life changes. And I think because it wasn't me, I got the gift of witnessing Napoleon and what he was going through, and then try to viscerally feel what that feels like, and try to prepare in a way for the next time, or any time else that something happened where life is happening right there, and life changes in a flash. And then everyone always says, hug those that you love, or don't ever forget to say I love you, or don't ever forget that things can change, and then to actually witness it.
You want to hold it as a gift, so that you don't lose track of life so it gets so fast that you forget that. Well now Steve and I are both crying. We can label this the podcast where everyone cried.
Oh don't worry, I won't cry at anything except for a commercial with dogs. What you guys are bringing up is why football is valuable. Football is valuable because it's 50 guys on the opposite side of the field, but there's a line field with a score, with a clock, and with 80,000 witnesses. And so because of the nature of the game, you have to come together in a situation where there's no liars.
You can't fake, you can't excuse, everyone's watching. And there's a score so you know where it is. And so in that way, what happens on the field is truth. And that's why all the metaphors work from football. And that's why football is the greatest team game ever designed, because there's the physical part of it, the challenge to get your teammates to ram into somebody else for your benefit.
That's why Newt Rockne's famous, right? You make a speech, everyone gets fired up, and they actually go play well. So what the football is really about, what we're saying here is that football is an amazing game.
So enough of that. No, that's why we do this podcast, because we are both interested in the stories behind the stats. And you bring this up, and it naturally makes me ask you about Tua. And we all remember seeing DeMar Hamlin get hit. We all remember collectively standing there watching this reality show happen in front of us, and watching this man's life come down to what was happening on the field in front of him.
And so first I'll ask you about that, and then I'll follow up with Tua. So you talk about being Steve Young, Hall of Fame quarterback. And you know what it feels like to be hurt on a field. You saw DeMar get hurt. Now we see Tua get hurt. And I'm just curious about what you thought when these Dolphins immediately go to a kneeling position. And again, I saw you talk about this on another show, the Fensters pose. And what were your thoughts when you saw Tua the other night? Well, it took everyone a second to realize that he ran into DeMar Hamlin.
It was unbelievable. Which is like, it's nutty. And I think when you talk about head injuries, you're talking about like every neurologist that I've ever spoken to in my whole life says the same thing. It's the last frontier of medicine, and we just don't know very much compared to what we know about the rest of the body. And so the assumption of the risk that we hope to be able to kind of decide for ourselves, the head's the one place where we can't rationally assume the risk and go play, like you just don't know. And so then Tua, who's now been through it a number of times and had to make the decision himself, do I play or not play, trying to get as much information as possible inevitably gets where most everybody else who's had similar situations or even thoughts about head injuries is the most famous world-renowned neurologist take anecdotal experience because you don't know how to test it. You don't know the damage that's exactly happened.
They can do CT scans and give you some sense, but what is the risk of going and playing more? And so as I saw Tua go down, and you talk about the fencer's pose, I never had that experience. I didn't have dramatic head injuries. I just didn't.
I was dizzy and I felt tired the next day and then I was fine. So I felt for Tua trying to make the decision on whether to play or not and how hard that is because it's brutal. He's one of the best in the world at something and then you have to walk away from it not knowing whether you should or shouldn't. I remember when I was at the end of my career and I have older women grab me like my grandmother, please, Steve, we love you. Don't play anymore.
You're like, I can't disrespect that. And so Tua's in that spot now where he's going to try to gather all the information, try to figure out what is the best thing for my long-term life, what do I do about this thing that I'm great at, I'm one of the best in the world at and do I walk away from it and then the next day be not even good at anything else. I reached out to him. He and I have been friends and chatted about this before and I said, look, call me if I can help.
But the problem is because of what he's facing and the severity of the things that he's faced, I'm not sure that I'm that helpful to be honest. You know, it's funny, I shared with Amy this week, I did a piece on concussions with HBO rail sports in 1999 when Chris Miller was going through this as well. And I met with your Dr. Gary Steinberg up at Stanford.
Hey Gary Steinberg. Oh my gosh. I went to go interview him right when you were seeing him and talking about that with him as well. And Chris experienced the same stuff that you did.
Amy, I think you watched the piece. His last concussion that he received, we were actually there, rail sports, and it was nothing more than a ding after the play. And that's what put him out.
The difference is, again, no fence or pose. And Chris was able to, the last hit he got, as James Kelly would say, it was basically, when you sustain this many hits in a row, they aggregate and it can be the smallest hit that puts you out. And that's what put Chris Miller out.
The smallest hit retired him. The difference is that you guys were older and Tua is so young. And I think that is the biggest problem that we have, Amy. And there's another difference in the league today back then from when you did the piece. And I'm glad you used the word ding. Steve, you remember, I'm sure you and I entered the league at right about the same time.
And you remember, that's what it was. Oh, he has a dinger. Oh, he got a ding. Oh, he's dinged.
Oh, he got a dinger. And I remember those discussions from the time I joined the Raiders when a player would take a hit to the head. That's what you'd hear after the game. You'd meet with the trainers. You'd meet with the doctors.
I'd meet with Al. Oh, he has a dinger. Oh, he has a dinger. Well, the league has evolved a lot since then. And the league is doing tremendous work, both with respect to the league itself and youth.
I agree. The sensitivities have just changed, right? So much of around the game has been changed because of safety and the league trying to make football, the violent sport that it is, as safe as possible. And so the only thing that I would say to that, Amy, somebody who's kind of really focused on this issue, is there are objective tests for brain injury, for concussion, for neck injuries.
And they're all through the eyes. And they can do brief 60-second eye tests. And you can be defined very clearly that you have a brain injury or no, it's a neck injury, which presents sometimes the same.
You'll know when you're back ready to play again. But introducing objective tests takes control. It's a great point. And control is scary for doctors, team presidents, players. They don't want to lose the control to decide for themselves whether they're healthy or not. But because it's the brain, Amy, you know whether you're healthy or not.
You can run or you can't run. The brain is so unsure and it's not clear. And so something that can bring clarity, I just encourage us to put it in the tent. And in the long run, I do believe that more people will be able to play because they'll show that they're healthy. We all wonder, it's too healthy. We have tools that can tell you on the sideline.
And the idea that we're not using them is crazy to me. I feel the same exact way. And I watch Amy and I actually had this conversation last year. That he's been coached on how to slide. That he's been coached on how to react. But this is a sport in which your instinct takes over.
That's what frightens me. And I can say that as somebody who's spent years and years studying concussions. You know, Mike Tirico used to make fun of me when we were doing sidelines, when I was doing sidelines for him on ABC. Just because, you know, I look for those things the way you did. You knew it. You had an eye for it. Once you have an eye for it, you see it a lot. You see it especially, and then at the college level where everything's happening so fast.
These kids who don't have the sophistication to shake it up. We know what we're looking for in the National Football League. And, you know, with a kid like this who's been trained, Amy, trained to slide and you saw his instinct. It was his instinct.
To go for those extra yards. That's where I get frightened. And that's where I wonder, how do we help this kid? He's going to have the time away, right? I mean, there's protocol.
But at this young age, it just makes me awfully concerned. Well, you know, something a player said to me on the sideline at a practice. I think it was the week I joined the Raiders. I was entertaining our bankers at practice. And I said something about it being a contact sport. And the player said to me, no, Amy, it's not a contact sport.
It's a collision sport. And it is. And so your point is well taken, Susie.
You can have all the information you want. He did study. He did learn to slide. He did learn to protect himself.
But instinct took over. And the hit itself, it does look like maybe it didn't cause the injury. It wasn't in the collision.
It was as he hit his head on the ground. Oh, interesting. A lot of times that's what happens. So, look, we recognize, and see, that's the problem. I sit here talking to you.
And CTE sounds like it's something that we just, a nefarious thing that's going on in all human brains, but especially for collision sports participants. And so where does that shake out? And what does it mean?
And how can you tell? I've been out of the game for 20 plus years and I'm still thinking about it. What's in the future? And so it is not an easy space to kind of hang around. That's why most people just turn away. It's too much. And of course it's not just football. It happens in rugby. It's rugby. It's soccer. I had a concussion once. Soccer is insane with that.
A number of parents that have come to me and they tell me, my son, my daughter, played soccer. Now she can't read. I'm like, oh my gosh, I never had that. Be concerned. That's crazy to me, the symptoms that you're seeing.
My son hit his head on the basketball floor and now six months later he can't sleep. I'm like, that's nuts. Yeah, I came off a horse. But what I'm saying is parents are, because it's such a mystery, everyone's searching for something that tells them that their kid's going to be okay or that I'm all right. And here I am, an old man trying to figure out if I'm okay.
And I think I am, but it's like two is 26 and trying to figure that out, it's a tough spot. Listeners, please welcome a real finance nerd from our sponsor, NerdWallet. Hey Sean.
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That's OReillyAuto.com slash E-I-S-E-N. O-O-O-Reilly Auto Parts. Yeah, Ian Rappaport just now sent out his report saying who is going on the IR. And that gives him time to go through concussion protocol, meet with a lot of neurologists, and that's what he's going to have to do. He's going to have to shop. He's going to have to talk to different neurologists.
And as you know, Steve, there are certain guys that we all go to. We know who the top neurologists are with this, and there's no doubt he's got someone that's tracking his scans and seeing the progression of this and seeing exactly what the results are from this. And the brain does heal incredibly fast as far as we know, but what you said is exactly true, that it's a frontier that we can't really tell the progression of it, but the time away will give him at least time to meet with these different people and see what they have to say to him. And then he's got some real soul searching because he is a young guy with young kids.
I remember Jenny Miller, Chris's wife, she didn't have the courage to tell him yet that she wanted him to retire, and she took the interview with us to say to the camera, I want him to stop. And it'll be interesting to see what happens with Tua and his family coming out of this. And he'll search for the answers that are not going to be there. What is the risk? What is the exact risk for me to go back and play? And you're not going to get, you're just going to have to have a gut instinct for it, a maturity that hopefully people around you, and maybe, because you say, look, I'm going to take the year off, come back next year. I don't know that it changes the dynamic of what the risks are. And certainly time is, like you said, it heals, but to what extent?
Like what's the next hit going to do? And every, he'll talk to neurologists like, you know, I don't know, I have a gut feeling that this is too much, or I have a gut feeling that maybe you could go one more time. I mean, it's just such a tough place. And I'll tell you from a front office perspective, because everything you two both said is of course accurate, as to Tua having to make these decisions, speaking with his wife, taking into his account his children. This is his decision to make. But I can assure you from the perspective of the front office, there are people in front offices who don't want players to further jeopardize themselves. And this has nothing to do with money. It has nothing to do with guarantees. It has nothing to do with team performance.
It has to do with compassion. And I want to put to rest forever for anyone who's listening who think that people in front offices or team owners don't care, because they do. I remember having discussions with Al where the first issue was compassion for the player. Do we want to further jeopardize the player? Do we want to put the player at risk? So those discussions are going on in the Dolphins organization as well, I'm sure.
And I think that's what, you know, feels like we should figure out a way to codify that. In other words, we do know that people are concerned primarily about the player's health. That being the case, let's allow for these career-ending injuries and decisions that need to be made, especially around head injuries, to not impact the team. In other words, let's figure out a way so that Tua, whatever he decides, the team, because what cynics would say is, well, if you have a financial incentive to have him play, you're going to do the wrong thing.
And that's what you're saying, Amy, is that's not true. Well, then let's put it in the system so that the team, no one can say that, because there's not a financial interest. It's an exemption. Like Tua gets paid, and he can decide what he wants, and it doesn't hurt or help the team.
Correct. And that might be a nice thing to have. Because I think most people, because it's money involved, now become cynics immediately, which I understand.
It's a world we live in. But it doesn't paint the picture. And I think to paint the right picture, we need maybe some way to paint it better.
It's a tremendous, tremendous point you made, Steve, and I'll add one thing to that point. That is something the NFL Players Association should prioritize in terms of the next negotiation. When the league goes to the PA and wants something, whether it's an 18th game or otherwise, this should be at the top of the list of things that your idea, as you just suggested it, that the team cannot be hurt by prioritizing the player, which most teams do anyway, well then fine. Take any disincentive from them doing that away, incentivize them to do that, you're right, and it should be part of the next NFL PA list. And I think it'll speak to the fan, too, because when fans see Tua, they're like, oh, I don't know that I like football anymore.
Like, do I want to? And if you knew that there's nothing about what's going to happen for Tua that could be nefarious, or could be jeopardizing, and anyway, everyone's, like you said, Amy, everyone's on Tua's team, and let's set a system that makes it very clear that it is absolutely that way, and no one can say that it's not. No Senate can win, because I think it would speak to the fans as well. I think it would help.
I think you're absolutely right. I mean, I could clearly talk about this with you all day, but I do want to move on to Bryce Young, and I'd love to hear your thoughts on what's happening with his benching and him psychologically, and I'm wondering if you could put on your quarterback helmet and think about what it's like to be in his head right now. Look, you, you know, I've said this before, you need a lot of help to play quarterback.
You need a lot of help to play as a pro, but I mean, especially quarterback in football, you need, I always say, from the owner on down, you need incredible support. And, and so first round draft choices to the worst teams, history is, you know, there's a lot of bodies that are thrown against the rocks on that one. Like it's, it's not, you know, the history is not great.
The success rate is really low. So let's just say that Bryce isn't getting the help that's necessary. What I would say is, but Bryce hasn't also sent up the flares or the smoke signals that I think players that are going to see their way through it, send.
And I can't, I don't know how to describe that any other way than it's a, my eye, it's an eye test for me. And, and I've seen people in really bad spots, but I could tell that if they got the help they needed, they'd be fine. And so Bryce getting benched is really in a way, it's probably to give him some space to heal, right? Things are happening that he can't, he's not even giving people that sense that, hey, look, give me enough help to the coaching staff or to the owner or to the fans or anyone else in the area.
Look, give me enough help, I'll be okay. And so we're going to bench you because we don't know that that's actually the case. And, and that's where things get really hard because now there's a, there's a certain glow that's around a high draft choice that gives you lots more opportunity, gives you more, just inevitably more opportunity, more chances. And when you run out of those chances and the worst team, one of the worst teams in the league and struggling teams in the league now takes the great hope that they have and puts them on the bench, that just changes the dynamic. And now it really is about Bryce. In other words, okay, Bryce, we've now said you're sitting, you're the great hope we have and we're going to put you on the bench, you're not going to play, not going to help us. Now it becomes like, okay, Bryce, what are you going to do about that? And so that's what's happened here is that now Bryce, the lights go to him and he has to now make the changes in practice as a backup doing scout team, showing his grit that he can learn and grow in a really, really tough environment and get back on the field and show, yes, even though things are hard, I'm not getting the help I need, I want to show you that I can figure this out and give you signs that I'm going to be a good player.
And this is a referendum on the grittiness of Bryce right now. And you know what, Steve, you made a point I love to make and I make as often as I can, which is if you have the first pick in the draft and you have not traded up to get that, in other words, you're the team that has earned, using the word earned in quotes, that first pick in the draft, there's a reason you have the first pick in the draft. It's because you were really, really, really bad and that means you need more than just a new quarterback. And look at Caleb Williams, you made another point that I love, which was it's not just about the quarterback, he needs help.
Caleb Williams was sacked seven times in the last game. So if you've got that first pick in the draft and you didn't trade for it, there's a reason you have it and the quarterback needs help. And a lot of help.
I would say this, Amy, if you think you're a really good player in the league or even a great player, it's even more so that you need all of that help to make sure that you can show who you are. And that's why it's hard to be on, look, how many players, I was lucky, right? I got to San Francisco at a time when it was just, you know, and that time is back today, like it's a great place to be for quarterbacks. It's a great, you know, one of the all-time places to be.
But I had a lot of friends that were around the league that weren't in those kind of places. And it's, you know, it's career trajectory, like it's like you're going to have, and today there's a lot more sensitivity to the position that I would say is enlightened and smarter and more capable. And so there's many more teams that I would want my son to go play quarterback in the NFL, but there are still more than a handful that I would say, run, do anything but. And so the challenge is for us to create more, more better, great places for all players, but especially a quarterback, and people are enlightened and smart about the position, and that goes from owner down.
And it's funny, if you've got the first draft, if you have the first five picks of the draft and you have it five years in a row or eight out of five. There's a reason. There's a reason, and it has to, to me, the referendum has to go to the top. It has to be about, like the owners, because they have equity ownership and are not up for, there's no firing. There still needs to be a way that we can have a referendum around the ownership, so at least there's a change mechanism, not to the person, but to the style, to the platform, to management, to like, how do we make decisions? No one can, look, they own the team, you can't, what are you going to do?
You can't take it away from them. But there's got to be a way that we can bring the referendum all the way to the top, so that changes can be made that are successful, that it can make it better, it's better for the team, it's better for like all of it, and it's better for the equity ownership. The more successful you are, the better you are, so we need vulnerability at the top. If we're, if you're a team that's 8 out of 10 years, the top 5 draft choices, let's get together and see what we can do to help. You know, like have the vulnerability to, to go figure it out, because otherwise we just end up repeating things over and over, I don't know.
I don't know how I got on that one, but... No, but it's a great point, it's a great point, because if you have ultimate authority, you also have ultimate responsibility, and you can delegate that authority, but if you can always snatch it back, it means your authority is ultimate. Yeah, but this is a tough one in Carolina, because you do have a young, an inexperienced owner, you've got 2 offensive coordinators, 2 head coaches in as many years, and a kid who's struggling, and you haven't built the offensive line because you haven't been there 5 times, so if you're going to have 5 picks, at least you're going to build a line and select these guys to protect this kid, but... In particular, Susie, in particular to your point, I wasn't referring to the Carolina Panthers. Sure, sure.
I was on a broader, a broader issue that I was trying to talk about. For the Panthers themselves, they're in that bind, right, that you just described. Everyone is new, new coach, new owner trying to figure it out, and so we need to give them the grace to try to find the space to figure it out, but the worst news of the day for them is that they had to bench their number 1 quarterback, and so I just pray that Bryce has the grit to just say, you know, over, you know, no way is this happening. Since we're recreating the rules for the NFL here, and by the way, I'm all for it. We're commissioner for a day! Well, I mean, since, you know, I'll get on the bad phone to Roger after this, I mean, I wish that you could have a rule in the NFL where these kids got to sit for a year and learn. I mean, not everyone's going to be C.J. Stroud, and, you know, I'm an unabashed Pats fan, whatever, and, you know, I love the fact that Tom Brady got to sit there and learn from my pal Drew Vlado.
They'll tell you how great it was. And there's a reason you don't anymore, and the minute the collective bargaining agreement that is currently in place, although it's a few iterations in, the moment that collective bargaining agreement was adopted, we all looked at one another in the league owner's meeting, and I looked at Al and I said, this means you can't sit players anymore, because under the collective bargaining program that existed before the current agreement, you could sit a quarterback or any other player. Look at Aaron Rodgers sitting behind Brett Favre, and we all know who else I'm thinking of.
There's a long list. You can't do that anymore. And we sat in that owner's meeting when that was voted on, and I looked at Al and I said, there's not going to be anymore sitting players.
You can't do it anymore. Well, and then look, you know, and the game, Amy, because the rules to try to prevent defenses from launching has changed the game in such a dramatic way to open it up and make it, there's much more space than there's ever been before. They keep making rule changes for safety, which is, look, I applaud it, but it's always against defense to make it safe. And so as that happens, the game becomes more open and wild in a way, and more college-like. So because now you can take Lamar Jackson, the first draft choice, and run his offense from Louisville, and run it as a pro. I'm overstating a little bit. But you can now, in the old days, you know, Amy, a rookie quarterback, he didn't know what he was doing.
Like, there was no way to run. But today's game has become easier, in a way, for offensive and especially the quarterbacks. And so it leads to even more to what you're describing. What you're describing is absolutely true in the CBA, and we need to try to figure out what to do there. But also, it's not going to become less safe.
They're not going to roll back the rules. And so, in a way, we're inviting more of the young player to play fast. And then the system in the CBA as well, if you can get a quarterback to be profitable early on a rookie contract, like Juprok Purdy, now you've, you know, that's the lottery.
And then now the fans have gotten used to it. As soon as something goes wrong with the veteran quarterback or the guy they have playing, and you've got a number one draft where you're sitting on the bench, we've set up the systems now that the clamor for, look, you've got to play this guy, is so great. So you've got multiple things pushing young quarterbacks to play too early.
And I don't know how to unroll that. Well, you know, your point about the rule changes goes to something that I bristle when I hear people saying, who's the best quarterback of all time? Because you cannot compare quarterbacks of today with men of your era or eras before you. Because you played at a time where these rules that are in place now to protect quarterbacks weren't there when you played. Nobody anymore is dealing with Deacon Jones, you know, the head slap or the forearm shiver.
That doesn't exist. And so this is just a tangent because it's a pet peeve of mine. You cannot compare a quarterback of today with a quarterback from when you played or before you played because of those rule changes. And I think the game has changed. For me, the game has changed so dramatically.
Like, it's not a small change. It's so dramatic that we can make the case for, you know, statistics being inflated or whatever else. But because it's changed, it's interesting to me, Amy, how few people have embraced the new reality and how many offensive coordinators are still running plays from 2015 because that's what they knew, that's what they were successful at. But don't realize that the game has changed and all the innovative minds that you look at are at the top of the league right now. You know, the Kyle Shannon, the Sean McVays and the Andy Reeds.
And you look around Minnesota and Green Bay and Philadelphia and even in Miami. All these young minds and then Andy obviously reinvents himself and stays young. But they just have figured out that the game's changed, the position has changed, how we deploy the football has completely changed. And now we've just got to get people in space with the ball in their hands on the run.
And we do it in all these kind of new, cool, unique ways. But it's how many teams are still stuck hiring coaches that were great in 2015. And that's how dramatic the changes have come.
And it doesn't feel like everybody's quite ingested that new reality. I was going to say you threw Andy Reid in there. And I was going to say, well, I mean, I don't know if I think about him as one of the younger coaches, but I'll take it. But Suzy, isn't it amazing when you're 66, 7, 8 years old?
I'm not sure where he is. And you're willing every year to literally throw your old self in the garbage and reinvent and come back with a new version that includes the things you just learned from looking around the league today. The cool things that people are doing on other teams and what you can do to kind of do cool stuff on your team. And like the Chiefs are the most innovative team in the league in the top three or four with a guy that's 66, 67 years old because he's willing, vulnerable every year to say, you know what, I'm one of the best, but I need to reinvent myself. I think that's a super cool story that doesn't get talked about a lot. I think you're a hundred percent right. Sixty-six years old. I mean, there's no doubt what he's done is made himself available to listen. And that's, I think, what a lot of these coaches don't. Yay old people. I'm not that old yet.
I'm speaking for myself, not for Suzy. You brought up Brock Purdy. So I will go to that and ask you your thoughts on San Francisco right now with all the injured players. And by the way, are we done questioning this kid? I don't understand why people are still saying, well, Brock Purdy, he's a system quarterback. Like that's a four-letter word.
Suzy, I think, yeah, we need to parse it a little bit because Brock was chosen where he was chosen because he's self-admitted. I'm not the fastest, I'm not the strongest, but what he can do in his super power is processing. And when quarterbacks can process, and when I say processing, there's three levels of processing. There's processing during the week, preparation, memorization, schoolwork, reflexive recall to the game plan, to every motion, every blitz, every situation. There's all of that preparation for processing.
Then there's pre-snap processing, right? Like I use all that during the week, all the memorization to get ready for the play that's called, get everybody set. And then now once the ball's snapped, those two or three seconds where you just like, you can figure it out. And he is top of the league in doing that. But yet he's still the same guy, not the biggest, not the fastest, not the strongest. And we just got done talking about the rule changes and the openness and how much space there is for quarterbacks to run all over the field and throw it all over the field and make big first downs and touchdowns. Every game, especially in championship football, is now dominated by the quarterbacks that can run for the big first down or run for the touchdown or buy the extra time and throw it 80 yards.
That's not him. So let's not defame anything that he's doing by trying to label it as negative. Like a system quarterback is a Super Bowl quarterback except he can't run around and throw it 80 yards. He's not going to be the Lamar Jackson down the field. That's just not his game. So quit trying to slander what he'll agree with you.
I am not that guy. But let's elevate the amazing thing that he is doing. He is the best, and when I say the best, the top five processors at the position in the world. And just honor that. And then when he's not able to run around and run down and make people miss and throw it 80 yards, then don't use that as like, oh, he can't do that. Well, we already admitted he can't do that.
So stop. Who he is is one of the great young quarterbacks in his game. And the things that he can do, then let's just go with it rather than trying to tear it down. So if you were to finish the sentence with Debo and McCaffrey out, the Niners offense will?
Efficiency is their game. Now, if Brock wanted to and Kyle wanted to lean into Brock being more dynamic, in other words, let's have Brock run the ball out of the huddle. Let's have him run the sweep. Let's have him run the quarterback draw. Let's figure out how to do the RPOs and really take advantage of it.
That's not the game right now. And if we were going to do that, now's the time with injury to kind of start to think about Brock being the 11th rusher, the guy that can rush the football out of the huddle. But it just, I think right now what you described, Suzie, your question is if they're going to stay with the same plan, then the demand for Brock is even greater. He has to be even more honed on his efficiency to find players that aren't necessarily the top of their, you know, the top of the game like Debo, the top of the game like CMC. And now I've got to figure out how to get the ball to them, have them get open, and I'm going to inevitably, Suzie, he's going to have to do more. He's going to have to move around more, he's going to have to put himself at risk more, and he's going to have to do things that aren't necessarily his strong suit. And that might provide great things in the future for when they get to the Super Bowl this year and have to face Patrick Mahomes or face Lamar Jackson. The thing about the 49ers, when they face Joe Burrow, Lamar Jackson, Patrick Mahomes, any big, strong, prototypical quarterback today, they lose. So getting their guy more like that and under duress like with injuries might be a good thing.
We'll see how it goes. I'm curious before we lose you, what's more interesting to you right now, seeing how these young kids like Bo Nix or Caleb Williams are doing or seeing how Baker Mayfield and seeing how Kirk Cousins is playing or even Sam Darnold? Well, there's a hero story in those last ones, right? I mean, what Bryce Young is now going to have to deal with? There's a grittiness that happens, and so the grittiness of a Sam Darnold, like, look, you can bounce me around, but I can still do this.
Kirk Cousins, the same way, like Brian Fitzpatrick was that way, right? It's like, you can bounce me around, but I'm a frickin' player, and I love that story. It's a hero's journey, so I love that. But I also, and Baker Mayfield, the same way, like he's just the grittiness of that journey. I love that. But that's more unusual, right? It's like, how many guys actually are able to pull that off, that have the opportunity and the grit to pull it off?
And so that's why I honor that as a separate issue. Young players, look, as a young man, it's a young quarterback's game today. It's not going to change. Like we just said, the rules aren't going to change.
The CBA's probably not going to change that much in the near future. Young players are going to play. They're going to run college plays, which they've been doing for five or six years, and they've got to be, but they can't, in college, all quarterbacks are runners who can throw. You need to become a sophisticated passer who can run.
That's the prototype. And so the transition from a runner who can throw to a sophisticated passer is the challenge of Patrick Mahomes, of Josh Allen, of Justin Herbert, of CJ Stroud, of Jordan Love, all those guys who have these incredible talents. How do I hone them so that I can be the sophisticated passer who can run, and then you own the game? No longer, Amy, you might disagree with me, but no longer can you build the number one defense in the league and win a Super Bowl. The rule changes make it so that it is about these super-powered quarterbacks, and they're just going to trade paint amongst themselves on Super Bowls. Right now, it's Patrick Mahomes who won most of them, but Josh Allen's going to be there. Joe Burrow's going to be there. It looks like CJ might be in there.
Justin Herbert, if you can get the right help, can do it. There's five or six that are going to trade paint in the Super Bowl championships for a while, and others are just going to be onlookers, and that's the game today. And you're certainly right as to the game today in terms of the league prioritizing offense and quarterbacks being of paramount importance, but I'm a defense girl, and I will simply throw in this. You have to capitulate.
You don't want to give in. Well, and here's my point. Look, the fewer points your defense gives up, the fewer points your offense needs to score to win. It's math, so I don't disagree with anything you're saying, but it is math, and this is actually even math I can do, which is saying something. Susie's looking at me like, Amy, don't do math on air.
Don't do math on air. But the fact is, if your defense is holding your opponent to very, very few points, that takes a lot of pressure off your offense. There's no question. Great defense is great defense. All I'm saying is, it will be a championship football in the last championship game, Super Bowl games, will be decided not by the number one defense. It'll be decided by that super triple threat king of the game today, and which one, as they trade paint, who can pull it off in the last couple of minutes, because they're so dynamic and amazing.
So there's no question, but I think the defense is, what is amazing about it to me, Amy, is how hard they've made defense, and yet the defense continues to answer the bell and figure out ways to still play great defense. It's like the old, what was it, dang, it was the old Monty Python. And Monty Python, they cut his leg off. Just a flesh wound. Yes, just a flesh wound. He says, then I'll hit you to death. Then he cut his arm off. Then I'll bite you to death.
He never gave up. It was a common routine, but it really is, defense today in the NFL is really like Monty Python. You're absolutely right. My hands are on my back.
You can string me up, and I am still going to kick you and find a way to beat you down. So I admire it. I admire what defenses have to go through today. And I would just cap this conversation by saying there was a moment in the Monday night game where the Eagles past rushers were just coming, and they didn't really, they didn't pressure Kirk Cousins all that much, but there was a moment where the pocket was collapsing around him. And he just looked so calm and so cool and then completed a pass. And it was like such a hero moment for Kirk Cousins, who I think, I think everybody thought at the end of the game, don't you think, game that like, okay, Eagles have got this in the bag. And then it was like, I didn't think that when they chose to throw that ball on third down. They had it. Well, you pick a play that you think is a hundred, that play that they had to say one was, they said that's a hundred percent play or else you wouldn't call it.
As someone said to me early in my career, could have, should have, would have never played a down ball. Anyway, Steve, thank you. This has been such a substantive conversation. Talking to you too is enlightenment.
I love smart conversation conversation that I would love to have. So both of you and, uh, and I've always believed that now that I coach girls flag football in high school, by the way, and, and what I realized in coaching them last year is that football is a girl's sport. If you think about at its roots, football is choreography, it's timing, it's detail. I, I taught more football to those girls in a month that I've taught my pros in two years. They take the game in a way that is it's, it's, it's their game.
Football is, and flag football is their game and they're, they're loving it. And so I think I just, I love the perspective, the female perspective on football, because it's, it's always enlightening. It's always interesting. Whenever a female's talking about football, I listen closer because the perspective is so interesting to me and unique and I appreciate it. And so the conversation for me today has been, again, an enlightening.
I loved it. Well, I got to tell you, you've made my day saying that you're a coach with that. My daughter Taylor is 11 and she's doing flag football now.
And it's, it's kind of thrilling to watch. And she's a kid. She's a girl who's being educated in a football household. And obviously I get to sit next to Amy every week, so I get that. I will show you the book that my, my kids bought me last night.
I don't know if you can see this. It's the Idiot's Guide to Coaching Youth Basketball because I'm a coach on Wednesday nights for our Goldies League here. And so I'm just saying, if you want to borrow this. Don't throw a chair like Bobby Knight, you'll be fine. Now that is brilliant advice. Unless Jeremy Shapps is in the room and then I will do that. But that is brilliant advice.
Don't throw a chair, Susan. I love, what I learned, again, one quick thing about last year, and that's why flag football, women's flag football is going to be incredibly, it'll swamp soccer. It'll swamp, because it's their game, they're going to take to it and they see the Olympics in 2028. And so I'm coaching again this year and 60 girls came out.
This is a small school. Everyone wants to play it because it's so, they heard from other friends. It's the funniest, it's the most fun I've ever had because football is unique.
And then last year, I'll just end with this. My wife was at the game, there's like four people in the stands, but up on the top row was four elderly women. And my wife's like, who wonder who they know on the team?
Are they grandmother for some of the kids? She went up and asked him, hey, why are you here? She goes, oh, we don't know either team. We just heard that girls were playing football and we could only dream about this when we were growing up in the 50s. And in the 1950s, we loved football and they wouldn't let us play it. And so we heard that girls can play it and we wanted to see it for ourselves. That just gave me goosebumps.
It is, but it's a goosebump kind of thing. If football is a girl's game and they finally get to play it, at the end of the season, they got so good so fast. I turned to, John Pay was the head coach, I just helped him.
And he was a kid who played at the four damage briefly. And I said, John, watching this team right now, I think they could beat the boys. In flag football, I think the girls could beat the boys. And so that was the revelation for me.
So anyway, share that with you in an honest moment of how I feel about girls flag football. It's amazing. Steve, you're the greatest. Thanks again for your time. Thank you so much.
It was the best. Great to see you, Susie. Take care. Again, our thanks to Steve Young for what was really a terrific conversation. And that's exactly what we're hoping to do every week here on What the Football.
Follow us on Instagram at WT Football Podcast. You leave a nasty comment. I'm not going to answer to it, but whatever. I do answer the nasty ones. And guess what? No more.
Why can't I answer? Because they don't deserve it, Amy. So I will cut you off. No, I like to give them a little zing. I think we're good. We want to have substantive conversations with you as well. Ideas for who or for whom you want to hear.
Always open to that as well. I've got something cooking for next week. So tune in next week for another edition of What the Football. Have a great week, everybody. This one makes it much easier. So thank you for making it easier. Tune in next week. Overeaction Monday, wherever you listen.
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