Shawne Merriman, Former Chargers Linebacker

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That's Z-A-C-H-G-E-L-B. Got Moist Mike and also Stuart Kovacs along the other way. We're rocking and rolling all the way up until 6 p.m. Eastern, 3 p.m. Pacific, and we usually do not start the show with the guests right out of the gate, but when Sean Merriman hits us up and says he wants to come in studio and chat up a little football and also talk about Lights Out Extreme Fighting, which they have a great event coming up Saturday, November 18th, Thunder Studios, and you can watch it via Fubo Sports, we always say of course welcome in Sean Merriman because if we don't bring him into the studio, I'll make the first cheesy joke of the day, then I'll probably turn the lights out on us. Sean Merriman, great to see you as always. How you been? I'm doing well, man. How about yourself?

Well, I'm doing fantastic. Always appreciate when you join us. I got to start you off with your Chargers. It's been an up and down season through the first nine weeks of the season as they get ready for the Lions this upcoming weekend. They're a 4-4 football team, but I don't feel great about them.

Where are you at with the Chargers? Well, I think that, you know, starting the season out, the expectations were high, right? If you look at their roster with Cannon Island and J.C. Jackson, who was there, and Joey Bosa, Khalil Mack, you know, Derwin James, Eckler, so you're looking at this team and saying, man, these guys are going to win a championship on paper. And then, you know, they started out and, you know, they had, in my opinion, now looking at what the Dolphins end up being, it was a tough game, right? A shootout with 36-34, and then they followed up a couple of weeks after that and put 70 on Denver.

So, you know, that didn't look as bad as it did. But then they had a couple games in my opinion that dropped that they should have won. In my opinion, they should have beat the Dallas Cowboys Cowboys. I thought that was easily one game for them. But what I also try to tell people is that they have a new offensive coordinator in Kelly Moore, and they're not playing a lot of preseason games now. And so, I think the expectations were so high that you got this high-powered quarterback in Justin Herbert, you know, biggest arm, strongest arm in the National Football League to come out and perform right away and start doing record-setting numbers.

And when that didn't happen, everything hit the fan. And so, I feel a lot more confident in them now after watching the other night. And I know the Jets aren't that great of a team.

I think that they still got probably one of the best defenses in the NFL. But I saw something the other night, Monday night, that I didn't see the whole entire year. I saw them having fun. I didn't see that the last, you know, five to six weeks. I haven't seen that. And so, you know, guys are having the sack dance and Tooley and Bolson and going back eight, well, seven or eight sacks in that game.

I know it was against the Jets. But I saw them doing something that they didn't do an entire year, and that's playing with passion, playing fast, and playing and having fun doing it. So, here's my problem with the Chargers.

On paper, everything that you just said, I agree with. They should be a great team. And I think at best this year, their ceiling's going to be making the playoffs. And there's no progress from last year to this year. And quite frankly, I think they're going to miss the playoffs.

And there's going to be regression. I just watched that team. And I go, there's so much talent.

There's so many guys that I should want to root for and that should be playing at a high level. And I just put it back to coaching. How much is it that Brandon Staley just doesn't have it and he's just not ready to be the head coach right now of this? Well, I said this, and he came out in his last press conference, not this past game, but the game they lost before it.

And he put everything on his shoulders because there was no other person to put it on, right? You can't sit up here and keep blaming Justin Herbert because he's had three or four offensive coordinators since he's been in the league, what, three, four years now. And we know what he's capable of doing. He's still, with all the switching of the coordinators, he still has broken numerous records, right? He's still setting records left and right. We know what he's capable of doing.

Keenan Allen, still one of the best wide receiver in the national league. That one-handed catch was sick. It was stupid.

I mean, it was ridiculous. But we know what he's capable of doing. Obviously, Mike Williams going down at that knee, it affected him, it hurt them a bit. But once they start getting Quentin Johnson, a new kid from TCU, once they get him in the mix, this is going to give them another weapon on offense. Brandon Staley, I'll say this, I'm not, I don't agree with that, all the fourth and one calls and, you know, I don't agree with all of those.

But one thing I will say is he's a really good leader and he finds a way to lead. The only problem I've always had with Brandon Staley is everything is not data-driven, right? Football is not played with data and numbers. Football is played with emotion and passion and being able to pin your ears back, go out there and get after whoever has the football in their hands.

That part I thought was missing a little bit. And when you have an offensive coordinator like Kellen Moore who come in and we know he draws up explosive plays, but the defense has given up a whole lot. They wasn't playing with a lot of energy and it was like a trickling effect of, you know, everyone coming in saying, let's get rid of Staley, let's do this, let's do that.

And no real plan of action, right? And so having that win against the Jets, they go out and if you look at their schedule, it's favorable. I think the Ravens they got coming up is going to be a tough game.

The Bills going to be a tough game. But if you look at their schedule from here on out, they can run a table if they play at that level. The problem is with them is what team is going to show up. And that's me, I'm at every home game.

I'm there, I still obviously run organization a lot. It's just if the team that we all think they are show up, no one's going to beat them. The problem is what team is going to show up. Let's just say the team that you expect them to be doesn't happen. And at the end of the year, they're looking for a new coach. Would you want Bill Belichick coaching this team next year if he's available? No.

Why not? No, I think that you ever heard of the term of a guy that's playing too long when it's time to retire? Like he's just overplaying, overstaying what he's done.

There's nothing wrong with it. Bill Belichick was great for two decades, two decades of football. And he hasn't had the tools in having another, not even, there wouldn't ever be another Tom Brady, but at least a capable quarterback that can go out and perform.

He hasn't had that in Mac over there. But I think the coaching time for Bill Belichick in this age, day and age, has passed him. And I'm not saying he can't be a good coach somewhere else.

I'm just saying that it's a new breed of athletes to come in. And I said the same thing about the coach for Denver, Sean- Payden. Sean Payden. When he called out Russell Wilson and doing... I love Sean Payden as a coach.

I would love to play for him. But in this day and age, times are different. Guys can't handle you getting on them in public. Guys can't handle sometimes that style of coaching. And nowadays with these guys, you have to have a more personal approach. That's the reason why McDaniels is doing well out there in Miami. He's very personable.

He can relate to a lot of these guys. And sometimes when you have a Sean Payden, Bill Belichick, that's been great for so long, the game can sometimes pass you by in the way you coach. Your style of coaching, the way you go about things are a lot different now than it was 10, 15 years ago. The reason why I bring up Belichick is because we saw Brady a few years ago where he knew New England didn't have the roster anymore. Where they could still go win 10, 11, 12 games and they weren't going anywhere. And I feel as if when you look at Belichick, I still believe he could coach.

Now I think there is a limited window how much longer you go. He is 71 and you bring up valid points. The Patriot way isn't for everybody, but you go to this charger team. They're loaded with talent and they're missing that great coach.

That's why I thought it would be a good fit. No, look, I'm not saying, and by the way, I would never say a great coach is not great anymore. I mean, you can, you can coach until you're 90 if you can coach, you know, if you have the healthy, if you're healthy and you've got the energy to do it. My thing is, is that I think that when, when Sean McVay came in, it really opened up everyone's eyes into the younger, the more relatable style coaches, player friendly, player friendly. They can get you to play for them.

I'll use Dan Campbell's one. Dan Campbell is a prime example of, of getting your guys to play for you, Nick Sirianni, the same way, the same way, getting your guys to play for you. And so, again, I played against Bill Belichick for a long time and I know how great of a coach he is.

But when you talk about this day and age in the game, it, the time is changed tremendously. So to expect Bill Belichick to come, even with the talent and the roster that the Chargers have, and not, let's not talk about the money he's going to ask for. Let's, let's, you know, the money he's going to ask for is going to be more than the Chargers. Spandau's family may say no thanks.

I said it, you did it. They're not going, they're not going out and splurging. Let's say that. But also too, I think that if you're going to replace them, I think that they have somebody on staff. I think Kellen Moore can step in there and be a good head coach.

I think that that could have been a move the whole entire time if Brandon Staley didn't, you know, kind of turn over a new leaf. But let's see what the rest of this season hold because so many people will start, will yell, let's fire, let's hire, let's do this. But who?

Who, right? You go out and you make another big acquisition. You bring somebody else in and they don't pan out.

Then what? Right now you got a new, a new head coach, new offensive coordinator, all these people with a star quarterback and a star team that you're going to end up wasting because you thought that this was the right move. So if you're going to hire, and I said the same thing with Benamee, right? And with the commanders, I played for Ron Revere. Ron Revere is a great coach, great person, and great man. But if they get move on from Ron at any point in time, it's going to be Benamee. Interesting. I don't think it would be.

I think, I think that's the, I think that's the only way. I think that's the only reason why he, why would you, you know, in my opinion, why would you leave the Kansas City Chiefs and the team that you have down that you won championship with? You got the greatest quarterback in football and possibly can go down as one of the best of all time. Why would he leave that position he's in to go to the commanders? Because as crazy as it sounds, and there could be likes for him to be the head coach, and I think he should get a head coaching job. He was in Kansas City and he did everything that he could, and he wasn't getting anywhere closer in this crazy hiring cycle to getting the job. So I think he felt, even if he won't say this, that he had to leave the Chiefs. So he has the total control of the offense and doesn't have Patrick Mahomes because they kept on using excuse after excuse why to not hire this guy when he absolutely should have got a head coaching job a few years ago. Heck, if Josh McDaniels, who I like, got a second head coaching job after what happened in Denver and we saw what happened with the Raiders, how the heck does the enemy not get a job? I don't know how Josh...

Listen, I mean, I mean, that's a whole another beast. First of all, I never understood how a head coach had no success somewhere and to have another head coach's job somewhere, right? If you are decent and you have... Show some signs. Yeah, if you show some signs... Like even Belichick, when he was in Cleveland, one time made the playoffs, won a playoff game against Parcells. There were signs, even though the overall tenure wasn't won.

No question about it. And, you know, I've played, you know, Wade Phillips, right? Great, great coach. And, you know, he's won a certain place or whatever, but he was also looked at as questionably not that great of a head coach.

I thought he was, but the same thing with the enemy, same thing with Kellen Moore. I think these guys are next in line and there's no reason to bring them in if you're not going to give them that opportunity. Two other coordinators that I like, Ben Johns with the Lions and Lou Anna Rumo with the defensive coordinator for Cincinnati Bengals, but just going for a big splashy name with the scandal now pending at Michigan. Harbaugh, who knows how many games are going to hit him with the suspension.

He'll probably get an injunction. We'll be able to get that stay and not miss any games this year. I think this is set enough for Harbaugh to go back to the NFL in a place, by the way, where the guy in four years as head coach with the 49ers, three NFC championship games with a Super Bowl appearance.

No, no, that could be somebody, but then guess what happens? You know, Harbaugh is going to come in and bring his own guys. Yeah, that's a good point. So he's going to come in and bring in, rightfully so, he's going to come in and bring in the team. As he should. As he should. That means you're in the fifth offensive coordinator for your star quarterback.

That to me doesn't make any sense, right? If you continue, now, if they decide to keep Kellen Moore there, Kellen Moore wants to stay there and they go to Jim Harbaugh and they want to do that, I think that makes more sense. But if he comes in, bring his whole entire new staff, new coaches on both sides of the ball, right?

Offense and defense. You're asking them to learn something completely new when you just made another just, you can't do that. And I always try to use these examples when you're talking about like a regular job, right? A corporate. If every year you come in, there's a new dress code, there's a new, clock in, clock out, a new system, platform, you got to learn every single year.

You're probably not going to be that great at your job. And that's what's been happening with the charges. Wrap it up with Sean Merriman.

Talk about lights out extreme fighting in just a second. I want to ask you about the Jets and like you have a defensive player view. The Jets defense is awesome. The Jets defense is really talented, but an offense without Aaron Rogers, Zach Wilson is terrible.

Now, where are they going to go to? Tim Boyle. They have Trevor Simeon, but if you're a defensive player with clout in a locker room, like a Quinnen Williams or a sauce garden, and you had clout in the locker room, would you go to Robert Sala and say, coach, I know we don't know anything about the other guys and they're not probably any good, but we got to give them a chance because Zach just isn't the dude. I think they got more problems on offense than just Zach Wilson. I actually don't think he's that bad of a player. Now I've seen some, because we've seen signs of him actually being able to deliver good footballs. You know, we can also tell that Aaron Rogers kind of been rubbing off of him a little bit in a way. If you look at his interviews, you just listen to him and watch how he functions. It's completely different than who he was last year.

So there's growth. No doubt about that. They're not blocking. The line's terrible.

They're terrible. People forget how did Aaron Rogers get hurt in the first place? By getting hit. No one blocked. It was one person hit him when he tore his Achilles. But if you look at that brief, there were three people around him ready to hit them at the same time.

They wouldn't block in the sole. And so if you get an inexperienced quarterback who we deem as not that great in the first place and say, hey, we want you to be Aaron Rogers. Well, you're not. Aaron Rogers can overcome a bad offensive line. Aaron Rogers can overcome a bad system. Aaron Rogers can overcome these things. Zach Wilson cannot.

I would say that if they were able to give a really good offensive line, then we will finally see and people will finally see that Zach Wilson can actually play. And that's the reason why he hasn't been benched yet, because as a defensive player, trust me, if we felt like there was the guy behind him that can go out and play better than him, you get four or five stars in your defense. You go to coach Solano, you say, hey, look, we want him to start. We're going out playing our asses off and we just need a little bit of help. We think that that is the guy you think for Robert being the players coach that he is, that he's not going to listen to those five guys. He is.

But I feel like right now, Zach Wilson may be their best chance because they realize they have bigger holes in that offense than just Zach Wilson. Sean Merriman here with us. So sign stealing. I think this is a fascinating conversation because you have Ohio State and Penn State fans up in arms. I feel as if a lot of the former athletes that I talked to go, yeah, did they go about it the right way? No, but in reality, sign stealing is not that big of a deal. You played, I'm sure you've been on teams that had the other team signs and all that because it's been part of the game.

How do you react to what's happening? I played against the Patriots my whole career. Sign stealing was just a startup for them.

That was nothing. I remember we had, you know, we couldn't leave certain parts of our playbooks or plays, game plans in the hotel because we heard that they had maids come to clean up and taking our plays. And this is all real. It was told to us while we were there. So that part of it's real. I just think that this is overblown, man.

And if there wasn't so much pressure from the media and then people outside the building, this wouldn't be a big deal. We all know and understand that there's three signal callers on the sideline. And the reason why there's three is because we're all as players looking to the sideline to see what signal call is matching up to what they're starting to do, right? So if the defense or offense is out there yelling out of color and we see this guy sitting up and he's holding up five and he's doing certain things with his hand, man, you're right there in front of me.

Of course, I'm going to look. And if I can pick up a signal, if I can pick up any kind of consistency of a hand movement or call, whether it's a strong left or right, if I start hearing them, a lot of teams will start yelling out states that were on East Coast or West Coast. If I pick up anything during that game, I'm taking it. And so I think that the public and the media is putting so much pressure on this deal that Michigan had to go out and do something about it. But everybody knows to play the game.

If you find a way that you see that guy in the middle out of those three guys, and he is the one that's calling the plays in second quarter, guess who we're looking at? You can call it still and all you want to do something else about it. I don't think that this is a big deal. I think it's very, very over-exaggerated and what happened. You can go about how they, you know, one of the road games and they did, you know, they, they, you know, I think more is going to come out in the investigation. They'll see like how much detail that they went into, you know, into sign stealing.

But anybody to think that they're calling those signs on the sideline and the guys don't look, or they're not listening. It's crazy. Wrapping up with Sean Merriman, before we let you run, tell me a little bit about Lights Out Extreme Fighting and this next chapter, the next fight that you guys come out. Yeah, we got a huge fight in Long Beach.

Lights Out Extreme Fighting 12. We got a big, big card, man. A couple of these guys I think will probably leave us and go to the UFC after this fight. Victor Rosas is there headlining us. You know, we got Tommy Aaron, who's Tony Ferguson's guy on the card as well. Abram Rallis has fought in the UFC before he's on his car fighting Ramos, who's out of Nick and Nick Diaz's camps. I expect Nick or Nate to be at the fight.

Also, Tony Ferguson as well. This one's going to be big. November 18th, you guys got to watch this.

We'll be live on football sports, football TV. You don't want to miss this one. And for me, it's fun because we know we have the next up and coming superstars. So I can look down the fight card like, okay, yeah, this guy's gone. That guy, well, she's gone.

She's going to go to UFC. So it's been really fun for me. Well, not only that in the scouting department, I also hear your son's turned into quite the football player in eighth grade. Yeah. I was, you know, he just made the New Jersey All-Star team.

Appreciate it. And, you know, they got the, the last year they won the nationals. Their first game was December 5th. Yeah.

He plays quarterback, wide receiver, and they got him playing corner, cornerback some, even though he won't hit a soul, but he's made for defense. Yeah. Look, I told him, I said, look, that's right. No, I said, if you hit somebody, I'm running onto the field and they're going to drag me off.

Cause I don't, I don't believe you'll hit anybody. That's amazing. Sean Merriman. Best of luck. Make sure you check it out on football sports. Thanks for coming in.

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