Depth Chart Drama (Hour 1)

Live from the play show, yet not overly ostentatious, studios of CBS Sports Radio here in beautiful New York City, sitting on top of the 10th floor of 345 Hudson Street, welcome on in to a Tuesday edition of the Zach Gelb show across all the great local CBS Sports Radio affiliates, Sirius XM, Channel 158, and that free Odyssey app.

855-212-4CBS, number to jump on in, 855-212-4227, you can always get at me on Instagram where I'm straight flexing and also the good ol' cesspool of Twitter, at Zach Gelb, that's Z-A-C-H-G-E-L-B. Action packed show today, John Coon is going to join us coming up in an hour 20, Brian Jones will talk some Texas football at 8pm Eastern, 5pm Pacific, and as always, producing this extravaganza for the next four hours is no other than Hot Take Hickey. Sean Herman is going to invade our New York City studios, if we don't say that we're going to bring him on, I'm afraid that he's going to tackle me, or maybe just beat the crap out of Hickey, and of course, the former Pro Bowl linebacker does a great job with the Lights Out Extreme Fighting League, and they have a big event coming up on August 26th. Sean, great to see you, how you been?

I've been good, man, how about yourself? I'm doing fantastic, I actually want to start you off going back to your college days, so I know you're from Maryland, and you played your college ball at Maryland, why was that? Because I would imagine a guy that goes in the first round, not everything's handed to you, but you could have gone to a bigger school. Yeah, you know, look, I had offers from just about everybody in the country, for me it was more, I wanted to stay home in my own backyard, my friends, family, coaches, could still come to the games, and also too, I had this inkling that in the Washington, D.C. area, the media's big, you had the Washington Post, Baltimore Sun, so I was like, I'm home, this is it. Turned out to be one of the best decisions I made, because for me, to have that base there, my story, when I went through going up, it gave a lot more motivation to the kids that grew up how I grew up, because they got a chance to see me firsthand basis. Trust me, I was tempted to take that visit to Miami, because I got, Miami came in late, after I verbally committed to the University of Maryland, Miami was coming to my high school basketball games, and Washington played basketball, and trying to de-commit me to get me to go to Maryland.

And it was tough, I didn't take a visit, I took no visits at all, because I didn't want to go anywhere, but Maryland was home, and best decision I made. Give me the Sean Merriman basketball scouting report, I feel like you were a bruiser down low in the post. Yeah, I was. Hard screens. Yeah, hard screens. In fact, I got into basketball because I kept filing out of everything, so I got into football from filing out from basketball, but I was all county, all state, you know, we grew up playing the same AAU programs with Kevin Durant, Michael Beasley, Nolan Smith, you know, a lot of guys, we all came through the same AAU program, so if I had to compare my game, I would say Ben Wallace, right?

I was the same one. You know, something like that, Ben Wallace definitely dropped 12, 14, only give you 10 boards, some blocks, steals, elbows, attack, a foul, you know, just one of those type of games. So, sometimes when people stay home, it's a great thing. Other times, there's a lot of distractions. Yeah. With everything that staying home kind of provides you, the good and the bad, do you think that better prepared you for the NFL?

Yeah, 100 percent. And for one, you know, I grew up in the Prince George's County, Maryland, Washington, D.C. area, so I grew up in a time where it was really rough there. So, it meant a lot to me to be able to stay home and see that, but I've already went through those obstacles and trials and tribulations. I went through it. So, at that point, I wasn't anything new. I think, well, for me, it was a total opposite. Like, my grandmother and my family, like, they didn't play, right?

So, if I started to get out of line, I got to call off my grandmother like, hey, you better get your act together, right? So, it kind of, it worked out in my favor for the long-term man, but I still work with the University of Maryland a lot. I think the world of Coach Lock's saying what they're building over there in Maryland.

And I tell kids all the time, if you're home, stay home. That's how Miami and they built their dynasties. Ohio State, they built their dynasties.

Michigan, they built their dynasties by getting their top recruits, top players from that area to stay home. So, Maryland kid, you get drafted in the first round by the Chargers. What's that first reaction when the Chargers give you that phone call and you know where you're going? Well, initially, I thought I was going to the Cowboys. So, because I went down and flew and met with Jerry Jones and Bill Parcells. Actually, Demarcus Ware, during his Hall of Fame speech, he brought that up.

And so, I knew that if I wasn't going to the Cowboys, I was going to the Chargers already. The first time that I've even seen palm trees in person was when I flew to San Diego before the draft. A little different than Maryland. Yeah, I mean, you know, for me, I've seen palm trees on TV, right? In the movies.

In the movies. And, you know, we come in and we're flying over the ocean and I'm seeing palm trees for the first time. And I'm like, what is what's going on?

This is like a movie. And I remember my visit and I'm about to take off and you look at it over the ocean and everything else. And I'm thinking in my head, please draft me.

Draft me here. Like, this is where I want to go. Like, I don't want to go. I think the redskins were up. A couple of pigs before that.

They wanted me to stay home. Cleveland was calling. I was like, oh, no, I don't. No offense. No, no offense. I mean, I'm like, you know, San Diego, Cleveland. I mean, come on.

I think that most people would would agree with me there. So I knew that San Diego was going to be the place that I ended up getting drafted. And you walked into a team with a lot of talent. Was that intimidating right away? Because I know I don't think Junior Seau was there anymore. He left here before. But, you know, when you're a linebacker going to the Chargers, everyone's going to naturally say Junior Seau, Junior Seau.

Yeah, no, 100 percent. And look, you walk into a locker room with a Danny and Thomas and Philip Rivers, Antonio Gaze, Lorenzo Neal, Jamal. I mean, just go. A lot of personalities. Randall Godfrey.

We came to McCardell was I mean, we had so many like vets have been around for a long time. So you're not intimidated, but you know, the expectations are high. Right. And you can't get anything past Lorenzo Neal. Oh, no, no, no, no. Let me slide.

Matter of fact, low. Neal, he kind of took me out of his wing and I was working out with low. Neal, by the way, he was in his 12th year and I'm in my rookie season.

And that guy has the craziest motor. And I had and I tried to keep up with him. You know, we'll have to work. We'll work out every day after practice. My dude is in his 12th year. Like, how? How is this possible? Still going.

So, yeah, low. Neal was a was a different beast. Sean Merriman here with us. And those teams, they were fun. Obviously, you wanted to win a Super Bowl.

You wanted to get there. That didn't happen. But there's a lot of times in the NFL where you have great teams that just don't get the job done. And and you guys had some really good teams with the Chargers. Yeah. And you know, the unfortunate part about that, because we we base everything on rings, championships. Right. Which I which I understand. Well, for quarterbacks and for coach for quarterbacks and coach, no one else.

Yeah, no one else. But I think that when you start talking about some of the greatest teams of all time, we had that. And we won't get mentioned up there with most of them because we didn't win a championship. Right.

So it's like the greatest team that never won a championship. So that part, I do feel something about like when you walk away from the game, like, man, I wish I would have gotten it. Like that part, especially when you're going to do you're working with other former athletes, right? A former NFL guys who got their rings, their jackets. And you're kind of you're sitting up, you know, set with everybody. And you're looking around like, I got a ring on, but it's not the one that they're wearing.

Right. And so, you know, you look back at those teams like we should have won one, if not two. And that that part still kind of bites at me a little bit. And I know this just being a Patriot fan, the year where you guys were 14 and two. And I'm sure you're tired of talking about this, Sean Merriman. And you guys basically had the game one, right? Brady gets picked off and then you had the Detroit Brown punch out where the fumble goes out. That was just one of those moments where that was the team.

That team was a great team. Yeah. I thought the winner of that game was going to go Super Bowl now.

It didn't happen because the Patriots end up choking to the Colts. Right. A week later. And, you know, we've always always had success against the Colts. Right.

Always. And so that was a more frustrating. And I believe that the Chicago Bears went to Super Bowl that year.

And I'm like, we would have ranchers, just everybody. It was just it was something about the Patriots that we they capitalized on every mistake we've always made. And, you know, I like when people ask me, I try to throw teammates on the bus.

I'm like, but it's hard not to talk about it when somebody bring it up. Because we did have that we had a game in the bag. That game was won. And we won. And from that point on, which is in 2006, I knew from that point on to never give Tom Brady the ball with two minutes left. Right.

Like you just can't have possession of the football with two minutes left in the game because we know what he'll do with it. Were you still there for the AFC title game in, what was it, 07? With the Steelers, right? No, against the it was it was Chargers. I played the game, yeah. Where Phillip had the torn ACL.

All of us. Being at that game. And, you know, I was there. I was I was like 15 rows off the 50 yard line. I was a lot smaller at the time, obviously.

I was I was a kid. Patriots didn't even play a great game that day, but everyone was hurt for you guys. We walked in. You know, I had a knee. Antonio Gates had a foot. Elte had a knee.

Phillip had a knee. All of our all of our top big guys were hurt. We banged up. I mean, literally crawling into that week.

Phillip actually had a partially reconstructed ACL surgery that we just sculpt just so we can play the game. And so we were all beat up. And I don't know if you remember how cold that game was. It was like 11, 12 degrees outside. In fact, it wasn't cold for the for the home team, but no, from the charge. Oh, for us, we were freezing. You know, I've almost got in a fight with Nate Kading for taking up the heat on the side.

Like you're a kicker. Come on. I said, you got to move. It is freezing out here. And he's over there hogging up the heater. And I literally picked Nate Kading up and I tossed him.

I said, dude, I'm taking his heater. That's amazing. But yeah. So, you know, even even then, we felt like we had a shot.

I think that game was like 21 to 12, 21 to 4, something like that. I felt like we had an opportunity and they just they just had our number. You guys had a fun team. Yeah. When I look when I think of the Chargers and write someone that didn't grow up as a Charger fan, you know, as a kid on Long Island, Sean Merriman's here with us.

A lot of people would go to school. Antonio Gates, jerseys like Danny and Tomlinson powder blue jerseys and then your lights out dance. Everyone loves a good celebration. Heck, if you played now, you would be a tick tock superstar, not only superstar.

Yeah. Well, you know, I was just talking to somebody about that and, you know, see some of these guys with big social media following like Odell Beckham and stuff like that. I mean, that lights out dance would have been probably everywhere in the world if they had social media back then. And for me, it meant a lot, man, because when I was growing up, you know, I emulated that Deion Sanders, his dance. And, you know, I used to do Merton Hanks. I remember Merton Hanks dance back in the day and he did all these guys.

And so I always said, you know, when I get an opportunity, I'm going to create something to make people feel like how I felt when I was a kid. And that's how the lights out dance kind of came about. And what was neat about it is usually think of celebrations. It's wide receivers like I remember Ocho Cinco with all the props. Oh, yeah. With all the props show horn with the cell phone to have a linebacker do that. That equally justice frustrates you, because if you're a quarterback, you get rocked by Sean Merriman and then he stands up and does the dance.

And, you know, everyone said that everywhere. So it's funny about that is I used to have you know, I had friends with the other teams and they said, do that. The coaches told us today that they're doing everything to make sure you don't dance. It was days to walk up to you before the game.

And they said, I'm just I'm just letting you know, it was some time they had, you know, cut out posters or printed posters and it was slide them under the offensive lines door. Me doing the lights out dance. And they just say, we're not he's not dancing.

And I look at him like, oh, yes, I am. Trust me. When you look at this Chargers team now, you've been around for a little bit. Just like your teams, they have so much talent. And last year they finally make the playoffs. And now everyone's wondering, can they get the job done? Do you see a lot of your teams in this Chargers team?

A hundred percent, actually. And it's probably the first time I've seen in the last several years of them being as close as we were doing those mid 2000 teams. If you look at every position on the field, it's very comparable. Now, I love Austin Eckler, but, you know, he's not L.T., right? L.T.

was was different. You don't have a three hundred and fifty pound monster like Jamal Williams in the inside, but you got, you know, nice rotating guys. You got great two outside linebacker pass rushers with Joey Bolsa and Khalil Mack and myself and Sean Phillips. You know, you got even a step up back that we had Eric.

Well, now you got Derwin. Right. So look across the board and how this team is built.

The tackle where Rashawn Slater, we had Marcus McNeil, who was no slouch, you know, when he was healthy vestige. So just look at the team. And I and I said this before and I'll say it again. If they have an opportunity to win a Super Bowl, it's going to be right now with this group. And they got about, I would say, a two or three year window to win one with with this team that they have right now.

And the two concerns I have health. You can't control it. Right. But we saw the injuries run rampant last year with them. And then it's the coach and Brandon Staley. Yeah. Because until he gets the job done, this is a guy that is super duper aggressive and he's going to live and die by that. And it could come back to bite them.

Well, it has it has. Right. But one thing I'll say this and I like Brandon Staley a lot. And in fact, he I was one of the first people he called when he when he got when he signed on with the charges really. And we had he called me a night after blue. I just answered the phone. It was him.

And we talked on the phone for like 20, 30 minutes. And he was talking about the importance of having some of the former guys who kind of made the organization what it was to come back around and be more involved. Which is nice. Which is which is smart, right? Especially with the move. Which yes, which is smart, because at the end of the day, you know, I see the great the really good coaches do that.

The other ones, they want to change everything around, forget what happened in the past. That doesn't that that doesn't make any sense. Right.

You want you want the guys that people know, the familiar with, the respected that built a culture around organization. So he called. I think Brandon Staley's only issue was just some of his play called early on when he was younger.

Right. Like, you know, when he first came in, just being a riskier, you know, maybe being a little bit cocky, you know, just having that young kind of feel like I'm trying to I want to bring a different energy around here. And sometime it worked out and sometime it didn't. But I think that most people are going to harp on the times it didn't. When all the times it did.

No problem. Everything is good. The times it didn't. Oh, I can't believe he went for it on that.

I'm like, well, the other times it did. The biggest the biggest move that this offseason I think that they made that no one's talking about as much is Kellen Moore. Right. When you look at that Jacksonville Jaguars game and them getting put out of the playoffs last year, what do they do? They let their foot off the gas. They stopped throwing the ball down the field.

It was a dink and dunk. Let's play it safe. Let's be conservative. Let's be conservative.

And that came back and bit them. Kellen Moore ain't like that. Kellen Moore is not coming in there and playing this dink and dunk football and let's play it safe.

He is throwing the ball down the field. He's going to stretch the field and open the playbook up. So you being someone that was on those teams that were really fun teams and right with your experience, let's say you were still in that locker room. What do you give like what type of advice would you give those guys so they're in the best position to get over that hump? It's it's so hard when you have a team as good as they are on paper to not buy in how great you guys are. Right. We all the we ran the players ran the team back when I played.

Yeah. Marty Schottenheimer was great. We had great leadership. We had Wade Phillips there. Greg Monunsky, John Pagano. We had a great coaching staff.

But the players we ran, you know, we had the voice of the team. Right. If practice should be over, L.T. is going to say, hey, all right, tee time. Basically, we're going to we're going to play golf.

Right. We ran a team. And so what happened, what needs to happen is the star players, the Derwin Jameses, those those the bigger Khalil Mack, Joey Bolsas. They need to step up and kind of show everybody else the way. Because even when I came in as a rookie, I saw Drew Brees and Lorenzo Neal and all these guys, how they went about their business. And I was literally in the back like, OK, he did this low. Neal goes and hit the gym at the practice around 335.

So I was watching them. And so what needs to happen is those guys need to lead that organization and team and show the rest of the young guys how it's done. Did you know Sean Merriman? Because I know he leaves and he was he was already a pro bowler, Drew Brees.

But he goes on to be one of the all time great quarterbacks. Did you guys know how great he was? Yeah.

When he went to New Orleans? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Hundred percent.

But you got to think, too. I was twenty five or thirty feet away from when his when it happened to his arm. Yeah. I mean, his arm dislocated, his shoulder did it sound like a tree branch breaking like a thump. You heard it. And he walked over to the sideline because his arm was out of the socket.

And you just you've never seen anything like that before. And I watched him put it back in. I also seen Drew Brees working during the off season with Todd Durkin in San Diego, which I used to train, meet him, Darren Sproles, a couple other guys who go and train with him. And I watched him not be able to throw a pass five yards. Then three weeks later, he's throwing 15 yards. Three weeks later, he's throwing 30 yards.

Three weeks. So I've watched this consistency of him getting back there. There is no one in the world that would have guessed that Drew Brees would have came back and performed the way he did after the injury he had. It's not supposed to happen, but I got an opportunity to see it during the off season. I'm talking about like there there was no cameras around and people had to leave when he started throwing a football because he couldn't throw five yards. And then it became a few more weeks later, he started progressing. And I'm talking about like a serial workaholic, like crazy.

You just watch the band work hours and this and that. He wouldn't stop. No one. I got a first hand look at everything. But for the most part, if you knew that injury he had and see what he would accomplish and how we finish, that's next to impossible to do. No one else could have done that other than Drew Brees. Sean Merriman here with us.

We'll talk about lights out extreme fighting in just a bit. Last time you were on with us, you talked about how going to Buffalo was such a great experience. And for you personally, the way the fans embrace you and to see that that culture was just so unique. Last year, everyone knows the story of DeMar Hamlin. And I was on the air that night on Monday.

I assumed the worst, just like everybody else. And it was one of the scariest things you've ever seen on a football field to now see videos of him running around that practice. That's the interception, interception, taking it to the house. That just got to make it feel so good. It does, man.

It does. And then also when I talk to what I call normal, like my friends, I call normal people. Right. Because when you play football, you're not normal. So you're wired a little different. And, you know, my normal friends were saying, why did he go back and play football? Like he almost died.

And I said, well, because that's how we're wired. Yeah. Well, he's not going to stop playing after that. He's going to go back to doing what he loved doing. And he's not going to walk away because some of those guys feel like they quit when they got defeated. And so just a mind and a mentality that's in a football player.

The guy that we almost watched on national TV die is right now catching interceptions in training camp. And so it made me feel it made me feel good, too, because I understand the psychology that goes back into the reason why he went back and played. That's what makes him happy.

That's what he wanted to do. But to see the city of Buffalo, I can't say this enough. And when I go and talk to other people about my time in Buffalo, like I can't really put it into words because I it was I was blessed to be able to experience it.

You watch it on TV. You see the Bill's mafia and I'm doing the crazy stuff in a parking lot and all that. But until you walk on the street down Chippewa downtown or you go somewhere and the guys are just walking by you and saying, hey, what's up? Lights like your third, second or third cousin. I mean, it's it is it is unbelievable how they make you feel like family there.

It's crazy. So my sister and my cousin both attended a university at Buffalo, SUNY Buffalo, and I would go visit them. And on Saturdays, my cousin would wake up and he would go to garage sales to like buy things. And it was just such a Buffalo thing. And every garage sale because he did everything the people would treat him like he was family. And I always go back to it.

Buffalo, it's it's family, it's food and it's football. Right. And and what's better than that?

Yeah, nothing, nothing. And, you know, like I said, I was scratching and screaming not to go because they were on seven when I got when I got released and released in a wave. Then when I got there. But Buddy Nicks, man, he was not letting up.

You know, at the time, the general manager, he said, I don't I don't care. We'll bring you out here no matter what. That's great. I'm like, Buddy, I'm not coming. I'm like, I love you.

I'm not coming. And so I think you see that now that Zach Martin is getting fine with twenty five, thirty thousand a day or something like that. I think fifty fifty thousand fifty. They told me twenty and I couldn't wait to get there. Fifty thousand. He's going to find fifty thousand a day. And I'm like, I can't stomach that.

There's nothing that's going to make me feel good at the time when I did it. They told me it was going to be twenty thousand twenty twenty five thousand a day. And I told him, I said, look, what time do you guys send in that jet? I'm getting on a plane.

I'm coming because I'm not I can't stomach losing twenty twenty five thousand a day. So tell me about all the latest with this lights out a extreme fighting league that you're running. You guys got a big event coming up Saturday, August 26. Yeah, we got a huge event in San Diego. First time first time I'm going to San Diego to have a fight. This is going to be really cool because it's going to be outside, outdoors.

We got like drones flying over the mountains. We got some really, really cool stuff and we'll be live on football August 26. So if you guys don't have football sports, get it. We just broke in the top five or top 10 now.

Most Washington football sports. Appreciate it. They got it. They got a bunch of great like it. It's a great platform. Football is a great platform because of all the capabilities it can do. And they got international soccer and all this stuff.

And you look up there and it's like, oh, lights out. How did you how did you guys pop up, you know, pop up here in these numbers? But they've been great to work with. And it's just fun, man. These next up and coming superstars that won't have a chance to fight in a lot of other places, be seen, be promoted, progress their career. Some of these guys want to go to the UFC at some point, which we don't have a problem with if we can't pay them. Like, well, I'll drive to to Dana and those guys myself.

But we have the next up and coming superstars of the sport with Lights Out Extreme Fight. So I want to talk more about the league. We'll take a quick break here. We'll come on back. We'll do a few more moments because I have some other quick haters for you. Sean Merriman here in studio with us.

It is the Zach Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. Print shipping labels, easily compare rates and delivery times and take advantage of discounts up to 84 percent off USPS and UPS rates. And with enterprise solutions that make warehouse optimization easy, ShipStation scales when your business does. No wonder 98 percent of companies that stick with ShipStation for a year become customers for life.

Spend more time growing your business and start automating shipping tasks with ShipStation. Go to ShipStation dot com slash audio today and sign up for your free 60 day trial at ShipStation dot com slash audio. You're listening to the Zach Gelb show. All right. This is that Gelb show on CBS Sports Radio. Continue our conversation with former all pro linebacker and Sean Merriman now running the Lights Out Extreme Fighting. So how did you get involved in this?

Because sometimes guys leave the NFL and they don't know what to do in life. We were talking about it, right? You had some opportunities at WWE, but how did you get involved with Lights Out? Yeah, I actually started training back in 2005, 2006 with our buddy Jay Glazer.

He introduced me to Randy Couture. From that point, I just started working a lot of hand combat during the off season. I want to get better with the outside.

It's an outside linebacker and pass rusher. I didn't think nothing of it, right? Fast forward, I ended up falling in love with the sport. I'm like, OK, I'm kind of I'm kind of good at this thing. And I started getting better. So every off season I started training with more and more MMA guys.

And I would start bringing some of the other guys. I even got Lydani Thompson in the ring a couple of times. Did you really? Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. How was LT? He can go. Really? Yeah, LT can go. OK.

I always I joke around and say, you know, I'm actually surprised by that. I love LT. Yeah, but I'm kind of surprised. I'm not expecting to be a good MMA fighter. LT can go.

He can go. And so I end up launching Lights Out Extreme Fighting in 2019. I was fortunate enough to work with, you know, I was at the NFL Network, WWE and with the production crew, the production team. So I understood TV production and how those things go, you know, working with different casinos and venues. And I knew it.

And so it was it was a right time, a right opportunity, along with just me being around this space of 17 years. So now we're at FUBO, FUBO TV. We just broke into the top five or top 10 or something like that.

I think it's top five, but it won't tell me broken to their top five. And it's been fun because we're we're showing the Canada, France and some parts of Spain. And so I know that whenever we air stuff and I start getting followers from like France or Spain, I'm like, OK, they don't watch American football out there. So I know they must be watching, working. I know it's working to fight.

So it's been cool, man, to watch it, to watch it grow as it has. So for you, when you started to get involved in the actual fighting, you talk about right, you have the NFL mentality. Oh, if I could dominate the NFL and be a big personality, it's probably easy to get into the fight game. Are you ever humbled in that moment where it's like, OK, it's not as easy as I thought? Yeah, I had a I had one hundred eighty five pound wrestler, a NCAA D2, one hundred eighty five pound wrestler take me to the ground and I couldn't get up. And you were shocked. I was I couldn't figure it out. Did he do the lights out dance? No, he was just he was talking to me the whole time he was down and it was frustrating the hell out of me. And I'll get up, I'll find a way to find a way back to my feet. He would take me back down again.

I mean, 15, 20 times. I could not. And I just I walked out of the gym that day and I felt so defeated. And I couldn't understand how this one hundred eighty five pound guy took me down.

I got him by 80 pounds right close to it. And so that that part of it, the discipline of me, the me wanting to get better, it just I start doing it more until I figured it out. And I think that, look, I think that every former athlete should pick up some form of combat sport when they're done. I just had this conversation about a couple months ago with Brian Cushing. Brian Cushing is he does jiu-jitsu.

He's also he does jiu-jitsu. And so we have more and more guys that are kind of venturing off to this combat sports base. You're not going to get the guy that played 10 plus years, right?

You won't get him. But you want to get some guys had a decent career, played five, six, seven years, maybe. That still have that itch. That still have that itch to go and compete.

Those are the guys we're looking to transition because now there's money in the sport. When I retired in 2013, I remember asking another organization who bought a half a million bucks. They looked at me like I was crazy. Like, what? You never had a fight half a million bucks?

I'm like, now they're throwing you half a million bucks because they know that we're going to sell paper views. And so the model has changed a little bit. So you got a guy with a decent name, right? He came out of Alabama, Ohio State or whatever, right?

Played a little bit in the NFL. And now he's training to fight. He's going to get more eyeballs than the average Joe that's kind of starting out in the sport. So now it's easy to transition some of these higher tier guys. And you clearly have to have the skills. Yeah. But it's also the entertainment value in selling the fights where someone that had a personality like you, I'm sure it helps.

Yeah, 100 percent. You know, obviously you got to promote and sell the fight. And then the third part of that is you got to fight. You got to actually be able to fight.

So it's a combination of all three. Put on a good show. Look, Jake Paul and Nate Diaz fight the other day. I wouldn't necessarily call that a boxing match. It was entertainment.

It was. And it was entertainment and entertaining for all 10 rounds. And you know, there's so much money in boxing. Yeah, it's a lot of money. And believe it or not, there's money in MMA if you match it up right with the right two people. You know, there's guys right now I know that's training. I was about to sign two guys from the XFL actually two weeks ago.

And they ended up getting caught up to the NFL. Wow. And so I said, look, we'll be here.

Yeah. Go take that. Don't go take that opportunity because I know how hard it is to get that shot into the NFL. And I said, what have you guys ready? We'll we'll we'll get going. Sean Merriman here with us.

I want to end you with some quick hitters here. Best NFL memory. 2006 Raiders game Monday Night Football.

I think I got them for like four or five sacks or something like that. When you're in a game like that, where you're just constantly on the quarterback, you just feel invincible. Did you just go to a different level? Oh, yeah. Yeah.

You're out to levitate, man. Nobody can tell you. There's nothing they can do at that point to block you because it's you've already made up your mind that, you know, poor Robert Gallery that, you know, that day.

But yeah, when you when you get to a zone like that, it's not it's nothing really anybody can do. Toughest offensive lineman you've ever had to go up against. Walter Jones.

Wow. OK, that's a that's a good one. It's a Hall of Famer. Who's the QB? You never seem like a real nervous guy, but a QB that when you were getting ready to prepare him, you're like, I can't sleep. Peyton, not Brady.

No. Why was that? And people are going to people on the throw shots at me for saying this, but I think that Tom the Peyton Manning was the greatest quarterback.

Why is that? Well, it was his intangibles. I don't look I look at rings as a team sport. Right. And that's why whenever anybody talk to me about Philip Rivers, I'm like, he's going he should be in the Hall of Fame.

You can't say he'll have any rings because we played on a team. Right. Individually, Philip Rivers, the Hall of Famer Peyton Manning had intangibles that Tom Brady just didn't. Right.

And a stronger arm, the way he process everything. What made Tom, in my opinion, and I'm playing them both and I hate compare. I hate doing this because I think that whenever you give props to one one person, one player, you're saying the other one isn't good. And I'm definitely not saying that. I'm just saying that if I would rather play Tom Brady as the individual. Right. Not the team Bill Belichick and everybody else involved.

They're scheming, they're game planning. I'm talking about just the attributes of Tom Brady. Peyton Manning was better. And so it's just his way about it. The way he called plays, the way he would seek out a defense, know what you're doing.

Quick snap, you hard count. You knew it would tell you during the plays who's doing what. He would talk to you and tell you you can line up in that gap or you want to ensure you're not. You know, Sean, you're not coming there.

You come in here. He would say that mid game. And so when you're playing against somebody with that type of knowledge and that type of control on a football field, he would analyze from one wide receiver to this wide receiver ball through the field and would tell the defense exactly what they're doing. And so, in my opinion, Peyton Manning was the greatest quarterback. The thing I'll just say about that is you're not wrong in terms of the skills that Manning had and what he was able to do. But doesn't that make Brady even more impressive? Because when you're drawing up the ideal quarterback, people don't draw up Tom Brady. And no one was able to stop him pretty much for 20 years.

Yeah. And that's another debate, you know, because there was nobody that competed like Tom. Like Tom Brady, like his how he competed, his mentality to not want to lose and what he would do and the mindset he had to not lose. There was nobody on that level ever, in my opinion, who would just just would not lose for nothing.

Right. So that I would give the edge to Tom Brady. But when we're talking about just the physicality and what they were capable of doing, Peyton Manning was capable of doing a whole lot more than Tom Brady was. Who's your favorite teammate ever? Man, we were so tight. It's tough to pick.

It's tough to pick, man, because, you know, one day I'll be with LT, one day I'll be with O'Neal, Jamal. Phillip Rivers used to, you would think a quarter, but Phillip would just come and sit in the middle of all the D-linemen and linebackers. Like there was no there was no set clicks where the cornerback hung with the cornerback. So the wide receiver like, no, we were we were all pretty tight.

And the last thing I'll ask you. So you have this lights out fighting league. Let's say back in your day in your prime, this was around. You could fight one player. Who would it be? Anybody. Anybody. Doesn't matter who. Yeah. Yeah. There's not one guy in particular that you're like, I had some good battles with him. I'd love to see him again. I'm trying to think of an old lineman. I hate it.

Pretty much all of them. I would say I would say John Runyon. He's my boy now. John Runyon.

Well, we were actually teammates. I was his intern back in Philadelphia when he did radio. John Runyon. Now he's a big job in the league. Yeah.

Yeah. Now John's a man. But I would maybe him. My boy, Richie Incognito, probably we're pretty close. That would be a great fight. You against Richie would be wonderful. I think people will want to see that.

All right. So before we let you on out of here, once again, you have the big event coming up on Saturday, August 26. Lights out, extreme fighting. If people have not watched this yet, what's your message to them to give it a try? You're watching the next up and coming fighters of this sport.

They are laying it on the line. Everybody that's fighting there, you can tell they're stepping in there with a mission to get further in their careers. Whether that's UFC or whatever, maybe a bigger deal with us. There's a different type of energy with lights out, extreme fighting that we bring. And you can tell it during the broadcast.

You can tell it and the people that come there. We'll have probably close to 2,000 plus people there at this fight. A lot of military also will be there at this fight as well. And so we have the next up and coming guys.

We have the next up and coming superstars of MMA. Well, continued success. I always appreciate your perspective when you join us.

Once again, make sure you check it out. FuboTV, Saturday, August 26. He, of course, is Sean Merriman. Sean, thanks for coming in. Thanks for having me on. You're listening to the Zach Gelb Show.

It is the Zach Gelb Show on CBS Sports Radio. Tremendous conversation that we had to open up the show with Sean Merriman. Always enjoy when he does join us. Hickey, I have a whole lot that I want to get into with you. We will address your mustache because you went to a bachelor party. You have a nice beard, the iconic hot take Hickey beard. And you're very, very particular with your facial hair. Like I know you've made a bet with me that if Baker Mayfield does not lead the Tampa Bay Buccaneers to the playoffs, that you will go mustache once again and we'll have someone come in on the show, on the air, shave. I guess whatever beard you'll grow back, back down to a mustache. But I'm very surprised that you did go to the mustache. So I want to get into it later, but I'll just ask you real quickly.

So let's keep this like a minute. Why did you do this? Because I've said to you before, like on the air, if you're so confident in something, let's make a bet to shave your head. And you're like, no, no, no, no, no. And you do not like being clean shaven.

Now you still have some caterpillar fur on your, your upper lip, but I'm shocked that you actually went down this road. Just kind of figured bachelor party kind of. Why not?

The fellows are all together. You know, we're not getting chicks anyway, so might as well just have a little bit of fun. Do some little different. Now, I will say very quickly, not a lot of guys did was mean basically one other at eight. So it wasn't like it was a whole seven bachelor party and maybe the bachelor himself doesn't have one to stand out.

But yeah, I just kind of figure what the hell, why not? No tattoos on this bachelor party? No, no tattoos.

You didn't do like a Mike Tyson eye tattoo or something like that? No, we're not the hangover. We're not that crazy. So this is the part to me that I don't get with you. Your idea of firing up people. I've now seen two things when you go away with your buddies. One, you jump in the pool and you swim a lap and then you hurt your finger trying to fire up your friends to keep the vibes going. And the other one is now you go to this mustache thinking that's going to increase the vibes on a bachelor party. Why do you think? Because you get in the pool and swim a lap or you have whatever facial hair you're calling this on your upper lip with this mustache.

Why do you think going to there that that's going to fire up any other normal human being? I will say the pool idea is totally separate. That was a one off where it's just like the vibes are dead that particular day. Just said, you know what, I lost the bet or lost the game.

I'm going to do this. The mustache was just kind of guys being dudes. You know, that's what we do. Just guys being dudes hanging out. Steve Adazio, dudes being dudes. Growing out. Right.

What a great day to be a guy. Whatever he says, that's just that was guys being dudes in the desert doing guy things. OK, now I'll question a lot on that. I will.

We'll get into it more later. You know, it really annoys me today and I've seen it twice. I don't like funny business when it comes to depth charts. I actually I don't say I got in trouble, but Jeff Collins, when he was the head football coach at Temple, I slammed him because he did this above the line chart. Where if you're eligible to start or if you've shown enough where you could be a starter, you were above the line. So you would have like six quarterbacks that were above the line. And I don't understand these dumb mind games that people play. And then I think Jeff wasn't happy with me.

You know, we're fine now, but he was not a fan of me, I guess, years ago, because I said this above the line chart is the dumbest thing possible. Just tell us who your starting quarterback's going to be. But usually see that in the college game. There's always funny business in the college game with depth charts.

I like Michigan. Jim Harbaugh, though, is is probably the number one culprit to this. But in the NFL today, on the depth chart for the Buccaneers, in terms of their starting quarterback, it was Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask. And then hours later, you see the 49ers depth chart come out before their first preseason game. And number one was Brock Purdy.

But then for the backup spot, it was Trey Lance or Sam Darnold. Like these are grown men. These aren't college kids.

These are grown men. You should be able to list where they currently stand on the team. And I don't watch football for ties. And that's incredulous to me, Hickey, how now in the NFL with depth charts, and I've only seen this in college, really. And you see it a lot. But now we're going to use the or designation on the depth charts for NFL teams. I just think this is ridiculous.

I would. I think too many coaches in the NFL and a large reason for a lot of their downfall and failure is they overthink they overthink things. And they make situations 30 times more complicated than they have to be. If you are Todd Bowles, making Baker Mayfield or Kyle Trask right now QB one today, still well over a month before the season starts means nothing. Having Sam Darnold be QB two or QB three does not mean anything. We haven't even gotten to a preseason game yet or joint practice yet. So to bring attention or again to kind of overthink things and make it more difficult on themselves and has to be is honestly classic coaching.

And here's the other thing, too. It creates more of a distraction where if you just lift list the depth chart Tampa Bay right now going into the first preseason game where I think they're going to play Baker Mayfield to start and then it's going to be Kyle Trask. If you just put that out there, Baker's one Kyle Trask is to the competition's not over yet to sign.

But when you say or you know how that gets presented always Baker not doing enough is Baker not going to win the job because Baker's expected to win that job. And for the 49ers we know that they no longer are big fans of Trey Lance like that's clear. We all know Brock Purdie is going to be their guy. They told you that to start the season.

It's his job to lose right now. He's number one in the depth chart. You're looking at that objectively with Trey Lance being in that system the last two years and now this is your number three. Is he like I do think probably they like Sam Darnold better than Trey Lance, but that would be crazy even though it is plausible that if Brock Purdie got hurt or Brock Purdie doesn't live up to the hype. But how much you gave up for Trey Lance and really not a lot that he's been given an opportunity to go prove that he belongs or not in the NFL. You would think they would go to Trey Lance but then once again now with this or designation and even puts more stock into that Sam Darnold is thought a lot higher than Trey Lance that we even get to this point where it goes to or because Darnold was just brought in after failing with the two other teams. So it's just one of those situations where just listed that the players out in order don't do this or stuff because it provides more of a distraction and more of a talking point. I get it where everyone's competing right now. You got to earn your spot, but let's not pretend that that's actually the case. Some guys are going to be starters and they already know they're going to be starters.