Former NFL Player Solomon Wilcots and Dr. Roshan Shah

10, the Zimmer Biomet APP New York City Open at the Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. And you could see Zimmer Biomet, the leader in knee replacement technology, talk about sports injuries and advancements in knee replacement surgeries. This is not your grandmother's medicine and the innovation this group is bringing to patients is great. People living with knee pain should talk to their doctors. If you don't have a doctor, you could locate more information from Zimmer Biomet at www.pickleballknee.com. That's once again, www.pickleballknee.com. And you got pickleball, you got knee surgeries going on. So when I think of pickleballs, I think of knees.

I think of Solomon Wolcott who played in the NFL for a long time. Now this is a great job of Sirius XM, NFL radio and Dr. Roshan Shah, Hidden Studio with us. Gentlemen, how we doing? Doing great, Zach. Good to be on with you today. Yeah, I appreciate you coming in. So let me start you off with your bangles and then we'll talk about the knees and we'll talk about pickleball.

We'll do all that great jazz towards the end of the conversation. So I look at this the last two years. They paid borough. They got Jamar Chase and T Higgins both done this off season, which I didn't think was going to happen. I thought T was going to be out the door. And then you got Trey Hendrickson on a defense.

And let's be real, it's not a good defense right now, but back to back year 17 and a half sacks. And he's frustrated because he doesn't have a new deal yet. But what do you think ultimately happens there? Because I struggle with this because I want to say, oh, they'll find the way to get a deal done because they found the way to figure it out last year.

But this is now getting really ugly and contentious. Well, it can get done. It's not like they don't have the space on the salary cap to get it done.

They do. This is about they're kind of stuck on the age. He's 30, 31 years of age. Do you sign them for two, three years? And at what point do you start to see some decline during this contract?

And so that's where they're kind of stuck. I would just say to Cincinnati Bengals ownership group that today's 30 year old players is not like 10 years ago, right? We're seeing players play well beyond that because they're investing more in their bodies.

They're not even going two a days. This is not like 10 years ago. So that the wear and tear at 30 years of age, you can no longer use the metrics that you use 10, 15 years ago. At the same time, this is a guy who has produced over the last two years as well, or maybe even better than any other edge player on defense in the national football league, more sacks, more, uh, pressures. He has a higher percentage of the team's pressure than any other player has for their team. That's better than miles Garrett. It's better than TJ watt, better than Danielle Hunter. So he should come in right around 30 to $35 million a year.

And you and I both know the top three guys, max Crosby, Danielle Hunter, and then miles Garrett at the top, they're all averaging right around $37 million a year. So, uh, they got to come a long way to put him in that category. Here's the other thing in the landscape of the AFC right now, chiefs, bills, Ravens, would you agree are the three best teams right now in the AFC? Yeah. In terms of total team, the quarterback, the offense play on defense coaching staff.

Yeah, I would agree. So then who would be fourth because most people still think it's the bangles because a few years ago, right? They beat the chiefs in the AFC championship game. You look around chargers, Broncos had nice seasons, but I don't think they're ready to take that next step. Um, the Texans, I think they're good, but I wouldn't call them great.

And they just lost the Kansas city where their defense was great, but their offense did nothing. Uh, no one really else stands out to me in the AFC east. So are the bangles of the fourth best team in the AFC? I think they deserve to be mentioned in that space, but those teams, you also just mentioned Denver, the LA chargers. Uh, I think those teams also can be mentioned in that space. The Houston, Texas, remember this time last year, we all had Houston being Superbowl, maybe the best team in the AFC that we kind of saw them taking that next step. I think what it, what it shows you is that you got to stay healthy.

I think you've got to continue to battle. Even a team like the Buffalo bills probably had a better season last year than any, but end up with the same end result, right? Um, because you got to stay good enough to be in those games at the end, but you're going to have to break through. You're going to have to go through all those really good teams. The Bengals have to go through the Ravens twice. They're going to have to go through Kansas city. You're going to have to still be a chargers team that is ascending and only getting better, right?

Uh, with Jim Harbaugh. And I do believe the Denver Broncos, that defense is, I think one of the best defenses in the NFL. They led the league in sacks. They just got better in the secondary widget, a Baron, the Thorpe award winner from the university of Texas coming in as a nickel corner. Um, I think on the back end and their secondary is going to match the front end terms of pressure. Vance Joseph, a good friend of mine, their defensive coordinator is an ascending coach. Well, I think it's going to interview as a, as one of the next head coaches in the NFL. So Denver, I think is a really good team that you have to be concerned about entering that upper echelon in the AFC.

It's funny. You talk about guys that could become coaches again, someone that was like the bell, the ball, this off season, Osama, Wilcoxon city with this is Ben Johnson. No doubt. Ben Johnson's already starting to annoy me. He said about the touch push the other day. I only like explosive plays like, Hey, first downs are pretty good for me. Touchdowns are pretty good for me. There's a real confidence and arrogance with Ben Johnson and one press conference I saw the other day.

I'm already like, I'm out on this guy. I can't stand them. Well, I could tell you right now, I watched them call games last year.

It's unbelievable. It was fun. And you know what they did?

They did fun things. And this is like, it's like Andy Reed. Andy Reed makes playing football for him. If you're an offensive player playing for you, you love Andy Reed.

Cause he's gonna create some kind of design that's allowing guys to do the things that they all talk about in practice that they're talking about in meetings. And what did Ben Johnson do last year? They ran six offensive linemen, right? Formations more than anybody else.

Right? So if you're Dan Skipper, you love Ben Johnson. I grew up playing offensive and that's a dream when they would like to try to catch the football. How many trick plays did they run last year?

And they were successful. So he, to me, he's not afraid to be wrong. He's not afraid to do the thing that I've seen coaches. We can't do that.

Why can't you? He is more proactive and empowering his players and his team because it is a game. It's supposed to be fun.

Let's allow the players to have fun. So now let's see if he can transfer that to the Chicago Bears because we've never seen offense run like that in Chicago. You've never seen a 4,000-yard passer.

They've only had a 4,000-yard passer in their dreams. But I'll tell you, the guy is phenomenal as an offensive coordinator. We've seen great coordinators. They just don't be great head coaches.

Maybe he is going to be great. Hey, Dan Campbell came in talking a big game and he turned that team around. That's right. With Ben Johnson, I just wonder, and I don't know him, but I just wonder, does he think he's the smartest guy in the room because he passed on the commanders.

They whooped his team in the playoffs. And now, okay, you're going after the Eagles with the tush-push stuff and it just gives me smartest guy in the room vibes. Yeah, the smartest guy in the room.

See, there you go. This game has humbled some great people. And I'm talking players and I'm talking coaches.

I have a great coach by the name of Dick LeBeau, Hall of Famer. He says, sometimes you get the Bears, sometimes the Bears get you. If you're around this game long enough, you're going to have days where you're going to have to go and rethink everything that you thought you knew because there's going to come a time when all of the things that you thought you had answers to, you're going to find out you don't have answers at all. And I think one of the biggest things for coaches where you have to be careful because you begin to think that it's about your scheme. It's about your design, right? And it's about the players because those X's and O's don't move by themselves.

Those are human beings. We have to turn those X's and O's or turn those ideals into real moments. So without a Jerry Goff, without a Jameer Gibbs, without a Sam Laporta, what do you got, right? Without the one of the best offensive lines in football, right?

With Panay Soule and some of the other guys of what do you really got? So that's what he has to rebuild in Chicago. And he's going to have to do it with his set of players, not with the ones that he was using in Detroit. And I don't know if there's a more intriguing team in the NFL this year than Chicago because you got the quarterback, who Daniels was better than Caleb Williams last year. You got Roma Dunze, who's now his second season.

He's got to start to break out. DJ Moore is incredibly underrated. Now you have a one-two punch at the tight ends with Kamet and also Colston Loveland, who they drafted. And that's a team, it's not crazy to say they should be 10 and 7 and right in the mix this year.

But we were also saying that last year about Chicago and they failed miserably. And I heard Ben Johnson say this today. He said, my job really is to help me. If I'm going to help, Caleb Williams is getting to trust me. As it turns out in Seth Wickersham's book, he didn't trust the last coach he's back. And he didn't listen.

So what happened? Highest sack total of any quarterback last year in the NFL with a season high 68 sacks. There's tape where he's running around with the ball and coming out of his break, DJ Moore is wide open. But the quarterback, Caleb Williams, running around with the ball. You know what DJ Moore did? Went and sat down on the bench in the middle of a play. I never saw that before in all my years of watching NFL football.

You know what that told me? The receivers were grew impatient with their quarterback who's not running the play the way that it was designed to be run. That he tends to take things into his own hands. So you can't put it all on the coaching staff from one year ago. He's got to take some ownership for holding the ball too long. He's got to take some ownership for getting the ball out at the designated time.

Playing in rhythm is how we describe it. And I think that's what Ben Johnson has to be able to get him to do. It's not something he did at USC. It's not something he practiced last year.

He's a player that tends to fall back on to what he's most comfortable with as opposed to taking the risk of growing and doing things differently than he has in the past. Here's the other thing. And since you're a former NFL player Salma Wilcox, you know the league is better than anybody.

I read that article. And when I'm reading the article, something that stood out to me was the coaches didn't tell Caleb Williams how to watch film. Do you need to be told how to watch film as a rookie?

First of all, I do think that you need to be taught how to watch film. So what are you looking for? So when I'm sitting with, so say you're the quarterback, I'm the coach. And I would say, okay, you see how right here? Okay, what's our first read here? And then I would want to hear him say it.

And if he didn't say it, I'd be like, okay, so your eyes are here. Here's your first read. Okay.

Here's what you should be looking. Cause this is what, when that safety rotates down in the box, clearly they're in man coverage. Look at the corners are creeping up. You're going to get single high man coverage right now.

There's not anything to really read here. Do you have them all blocked up? If you don't have them all blocked up, balls got to come out quick. You have them all blocked up. You got a little bit of time, but you should probably be thinking DJ Moore. Cause look, he's out there by himself.

They're single high man coverage. Boom. That sort of helps him to understand ball got to come out now. So you're walking them through this.

When you get him in the building early, as you get deeper into the process of training camp. Now he should be able to answer a lot of those questions. Now I'm going to send you home. How would your teacher send you home with homework? Do you sit there and do the homework by yourself?

Or do you call your parents in there? At some point you got to do that homework by yourself. That's what he had. There were moments where he was watching by himself, but that's not how it always was.

That's not how it's designed to get him better, but there's gotta be moments where you take ownership of your own work. And just like many of us, when we took homework home, there was, if you came back the next day with no questions for your professor or for your teacher, that means you know the work or forgot to do it or you didn't do it. Right. So you should come back with, Hey, I saw this. There were a couple of things. Should always come back with more dialogue.

That's if you're a good student. That means if you're still probing it, I'm sure you were, but that to me with Caleb Williams default to where I was watching by myself, what's the word? What did you learn? How many questions did you have coming back to your coaching staff? So it said to me that he was not taking ownership for some of the failures that took place last year.

In fact, I didn't read that anywhere in the book where he took ownership. Gotcha. Um, I also want to ask you this Selma Wilcox, Aaron Rogers, I'm at a point just retire. You're done.

Aren't you? He's not going to win another Superbowl. You're going to go to Pittsburgh.

A Superbowl for him in Pittsburgh would be winning a playoff game cause they haven't done in like eight or nine years now. And you're going to be doing this half ass like right now. He just doesn't want to go to any of this off season crap.

Okay. You're a veteran. I get it, but he's not no disrespect to safety or wide receiver. Like you're the quarterback.

You got to be there for these things. And that's why I'm done with Rogers. You sound like my good friend Andrew Filippone for 97.3 the fan at Pittsburgh. He says, look, we don't see anything recently in Aaron Rogers career to believe that he can come walking in at late phase in June and lead this team to the playoffs. We saw a decline in his play even in the final year in Green Bay. We know that he was hurt for the entire 2023 season. We know that he struggled last year, particularly when they went across the pond to play the Vikings. And I thought Brian Flores defense just defended him perfectly. He threw a couple of pick six. I know he did one pick six early in the game, but through two interceptions in that game, including one at the final end of it.

Absolutely late in the game. And then, you know, he had to go get his friend, Davante Adams, just to have some semblance of success at the end. His, his ability to help a young wide receiver and Garrett Wilson, I thought to me was the most disappointing part of it because it showed me that, that as much as I like Aaron Rogers, he's not open to new learning.

And I don't care who you are. I don't care how great you've been even Tom Brady at the end with Bruce Arians, he knew there had to be some new learning, some new adjustment. That's why he was able to win a Superbowl. You think Matthew Stafford had all the answers when he got out to LA and no, he learned from Sean McVay, they won a Superbowl soon as he arrived. And I think that's what Aaron Rogers hoped would have happened going to the New York jets and it didn't. And now he's going to Pittsburgh. It's what it looks like.

All the breadcrumbs sort of lead us to that. What are you going to grow into the season with Mason Rudolph as your starting quarterback? There you go.

So I think it's, I think it's a done deal. He said the people who need to know know how much time, he didn't, he came out, he was throwing the ball to DK Metcalf. Metcalf gets a contract extension. He didn't throw the ball. He didn't throw the ball to George Pickens.

So Pickens got traded. See, these are breadcrumbs that tells us where this is all going. I just know that when Aaron gets there, Aaron is not open to new learning from everything we're hearing from Andrew Filipponia, those who are close to the Steelers, that Arthur Smith, the offensive coordinator, is going to build it around him. And I'm just like, OK, what new, where are we?

Where's the nuance? What novel approach are we taking with Aaron Rogers and within the offense to make him better, to make the team better? I have not heard that yet. But, you know, I do trust in Mike Tomlin. I trust in the Steelers.

They are a really good organization. No team has more Vince Lombardi trophies than they do. No team has had fewer coaches.

Don't forget about the page. They don't have they're tied. No one has more.

Yeah, I know. No one has more. I just got to mention that they're tied, though.

But no one has more. Fair statement? Yeah. There you go. There you go. So so that's where that's where I'm at, that if this is the route they decide to take.

I'm like Andrew Filipponi. If you were selling me stock in Aaron Rogers, I would do a hole. I wouldn't be buying anymore. I would say let's tank. Let's get to a quarterback. I wouldn't fail.

See, I don't know that I would fail. Only reason why it's the Pittsburgh Steelers. Pickleballneed.com. We'll talk about it in just a second. Zimmer BioMet. Solomon Wolcott's in studio with us for a few more moments. Brock Purdy, the fifty three million dollar a year contract. I thought it would be fifty three and a half million.

I put that out a month ago. I was I was a half million wrong. So Brock Purdy may need to be begging for some money to get it up to what I thought it was gonna be. How do you think we're talking about him at the end of the season? I like Brock Purdy and you know why?

Because first of all, I I liked him coming out. I watched him a lot at Iowa State. I didn't think he deserved to fall to the seventh round.

I knew he was better than being Mr. Irrelevant, the last player picked in the entire draft. You know the first quarterback picked that year in the draft?

About a guy by the name of Kenny Pickett. Oh yeah. And he was the last quarterback and the last player picked in that draft. Think about where they're at today. Oh. Think about that. That's our league though.

If the cream does rise to the top, if you have the goods, they're gonna find you. He knew how to play under center. He knew how to throw in rhythm. He knew the progressionary reads and how to come off the guy and go to the third guy if it's not there early. He's a really fast processor. And if you talk to the guys on that team from the very first day in the huddle, he told every guy, shut up, I gotta call this play.

This dude's like the seventh round pick and he's telling veteran dudes, shut up, I gotta call. He knows how, he knows who he is. And not only that, they loved him so much.

That's right. They got rid of Trey Lance in a second and let's be real, Trey Lance never really got an opportunity. He saved the organization from a bad pick and from giving up multiple first round picks. He saved that organization.

That's what he did. And then 2023, he ended up putting up record numbers. No quarterback in NFL history had had yards per pass attempt like what he had that year. No quarterback in franchise history had the passing yards that he had. Not even Joe Montana, not even Steve Young. So he's already proven to be a franchise player for that organization.

So I think moving forward now, it's really about his continued growth and development and where else would you rather be? Plant it in the garden with Kyle Shanahan throwing to George Kittle, throwing to the receivers that they had and handing the ball off to Christian McCaffrey. They just got to be healthy.

It's pretty good. Their schedule is easy. I think they should run 11, 12 games this year. I can think of a lot worse places to be as a quarterback, right?

One more for you. McCarthy with the Vikings because I look at three names I'm intrigued by this year. Ben Johnson, Brock Purdy and then JJ McCarthy. That team with that defense, you mentioned Flores.

Flores has been incredible there and offensively, I believe JJ McCarthy could be a damn good quarterback there. I'm just saying this. Now, if we were buying stock in a guy, that's the guy.

It's a buy. And here's why. He was taught by one of the really great coaches at that position at the collegiate level in Jim Harbaugh. What do I mean by that? He learned to, oh, by the way, he learned how to play under center. Quarterbacks aren't learning that today anymore coming into our game. What that does, it helps with your footwork.

It helps with your timing and your rhythm in the passing game. That's why when you saw him in that one preseason game, and I know it was just a preseason game, but did you see how efficient he was? Did you see the rhythm in which big plays all over the place and he was dropping it on the dime.

And so that's what I expect to see more of that. I think equally Kevin O'Connell has been phenomenal at working with these quarterbacks. You saw it with Sam Darnell. You saw it the year before, not just with Kirk Cousins, but the way they had four different quarterbacks that year and still just barely missed the playoffs. So Kevin O'Connell deserves a lot of credit for his ability to make players better at that position. And it certainly doesn't hurt when you're throwing to Justin Jefferson and Jordan Addison and Jalen Naylor, right? And TJ Hockinson. It's a really good offense, surrounded by really good players. JJ McCarthy has everything he'd need, I think, to have a really great 2025 season in Minnesota.

All righty. I'm sure JJ McCarthy probably likes to play pickleball. I'm sure he could also hit up Zimmer Biomet with some of the injuries that he had last year. We had Dr. Roshan Shah in the studio and also Solomon Wolcott. Gentlemen, the floor is yours.

Tell us what we got cooking this weekend. Well, first of all, we're here to talk about joint health. And look, I'm a veteran of joint replacement surgery. You know, most people, at least over half a billion people suffer from some kind of arthritis in the joint around the globe every year.

Less than 5% actually go to get something done about it. That means a lot of people are out there suffering. And I brought with me a really good friend, Dr. Shah, who can tell you a little bit more about what Zimmer Biomet is doing to help those people out. Yeah. Zach, thanks for having us here.

You know, this is fantastic that Zimmer is here. They're supporting pickleball because this is where people are. At this age, we're being active, staying active, and they're taking an investment in their future and their lives. Mobility matters more than anything else. Staying mobile, staying active, building your muscle, building your bone density, working on your balance. That's what's going to keep people going. You hear about health span. This is what's going to keep people going in their 80s and 90s.

So what we're here to talk about is arthritis and dispel some of the myths about how people have to live with it. A lot of those half a billion people, they don't even seek treatment. Do they, Solomon?

That's right. No, they don't. And the reasons they don't is they're worried about pain. They're worried about, you know, the outcome and the recovery process. But with, um, with knee replacement, with partial knee replacement, it's really a resurfacing. You get to keep so much of the knee and it can give you a, it can give you a function and get rid of that pain so you can maintain your activity and your mobility. And if people are suffering from knee pain, what they should do is look for a doctor. They can also go to the website at www.pickleballknee.com to find a doctor in their area, to find out more about the procedure. What we're finding out is that if you take care of this in the earlier phase of the process, your chance of recovery and being able to return to having the vitality that you want in your life, being able to return to playing pickleball and doing other things and playing other sports.

What people tend to do is just wait and they suffer through pain. They're not getting sleep. That's where I was at. Wasn't sleeping very well. Um, and I went and took care of, talked to my doctor. He says, look, I'm not going to tell you to get joint replacement.

You're going to have to tell me when you want it. And I was like, look, let's get this thing done now. And because I was healthy, I was still in good shape. I didn't wait till I got to the lowest level of health to go limping in and went in and got it done. And the recovery was much faster. And I was able to get back to playing golf, playing pickleball and doing the things that I love doing so much faster.

So we want people to be aware of that and not be afraid of this process. Go to the website at www.pickleballknee.com to find a doctor, find out more about the procedure. And a big part of this, if I can just add to that, think about a tricycle, you know, it's got three tires. Everybody thinks about a knee replacement is replacing all three of those. You don't have to, you can replace just one. That's a partial knee replacement.

There's new technology out right now from Zimmer Biomet press fit technology where the bone grows onto the implant. It lasts longer in our studies and it's a smaller operation. That's the thing. You get to it early, you're not going to have the bigger problems later on. And also tomorrow you can go check out the Zimmer Biomet APP New York City Open at Billie Jean King National Tennis Center. Once again, you've heard it.

Visit for more information if you have some knee issues as well, pickleballknee.com. A lot of issues in the NFL these days with the tush push 22 to 10. They kept it. Thankfully. I'm pro tush push.

How about yourself? I'm pro quarterback sneak. You know, I am a football purist for years, almost a hundred years in our sport. You are not allowed to push a runner from behind or pooling.

Right. And I've always been one of these guys that says offenses don't innovate. What they do, they change the rules. And then once they change rules, oh, look what we can do. Well, you changed the rule that allow you to do it. And every time they change rules from the defensive perspective, they take things away from us in terms of what we can't do.

Now, I'm not here to argue either offense or defense. I'm about the game, but I do believe that the push from behind allowing that has opened up a Pandora's box for a lot other things that we're not currently talking about. And I think that's why you found 22 teams actually voted to ban that portion of the play, not the total play. Uh, and they missed it by if they would have had two more votes, then they would have just removed the part where you're pushing, uh, Jalen hurts from behind.

That's, that's the only thing, but by allowing it, now let's ask ourselves what comes next. Frankie LaVoo diving over the top. Oh, he hit your quarterback and now your quarterback goes down.

You know what people are going to say? You shouldn't be able to dive over the topic, hit my quarterback like that. Well, that's actually a legal play. You created something that's problematic by taking something that was once not legal and then making it legal. And then when the argument came to put it back the way that it was, we said, no, let's keep it that way. And, and okay, but the theory of unintended consequences is going to lead to something else coming back. Defensive coaches, I can tell you right now, they're going to come up with something to stop it and do it during the trial and era.

I think it creates a more unsafe environment. They just got in my ear. There's already 400 Philadelphia Eagles fans lining up. That's cool. They want to be chill. You got to know the rules of the game.

We're only playing by the rules of the game. Once again, pickleball knee.com doc Solomon. Always great to see you guys. Appreciate you coming on. You are the best, my friend. Thank you. Well, thank you so much. All right, we'll take a time out. It is the Zach Gelb show right here on the infinity sports network.