Could Caleb Stay At USC? (Hour 2)

Time for your Daily News Brief.

We get you caught up on the rumors, reports, and reconnaissance from the day in sports. So Hard Knocks has come and gone with the last episode airing last night. I think there's a total of five episodes. The first three I thought were good. Episode four was a little bit boring. I did not watch episode five yet.

I'm going to do that tonight, catch up on all my TV. But you knew going into this that Joe Douglas, the Jets' general manager, was not going to show players getting cut. And this is why he didn't want to do that, according to the Green Light Podcast.

When we found out we were doing Hard Knocks, it was really cool because Robert immediately texted me. He's like, I don't want to show any players getting cut. And I'm like, brother, we see it the exact same way. There's no way we're going to do that. These kids put their heart and soul into this thing every day and we're not going to exploit one of the worst moments in their life. We're not doing that. Those are brutal conversations and having to be the Terp on the show before. You just think about the players and you think about everything that they put into this game and that they've lived and died for this moment for their whole life.

We're going to protect that. So that people had no clue what he was talking about. When the Ravens were on Hard Knocks, a young Joe Douglas was actually the guy that would have to walk up to the player and say, so-and-so, coach needs to see, the GM needs to see, and he would escort them to their office and then, boom, they would cut the player. From what I read, they showed more and I saw a social media clip, because everything's on social media now, of players that made the team that were on the bubble compared to players getting cut. I have no problem if you're going to show that, but I'm sure that many teams are going to follow this trend now because I think Hard Knocks is still important.

I know that it's kind of gotten dull a little bit the last few years. I thought this year was really good since having Aaron Rodgers on the show and it was compelling for the most part. The last good Hard Knocks where they had some drama and some serious beef that they showed was going back to the Cleveland Browns with that whole situation with Todd Haley and Hugh Jackson and you had the funny character of Bob Wiley as well.

But you look at Hard Knocks, is it necessary? No, but I think they'll continue to do it because even look at this quarterback show that some said was going to replace Hard Knocks, they can't even find any quarterbacks. And that was well reviewed after the first year with Kirk Cousins, Marcus Mariota, and then also Patrick Mahomes. So the NFL still wants us out there and I've seen jet fans say that Hard Knocks was better than that one Jets drive show that's done in house. So I'm not upset that they didn't show players getting cut. I think it's better for us as a viewer to kind of see it, but it's not as if it's the end of the world that you can't do a show because for the most part, this was still a solid good season of Hard Knocks, Icky. I mean, I don't need to see players getting cut and like actually in the GM room, hey, you know, unfortunately we have to cut you. I don't care.

What I care about is storylines. Our players going to make like the players in the bubble. You can still have it where you can follow them and build up the storyline if they're going to make the team or not and not show them getting cutting like the exact moment they're getting cut and still be able to finish a story either way. So the returner and the young wide receiver that were on the bubble for the Jets, they both made the team.

Yes. So they did highlight the good story of those guys. Now they didn't know that both players were definitely going to make the teams with how early they did highlight it, but maybe it was trending in that direction. I just wonder how they would have covered it if, let's say, that player didn't make the team. Well, I think Jeremy Cap, who was the man who did the Eminem rendition of 8 Mile, he did not make the team.

I think they made, I believe they made some mention of it on the show that he did not make the team. You can, like, that's fine. Like you followed him a little bit.

Again, I would like to see more of like, you know, following these guys on the bubble instead of just kind of like a courtesy mention here and there. And let's go back to Aaron Rodgers and see, you know, see what he's yelling at. Rodgers is the storyline. That's the biggest storyline. But that's like what hard knocks, why people like the show.

And if you're not going to show personality off the field, that's where it kind of loses its light. You don't think they did that in this season? I think they showed a lot of Rodgers. They showed a lot of Quinnen Williams and he has a great personality. You had the player you were just talking about doing the Eminem rapping after the first just disgraceful, disgraceful performance in the rookie show. You got a little bit of Michael Carter in there too.

Friends of show. I think they did a fine job. I didn't really have a problem with the approach. I would like more if you're going to talk about Aaron Rodgers off the field, how he got like, they showed a lot of Aaron Rodgers, but not a lot of Aaron Rodgers that like, I think people actually care about or what do you want them to, to follow him into a cave or like, why'd you want to go to the jets? We all know that we have no idea why I want to go to the jets in, in fear. We have no idea because he hated Brian Gouda Coons. I'm saying like, ask him, get him like, Aaron, how'd you end up here? We all know the answers to that question. Nothing would have been earth shattering from that. Nothing would have been. He's not going to reveal anything to the hard knocks cameras, unless you had the, the big voiceover guy, ask him those questions. Then he would have done. You know what? That was a door open and they did not. They're not walked through it. Okay. Jason Kelsey says Travis Kelsey, his brother avoided serious injury.

This was earlier this morning on the WIP morning show in Philadelphia. It sounds like as long as they can get that down, you know, he's going to have a chance to go. The ligaments and everything are intact structurally from what we know right now. His knee's fine. So really it's about getting that swelling down and then seeing how bruised that bone is. Cause you know, if you guys have ever had those, they can be pretty painful, especially if it's in a spot that's rubbing all the time and, uh, and that can kind of shut down your muscles and do other things. But I think he's going to be good to go.

I really do. I would be surprised if he plays tomorrow Hickey cause I just don't see what the purpose would be of playing him. This Kansas city opening night game is a lot more meaningful for the Detroit lions than it is for the Kansas city chiefs like, yeah, you want to see your team win, but the only real meaning for this game, for the Kansas city chiefs to see that banner go up before the game, if they lose this game, it's not as if the chiefs are screwed and their season is derailed. But if you lose, let's say Travis Kelsey furthers has further injury because you rushed them back too soon and then you got to miss more time and he's never gets back to a hundred percent health.

I don't think the risk is worth the reward here is what I'm saying. I'm with a hundred percent one loss tomorrow night. He's not going to end your season. The loss of Travis Kelsey for the rest of the year, majority of the year probably will definitely well, actually you don't think they could, you don't think my homes could win a super bowl without Travis Kelsey by himself this year.

No, I do not. Tom Brady has I'm talking about without Rob Gronkowski, who's very comparable to Travis Kelsey for an entire season in a loaded AFC this year. Do you, are you picking the chiefs on how to win the super bowl? If let's just say tomorrow, Travis Kelsey torn ACL after the year. Well, I'm not, I think the chiefs can get to a super bowl this year when you win. I usually don't like to pick you the next year.

So when I make my predictions coming up in about an hour, no, I'm not taking cancer. I'm saying right now, we find out today, two seconds from now, a team that could get to the super bowl and win a super bowl. I still think they can because you have 15, you have an all time great quarterback.

I've seen, I've seen Rob Gronkowski go down and Brady still win a super bowl. Okay. To me, as long as you have 15, he will always keep you in the game and always give your team that shot and that chance.

Let's go to Joe burrow. He says he expects to play on Sunday after the calf injury. Yeah, I'm ready to go. I think, I mean, we're going to see how these next couple of days play out because you never know what these things, but I'm expecting to play.

Like I said, we'll see how these next couple of days go. This is the biggest non story whatsoever. This injury happened almost a month ago around, if not longer than that.

Yeah. Six weeks ago and Jamar chase added more fuel to the fire in this story. He's like, Oh, he shouldn't apply. You shouldn't play the first few weeks. It's a minor calf injury. He's good to go by now. He's going to play there.

There's no doubt about it. Let's go to Chris Jones. So this is before the Nick Bosa contract extension that was announced today as Chris Jones was doing a charity event in the Kansas city area. Chris Jones says he hopes the contract gets done soon via the Kansas city star. Hopefully it gets worked out. You know, um, it's always been my goal to be a Kansas city cheese for life.

I, um, I've said that multiple times on social media platforms from interviews and they know where my position is at and hopefully we can get something worked out. So Nick Bosa then gets a five year, $170 million contract. It's like a buck 22 points, something guaranteed. If the chiefs weren't close before the Nick Bosa deal hickey, they got to be even further apart now. And I think this is a storyline where Chris Jones, he's not going to show up and play without a contract until he has to.

And he's even said this before he's willing to sit out all the way up until week eight. And this is not good news for the chiefs. This is not good news cause the number before you work with is $31 million. It's Aaron Donald's number.

Now we don't know if he wants that if he wants to be the second highest paid, um, guy, but now all of a sudden you see Nick Bosa jump Aaron Donald by $3 million now is getting $34 million per year. Bare minimum that only raised Chris Jones's price, which again, I'm with you makes it a lot harder to get a deal done at least by tomorrow. Chris Jones responds to criticism that he let his teammates down. How that's what I got to ask. How have I let him down? Just like when you had a job and you asked for a stitcher, right? And you asked for a raise, right? You're not letting anyone down. Where are you letting down?

You're asking your boss for a raise, right? So you can play this argument both ways. You could say, well, well you committed to a contract and then people will say, you got to play, you got to honor that contract. But how many times did teams cut someone and not commit to that contract of like four or five years that they said that that's what they're going to sign you to? So I don't have a problem with what Chris Jones is doing, but the big question is if you get to week eight and they still don't give you a new deal, are you not going to show up or then you're actually going to follow through on your word and then show up and then we'll see how he responds to that. Because remember, Le'Veon Bell originally told his teammates he was going to show up, then didn't, then didn't show up for the entire season.

That's what the teammates got annoyed at him. So if he's saying on social media, he's willing to sit out until week eight, if you don't get a new deal, you better than show up by week eight. Chris Jones says there's still a chance he could play on Thursday. I don't know. Could be playing. I could be on the sideline.

I don't know. We'll see tomorrow. You don't think he's showing up until like outside of week eight.

I'm talking about for tomorrow night. If he does not get a deal done and he looks like he's in great shape. He said he'd go play tomorrow. Do you think he plays tomorrow night without a new contract? No, no chance.

Does it show up? Different story. Would you?

I don't know. If I was Chris Jones, I think I would show up. I won't.

I wouldn't want my ring. And I think just his presence, if he's not in uniform, maybe might help grease the skids to get in a deal done sooner. I think that has, I think I would be annoyed if I'm Kansas city, if he shows up and doesn't play, cause then that turns into a clown show and just dramatic.

We're on the sidelines. That's what people are talking about. You have the TV coverage of that.

The last game, do you read about it after the game? If I'm Chris Jones, it don't, isn't what you want. It can help. It can help Chris Jones, especially the lines that beat the chiefs to at a high scoring game. I'll tell you then what we're leading with on Friday. He's walking like off the field, hands up like up.

I told you so you need me. I think if you're there and you're not playing because of the contract, like it's one thing to be injured, which he's not. But if you're there not playing cause the contract, I think you, you then look like a bad teammate.

You look like a jackass. If you're standing on the sidelines, if I'm him, I would, I would stay home. So no contract, no ring tomorrow, basically is what is your fault. He got the rings, right? Well, I guess, yeah. So no banner.

What's, what's the big deal. He's already seen one of those rates before. Sean McVay ruled out Cooper cup for Sunday's regular season opener for the Rams. Sean McVay though says Cooper cup could actually land on IR. There's a possibility, you know, we'll look into that. You know, we want to be able to just kind of give him a little bit of time.

We don't have to make that decision quite yet, Gary, but there's a possibility of that. Well, the hickey hex has already started. Hickey's guaranteeing that the Rams are going to make the playoffs. Cooper cup already injured.

Mike Evans also you're big on the Buccaneers. Looks like it's going to be his final year in Tampa Bay. It's already started. Listen, after this year, it's fine.

You can like, you can leave after this year, no problem. Right until the article comes out, the Buccaneers hate Baker Mayfield. Just wait. Or they don't believe in Todd Bowles.

The hickey hex. Well, the Todd Bowles would make sense. Now that article would absolutely make sense.

It's probably already been written. See, I would say that I should place a bet that the Bucks won't win the division. The Rams won't make the playoffs, but the odds are probably horrible on that because the Rams aren't expected to make the playoffs and the Bucks aren't expected to win the division. So if you want to win some money, ride with me. Let's go.

No, but you could probably retire off that. That's, that's a bet that I just know is going to be lost. Absolutely. A thousand percent confidence level on that. Rams schedule to start out the year. Do you know their first three games of the season? Uh, no idea. Seahawks, right?

Thanks. Seahawks at Seattle, San Francisco at Cincinnati. You know what? That's actually positive. Get hard games out of the way. Put Cooper cup on our, bring it back healthy and win a lot of these manageable games and let's go playoff pushes here. Then they're at the Colts win. That's a winnable game.

Absolutely for them. Philadelphia. Okay.

That's fine. We're going to be looking bare minimum. The best the Rams will be after five weeks is going to be one in four Colts made the playoffs a few years ago. Starting one in five could happen. They still have Dallas on that schedule. They sell the Seahawks again. They have your Browns, the Ravens, the commanders, the Niners.

Again, you have a live look. Was it next year on an Eagles two years ago or two and five before they turned around? You had that. Yeah, they had talent.

You had, they have three players on the Rams and that's it got some talent players, one that's injured and the all three of them coming off injuries too. And here is Hickey alive. Look at hot take Hickey, the lone man standing on top of the Hill falling down and you know, look at him dying on that. I may already be on the Titanic, but I'm not jumping or I guess either way, I'm not going to lifeboat. I'm going down. This is the Rams on.

I have the rap wasn't big enough for my feet to the floor and I am riding down in glory. Sean Alexander, former Alabama star running back. Great NFL player should be in the pro football hall of fame, but isn't. And when a league MVP is going to join us on the other side, you're listening to the Zach Gelb show, Zach Gelb show, CBS sports radio.

Let's talk to one of our favorites. Sean Alexander, former Alabama running back was a first round pick 19th overall back in the 2000 draft by the Seattle Seahawks, 2005 NFL MVP. And as I tell him each and every time when he joins us here on CBS sports radio, I can't wait until there's a day that I get to introduce him as a pro football hall of Famer because he had a hundred rushing touchdowns in the NFL. Everyone said he didn't play long enough, but he still got to 100 and he should be a member of the pro football hall of fame. Let me tell you, by the way, the Sean Alexander freshman player of the year award is given each year to the best freshman player in college football.

And it's named in honor of Sean since 2018, due to his tremendous freshman campaign for the university of Alabama back in 1996, Sean Alexander, appreciate the time. How are you? My brother Zach, man. How are you doing?

We're doing great over here. Well, yeah, I know you have your hands busy. I know last time we talked, you said your wife was expecting baby number 13. So congratulations. Yeah, yeah. Number 13th here.

It's actually girl number 10. I'm girl dad times 10 over here and it's, it's wild. It's wild. You know, I tell everybody, yeah, it's wild. We got too many children on the field now, like well over Sean.

Yeah, we, we, we can run plays and stuff people in and, uh, you know, run packages on the, on and off the field. It's , it's pretty cool. So how do you manage all this? Like I couldn't even imagine being like a father to like two or three children. You have 13, so what kind of car do you have?

How many cars do you have? What's that situation looking like? You know, when the ages are so big and different, you know, the oldest is a sophomore in college, she's 19 and the baby's what, six weeks now. So rarely do all of them all go to the same place at the same time.

And unless we're taking a summer family trip, so you got to take the 15 past your van. But you know how you run it is like how you run a good football team. You know, you, you get the captain to be on your side and they start managing some of the players kind of like, Hey, this is the culture. We don't do that. We do this. And, and uh, you know, having 10 girls, I literally have 10 more moms in the house. So, so, so it, uh, it starts to work until some girls get to a certain age and then, then it becomes a little, a little difficult, but overall, man, they, they handle each other well. And it's a lot of fun.

The food bill and food shopping must be fun. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Now that's always hot.

You know, like when we go shopping, most people ask us, do we own a store? That's unbelievable. Sean Alexander here with us. And by the way, I'm excited for this weekend. This is going to be a heck of a football game between Alabama and Texas on Saturday night. Oh yeah.

Yeah. And on these are, these are games that family fans love. You know, we, we pride ourselves on championships, but there's something sweet about playing against other great schools and other conferences and Texas is about to come over, but it's always special to play the Texas is the Penn state, the USC, you know, the other teams that kind of run their other areas. And, and so this is a special one for us and they'll be in Tuscaloosa and yeah, we're, we're, we're, I'm eagerly excited about this football team, you know, and it's, it's one of the things that people can get old, but there's, there's no saying that, you know, who likes winning, the one who's always doing it. And you know what the best part about this is every year we talk about Nick Saban and he usually gets on the media for, you know, them giving him too much praise. Now people are doubted Alabama.

So he gets to actually have something to motivate his players with. Oh yeah. We love it. We love it. I mean, we've got a defense that that's going to be one of those, write it down.

They're going to tell a story. And so, and so we liked it. We liked the years where people are not sure about the options and a defense is spectacular and, and everybody can come make plays and that chip on your shoulder is always, it's much easier to play with the chip.

You know, it's always easy to be chasing, you know? And so we're at that place where we haven't been there really in a long time. So with Alabama, Sean Alexander is here with us. For the last few years, the Alabama fan got accustomed to having this great quarterback on paper. Now there's questions about Jayla Milro. I know he's up against middle Tennessee, but you can only go up against the teams that you're playing to have five total touchdowns.

What do you kind of view? What's your view of the quarterback in Jayla Milro for this year? Yeah, he's a good ball player. I mean, everybody at our school is going to be good. And so it's, it's, can they go perform great in the big game?

And I think he can. I think that, you know, like you said, you go from, uh, to, uh, Jaylin and, uh, uh, uh, March, uh, you know, me like our macro me, you know, you're like, Oh, we've, we've got three great pro quarterbacks to, uh, you know, to Heisman, you know, when you walk in. Yeah. Right.

Yeah. You go, you go to, you know, those four guys just coming back to back to back to back. You're like, Oh, well this is, this is what we do, but that's not what we've always done. What we've done is played great defense, ran the ball, contained, controlled the clock and punched it in when we needed to. And so we're, we look more like that this year, but uh, those points always so good, you know, so it's kind of a little more, more old school Bama ball. And, and we're going to challenge people to beat us being what we do is, you know, controlling the clock and, and beat you up for, for 60 minutes. Yeah. Let me get to your pro team, the Seattle Seahawks.

I look at this office on paper with Kenneth Walker, Zach Charbonnet. He got the three receivers, Metcalf Lockett, and now Jackson Smith and Jigba. Uh, this looks like a loaded offense. The only question is, will there be some regression with Geno Smith?

Where's your confidence with the signal caller for the Seahawks? You know, I, I, of course I get to be close with all the players and I've been so proud of Geno's, you know, prep for this year, prep for every, every day, prep for the off season. You know, he came into all this off season hoping, and so this is the first time we're like, Hey, there's no pressure on you except go be the best version of yourself. And so like, that's how he's been, been practicing training and he looks great.

You know, we like, so like even last year we were like, Oh, okay. You know, but now he even feels more confident about what he's doing. And you know, Pete Carroll's a great coach. He's going to put him in the right place and to go be the best version of himself and it's going to be pretty awesome. It's, it's going to be great cause they too, the Seahawks have that defense, they have a chip on their shoulder again. And we know that turned out really, really good about 10 years ago.

So, so, so here, here we go. Pete, Pete's kind of reinventing himself again with the same kind of style, unknown quarterbacks, strong defense, great running game, some, some, some more than willing receivers. And so it's going to be pretty cool talking to Sean Alexander right now. I like Kenneth Walker a lot. He was my favorite running back in the draft from two years ago. Then they add Zach Charbonnet out of UCLA. You got some backs there.

So some youngsters, what do you see out of those two running backs? Yeah. You know, actually I checked Zach when he first came in. It was like, brother, you can play, you know, it's sometimes you just need to hear that from some people that, that, that have played well before. And, and he's a hard worker. He's going to get it, get it done.

But, but Kenneth man, he's special. You know, I knew when he first, we first got him, he has a knack for the end zone. He knows how to burst through holes really, really well. And it's more than just, oh, just run through the hole.

Like he times up, sets up the blockers and then it's an explosion. So, you know, he's going to play well this year. When you look at the running back position now in the NFL, it's more running back by committee these days. There are still star running backs, but the star running backs aren't getting paid.

I know you've been following all the conversation this off season. When, when you look at, at the whole running back and the state of the position, what comes to mind for you, Sean Alexander? You know, I, I said a couple, maybe about four years ago, one of the things I didn't like was that read option that they were starting to do in high school because it was taking the power away from the running back to go control the game. It was almost like the quarterback's going to hold it, hold it, hold it, hold it up. You have to play where it's run, you know, you know what I mean?

So maybe just go get any fast guy to go, go play it. And so, so the guys like me that were like, Hey, I'm seven yards deep handed to me back there. I'm going to go a gap, B gap, C gap cut, you know, and if you give it to me enough times, I'm going to eventually take the wheel out of the defense. Well, now it's all in the quarterback's mind. So the kind of running back that was like 30 K's all going to be on me, those guys are moving to safety and I'm moving the linebacker now because it's kind of like a speed kind of guy.

So, so what's happening is now they're like, Oh, well we can go plug anybody in this thing. And so that just trickled on up, that kind of running back trickled on up to the league. And a lot of guys are not getting the respect, the honor, the pay that they should get because the thing is still true. A great running back can help the quarterback and makes co-op defense great. And I think the NFL is going to have to do something about it. I really tried to encourage and challenge both the NFL and the NFL to find a way to find the bonus structure, you know, cause if a running back is not playing good, it's okay.

Like let him get what he's getting. But when you got Dalvin Cooks trying to find a job, you got Joshua Jacobs, you know what I mean? Like, come on, like how are these guys, the legal league in rushing the last couple of years and they're finding, they're having trouble finding teams and getting paid over 10 million.

No, that's impossible to be able to do that. And so I think that all of them with the boys of Cyquon and all of them, they all signed like what, 11, 12. I think all of them would take a $10 million deal, but if they led legal rushing, it needs a double like 18 million, you know, 20 million. So now they're paid for the value that they bring and it should not hurt the team. So they got to go figure out something like that where the top guys get super bonuses and it doesn't hurt anybody for a job well done. Sean, I think it could get through.

That's why I think it could get through. Sean Alexander here with us. If you were in high school, like freshman year of high school now, would you change position knowing where this is trending with the running backs in terms of payment? Yeah, you know, I would play like, bro, I play like the slot receiver and running backs. I had to go get rid of my big shoulder pads because the receivers still get paid a lot of money. And then you go play in the back field, you know, the guy that did when we were there was Heinz Wart. You know what I mean? Like, he was like a kind of run to reverse, you know, kind of guy.

And so, you know, I think that's what I would have done. Wrapping up with Sean Alexander, I want to get your thoughts before we talk about the award. There was an article out by Seth Wickersham and he said that Sean Paden told Russell Wilson you got to focus more on football and less on Russell Link. And he said, well, you bleep and stop kissing all the babies.

You're not running for public office. I thought it was a good message for Sean because Russ lost his way last year in the NFL. What type of year do you think Russell Wilson's going to have? I know you know him well. And what did you make of Sean's comments? There's a little, there's little shoots in everything. You know what I mean? Like, I think like everybody has a thing that makes them great. And that same thing could also make them a little off.

You know what I mean? And so, so I think that to get a coach like Sean Paden and say, hey, you push me to go be the best and I'm going to go be the best. And that's what Russell needs.

And so, so I think that whatever he's doing, it's going to work because he knows how to go make quarterbacks great. I think Russell's going to play, play lights out this year. You know, my, my son and I, we've watched in the first game when it was the Seahawks versus the Broncos and it gets down to the fourth quarter, you know, four minutes left to like three minutes left. Russell has the ball, the boxes are driving.

And my son looks at me and says, dad, what's going to happen? I said, we think I'm happy goes, man, we've seen Russell do this so many times. Here's a 13 year old little boy that's saying like, he's like, I'm just now starting to really watch the game, know what's going on.

And we all know what Russell does with the ball in his hands. And what did Broncos do? They live about two minutes clock and then kick like a 90 yard field goal. Come on. Like that breaks the psyche of everybody.

Even the most strongest men start to wonder, well, man, do we ever really believe me? And so I feel like they, they have the groups that can guess themselves the whole way through from that point on clearly the kicker, Mr. The kick, the Seahawks win. It goes great for Gino the rest of the way, but terrible for Russell.

So I don't think Sean's going to do that. He's going to have some things that's going to be better for Russell all the way through and Russell is going to play great. Let's start with the Sean Alexander freshman player of the year award. Oh man.

So it's really cool, man. So we, we just announced the hot 37, which is really the watch list and, you know, the, the 37 incoming high school kids and, or red shirt guys that we think are going to go, go lights out. And it's all to kind of start to spark like, man, we're looking for the next Prince of college football. Who's going to be that guy that is going to be a name for handful of years.

Like, you know, Trevor Morris was our first winner. He wins national championship at Clemson. And then you got Kenneth Gainsborough, who was a, you know, worked with Memphis, but went on to play with the Eagles last year and had a great, great year in the pro so far. You got Will Henderson, the three overall pig Bama. He won the national championship.

Brock Bowers, he won the national championship. I didn't realize we picked three national champions, but, but at Georgia, but it's really cool grabbing these guys at their young age of 18, 19 years old and being a part of just a little of their life to watch them grow, to be the stars. And we always say, we need talent. We need characters.

They need to be an ambassador to the university. And we, and what we call a legend to the NFL. Like we just see NFL talent in them and we've picked the five great winners.

Drake may won it last year and he's, he's just a stud. And so it's, it's been really cool watching this thing happen, getting to be a part of taking the players and getting to help them mow down and whatever way uncle Sean can do it to help them be the best they can be on the field. And hopefully have great NFL careers. Any of your boys playing football these days?

Yeah, I'm actually going to leave from here to go, go watch my son. He's eighth grade and he's gonna play safety, plays corner. Not running back.

That's what I'm hearing. Sean. Yeah, he's nice.

He does play wide receiver when he is on offense. But you know what, safety's a, safety's get paid too much nowadays. So I'm like, Hey, let's move over there. You know, it's, it's, it's my next two sons are probably play offense. They got a little more wiggle.

Wherein my oldest son, he's, he's, you know, all downhill. Like let's, let's go hit people. So, but yeah, so it's, it's going to be fun, man. It's going to be fun watching them. Coach Prime already on the phone. Nick Saban already on the phone. How's the recruiting going here? It's really wild. You know, I don't talk to people, but you're like family already. So my, my oldest daughter's already a sophomore in college.

She writes songs, does music, pianos for like four or five instruments. But the next two, they, one just graduated. So she'll run track and the third one, they're, they're, they're track all Americans. So it's pretty exciting already that they're just seeing the, the, the girls become athletes. And so the boys come right behind them.

So they're eighth and sixth grade. So, so we'll, we'll see. We'll see as it goes. The NIL money. I could already hear it flowing right to the bank account. There we go.

Sean Alexander, different, different worlds. We live in now, Sean. I don't want to give any bags of cash now.

They can just give it to you all up front. They don't have to hide it anymore. Just like, like it's not been Sean Alexander. Once again, the Sean Alexander freshman player of the year award is given each year to the best freshman player in college football named in the honor of Sean since 2018, due to his tremendous freshman campaign for the University of Alabama in 1996.

They look for talent, character, being an ambassador and also a legend as well. Sean, we appreciate the time. You're the best. Congratulations to you, the family. No doubt, man. Thank you. Roll time.

There you go. Sean Alexander here with us on the Zach Gelb show. Always love our conversations with him. Just such a good genuine dude. And always a character when he joins us on the show. You're listening to the Zach Gelb show. I'll tell you a story that I'm already tired about. And that is this idea that Caleb Williams is going to return to USC next season.

Give me a break. Now he does have leverage. We all know how, how much money he can make with NIL and he can go get another year of that. And maybe he wants to pull a Eli Manning and leave and then say, you're not going to play for one team with the Chargers and force your way somewhere else. So there's things that you could do if you're Caleb Williams, but I just don't believe for a single second that Caleb Williams, who will be the number one overall pick in this year's draft, whether it gets traded or not, or another team moves up to go get the number one pick and other team gets like four or five first round picks, whatever it would be, you're definitely coming out of college after this year. Cause you're going to have a really good season bare minimum this year. I don't, I don't think you're making the college football playoff, but you'll be a Heisman Trophy finalist.

You have a chance to be in the college football playoff. I'm just not believing in that defense of USC, but we already heard from Caleb Williams. He hasn't made that decision yet.

Fine. You hear that all the time. Like even CJ Stroud, we all knew CJ Stroud was coming out after this year. When I saw him at the Heisman, he said he hasn't made that decision yet, which you knew it's bull crap, but I understand why players aren't going to say that right in the moment, their intention, cause they're focused on winning games and giving it their all for their college. But now Carl Williams, Caleb Williams' father, he told GQ magazine that the funky thing about the NFL draft process is he'd almost be better off not being drafted than being drafted first.

The system is completely backwards. The way the system is constructed, you go to the worst possible situation, the worst possible team, the worst organizational league because of their desire for parody to get the first pick. So it's the gift and the curse. So if there's no good, if there's not a good situation, the truth is he could come back to school.

Here's what I don't get about this, Hickey. Number one, I wouldn't get why you would pass up being the number one overall draft pick. But then number two, you could have that team that you don't want to go to be the number one draft pick again the following season. Like the Jaguars back to back years had the number one pick and they took Trevor Lawrence and then Trayvon Walker. Also, as you just said, most of the time the team picking first overall, some years you get lucky with the trade or you move up and you're a better team and it was just, you had a few injuries and then things got carried away. But nine times out of 10, and you don't need a PhD in football to figure this one out, the team that's picking first overall is a really bad team in a bad situation. So let's just say if the Cardinals had the first overall pick this year, the Cardinals could have the first overall pick the year after that. Or you could have another crappy team like let's say the Indianapolis Colts two years from now, which is a miserable situation, which I know Hickey would love, where you wait a year and they could still be the team that has the number one overall pick the following year and that's still a dysfunctional situation. So I don't see at all why Caleb Williams would come back for another season of college football after this year when he is without a doubt going to be the number one overall pick. I don't think it's going to happen with Caleb. I do, though, think we will see a situation sooner rather than later where a number one pick does say, you know, I'm going back to school.

I think NIL now is going to take a certain situation, a certain player. We are now seeing more and more money going to kids. I don't think it's crazy to think that one kid one year could say, you know what? I can make $10 million. Let's just say USC. If I'm Caleb Williams, I could, if I make a push, maybe could rally the boosters and I can get a $10 million NIL deal to go back to USC for 2024 versus going to the Cardinals.

Again, you're gonna make a lot of money. I think what the first overall pick is like $40 million over the life of a four year contract. So you're still gonna make more money in the NFL, but at least for one year you'd make more money at USC than you would in your rookie year as an NFL quarterback. I think eventually, not this early on, like not this year, but it would be a Caleb Williams type player at a massive university. I think we will see someone say, you know what?

Cardinals, Colts, whoever, I'm good. I'm gonna go back to college. So that's an interesting point that you bring up and you're allowed to then take that money now legally so it could extend a player's career, maybe make him wanna go back to college. But I think that's more outside of the quarterback position. Like for example, Blake Coram. Blake Coram had a great season, injury at the end of the year, elected to go back to college.

I'm sure he's getting paid a King's ransom in terms of NIL. Instead, if he would've came out of college and gone to the draft coming off that injury and now the running back position is now devalued, I don't know where he would have gone in the draft. So I can understand it from there, but when it comes to a quarterback, if you're gonna be the first, second or third pick in the draft, I'm taking that opportunity when it's guaranteed 10 times out of 10. Like the last player that I remember quarterback that I thought it was controversial when he came back, there was so much pre-season buzz around Justin Herbert. And then Justin Herbert elected to go back for another year. He still was the sixth overall pick. It went borough one, two of five and Herbert six. But you look back at it, that 2019 draft class, you had Kyler Murray going one, then the late Dwayne Haskins going 15.

Daniel Jones was in between there at six. It's like if you're Justin Herbert, you went back, you had a season that was up and down, but finished on a good note, right? You win the Rose Bowl and you were still the third quarterback off the board. If Justin Herbert came out of college that year, I would think that he would have been drafted, maybe not in front of Kyler, because Kyler won the Heisman, but he probably would have been drafted in front of Daniel Jones and Jones ended up going six, the same spot that Herbert ended up going a year later. So I don't really see what the benefit would be if it's just to avoid the situation.

Now it brings up another thing. Do you think the NFL should go to a lottery system? So it's not as if just, if you get the number one overall pick, you're guaranteed to, if you have the worst record that you're guaranteed to be the number one overall pick.

Do you think they should go something like what the NBA does? I don't think the NFL should, but on that note of lottery, forget about just the odds changing with your record. What if it's a blank lottery or an even lottery, every team, same odds, your record is irrelevant. So like the Kansas city chiefs could get the first round, the first, you know, whatever 32 teams divided by whatever, you know, I guess 30, whatever, how you calculate it. Everyone gets 5% odds.

Could you imagine? I would not like that. I think if you're the worst team, you should get the number one overall pick.

I don't like the idea of a lottery, but could you imagine chiefs win the super bowl and this year again, you have Patrick Mahomes, you're not going to get rid of Patrick Mahomes, but then you're going to go get like four first round picks for Caleb Williams. Then everyone's going to be bitching. Oh, it's not fair. The rich get richer. So like a lot of people say, Oh, if you're a bad team, you shouldn't get rewarded with the number one overall pick. It's unfair to the player, but then it would be, Oh, the rich get richer. So I think you keep the system as is.

I think this is just a Caleb's family adding more fuel to fire in this speculation, but you know it. And I know it at the end of this college football season, it doesn't matter who the team is the number one overall pick. You'll figure that out later. If you want to try to force your way somewhere else, you know that you're going to take that opportunity to be the number one overall pick. And you're not going back to USC. We preview the 2023 NFL season. Next.