Shawne Merriman, Former NFL Linebacker

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It is the Zach Gelb show coast to coast on the Infinity Sports Network. We should be joined momentarily by former all pro linebacker in Sean Merriman. Good night of sports last night. How about that surprising one? I saw that the Florida Panthers, they lost the Bruins 5-1 in Game one of the second round of that series. And I think Florida did strike first. And then after that you had a big, which was a big second period by the Boston Bruins.

So the Florida Panthers to me are the team to beat in the Stanley Cup playoffs. And to see them go down last night, you know, look at Boston, a lot of people were sleeping on them headed into this postseason. They were up 3-1, and they blew the lead and they won Game seven up against Toronto.

So they did strike first. And last night in the Association, you had the Timberwolves just blown out the Nuggets and taken a commanding 2-0 lead. And you also did have the Knicks Pacers game where there was questionable officiating and bad officiating. But you did get to see the New York Knicks pull out a victory. And tonight we have the Cavs and the Celtics Game one. We have the Mavericks and the Thunder Game one as well. And you do have my hockey team, the Rangers trying to take a 2-0 lead up against the Hurricanes.

You have the Avalanche and the Stars get in that series underway after the Stars found a way to win a Game seven up against the Las Vegas Golden Knights. But first, let's talk to Sean Merriman, the former Pro Bowl and All-Pro linebacker. Make sure you check out Lights Out Sports, free sports TV by athletes for fans founded by former NFL All-Pro Sean Merriman. Lights Out Sports is a new free TV streaming service showcasing exciting sports action from around the world.

Download and watch sports channels, live events, movies and TV shows all for free. Sean, appreciate the time. Thanks so much again. How are you? My man. I'm doing well, my man. How are you? Well, doing fantastic. Appreciate you jumping on board with us. What did you make?

Let me start you off with the charge before we get out to the lights out extreme fighting. What did you make of their draft early? They took Joe Walt, the offense alignment out of Notre Dame, and then the second round traded up to go get Ladd McConkie out of Georgia. I was shocked, you know, to be honest, like everybody else. I was not of the pick. I was shocked that the wide receiver was a conversation.

All the way up until a couple days before the draft, right? We all knew that Marvin Harrison Jr. was going to probably end up with the Cardinals. And the second guy in route was Malik Nabors. You know, in fact, Malik took his visit out there and was posting on his own social media about looking at houses in L.A. And so I think that maybe even he thought that he was going to be the draft pick. And if you look at his prep conference, I'm a body language reader, and it didn't seem like he was thrilled about being with the Giants.

I could be wrong in that. But if you go back and look at Jim Harbaugh and what he's establishing right now, it made complete sense, right? He went out and got two running backs, got Gus and got JK Dobbins. He beat up some parking, the defense alignment. He's really just setting the tone.

He's telling, he's sending a message to be asked to the West. We're going to run the football. We're going to protect Justin Herbert.

We're going to stop the run. And what he's doing is he's establishing an identity that hasn't been there in quite some time. So at first it didn't make any sense. And then I sat back and looked at what he's building and it made complete sense. This is a total Jim Harbaugh pick. You know, it's kind of funny, Sean Merriman, because when we first started talking about the draft, I'm like, all right, seeing the way that Harbaugh built Michigan, it was running the ball.

It was great offensive lines year after year after year. I'm like, maybe they'll take an offensive lineman. But then everyone was talking about wide receivers, including yours truly. And I thought, like you, it was going to be a wide receiver. And I had Joe Alt on the day before the draft. And I asked him about the Chargers because a lot of people thought he was going to go to Tennessee.

And he's like, I didn't even have a top 30 visit with them. So maybe this was like the gamesmanship that goes on where you make everyone think one thing and you kind of hide the pick because you were fearful someone else was going to try to get in front of you to take away Joe Alt. And he was trying to get one of these guys to move up in the top three or four. And maybe he was going to go try to get Marvin Harrison Jr.

Right. I mean, there was a lot of games planned behind the scenes. But if you really look at what he's trying to establish and what he did at Michigan, like you said, they ran a football and look at the big plays that was created down the field when he was running the football at Michigan. Most of his 30-plus yard plays because they were so effective in the run game.

Well, what do we know that Justin Herbert can do? Justin Herbert can sling it down the field. And so if you're running a football effectively, you're getting these pass rushes with they got plenty of them.

They got to deal with include Max Crosby in that division. Every pass rush was nemesis is someone who's capable of running the football because you can't bring your ears back and go. That's when those big plays hit downfield. So I sat back after that grab pick and I said that made complete sense for the mentality that they're trying to run the field.

Clearly, he's 10 times better of a head coach than Brandon Staley is. We know that. But right now in the AFC West and all of football, it's the Chiefs and it's everybody else. But the Chargers and their future is so important because I don't trust the Broncos. I don't trust the Raiders. Like the Chargers have the quarterback. They have the coach. They need to find a way to close the gap in the AFC West to give us all, the rest of us, any sort of resemblance of hope. So it's not like Brady and Belichick and no one else in the AFC East.

And that's what he's done for you as it was for all those years. So year one, what do you kind of expect to starting to see what this team is going to look like at least and having enough on paper from Los Angeles Chargers? I don't think you have to wait to the season and see what he's capable of doing. When was the last time we seen a strength conditioning coach do press conferences when he came in? We haven't seen it.

Right. I mean, seriously, we haven't seen it. And so they're establishing day one or who they want to be before the season even start. And look, we're still look, we don't know what Jim Harbaugh is going to do. We don't know if they're going to win 10 games, 12 plus games. We don't, we have no idea, but we do know is because of Jim Harbaugh's history, that he's come into organizations that are far less talented in programs that are far less talented than the Chargers have and turn them around. So we know that they're going to be a better team.

We know they're going to have that idea. Going to the game. I was every home game last year and some of the, some of the away games I'm watching the games and I'm like, who in the hell, who's going to show up today? Are there a physical team? Are there a C team? Do they play great?

You had no idea who they were because they had no identity. And so the identity with these guys now is that you bring them to run the backs. You've got two capable runner backs to get your one, two points back there. They're going to pound the football. They're going to protect Justin Herbert.

Justin Herbert is not going to get attacked as he was this past year and risk injury. They're going to stop the run and everything else builds off of that. And this is why I love that the most, because we all know what the NFL has become now. It's become a past happy court, big quarterback franchise league, and it got away from the running game.

They got to, they got to devalue and running backs, but guess what? That run game sets up everything. It is so frustrated as a pass rusher. It's so frustrated and demoralizing for defense for a team that can run the football.

Once that happens, now everything opens up. This is, this is why this has always been the key to winning football games. And over the last several years, it's become this quarterback friendly, uh, past happy league that is not going to take you very far unless you get out of passion in the homes. That's it. And you bring up, you know, having that Patrick my homes and a guy, right.

That you really believe in. And especially in the AFC, you can't just have a good guy. You have to have a great guy as Sean Merriman is here with us for a few more minutes.

I'll stay inside division. Um, the biggest shock of the draft obviously was panics going eight with the Kirk cousins, uh, you know, move that they did this off season. But if you would have told me Denver, you know, two weeks ago before the draft would have been taking Bo Nix at 12, I would have never believed it. Cause I just think Bo Nix is a guy that could have a ceiling of good.

I don't think he has a ceiling of greatness. Uh, when you saw the Bo Nix pick, what was that initial reaction? It wasn't even a pick. It was a follow up question that, uh, Sean Peyton compared Bo Nix to what he's seen with passion for homes coming out of college.

That was that there is more shocking than anything you got it. You got to have a franchise quarterback in this league. You can't win without one. I just talked about how important they've made the quarterback position and being able to pass the football and being able to put up points. Everybody's going to get their guy for the next five or 10 years. So they had, they had no choice. I believe in going to get Bo Nix or somebody like a Bo Nix.

Um, with that being said, you need more help than that, buddy. You know, they have so many holes to fix. Um, and to move up to, to do what they did with bonuses. I'm not, this is no shot at Bo Nix at all. I think he, I think he's, he's going to be a hell of a player. I don't think he's going to move the needle stepping on the field. He's going to be a guy that has to work into that, to that position. He's going to have to be a guy to build up.

I don't think he instantly makes them better. And that's where they're going to have the problem with, because we know in this league, you don't win, which they didn't win last year. They had high expectations of Sean Payton coming in there. You don't win in next year. Sean Payton could not be there. He may not be there. And that's just the way the NFL works.

And here's, here's the part. Like I don't think Bo Nix is great. I understand taking a quarterback, but it felt like they didn't have to take a quarterback this year. Cause as you're saying, they have to build that roster. Like outside of Patrick Sertan, there's not a lot of players that you look in that roster and say, I have to have, I'm another team and I have to covet. And I just wonder, cause Nix is going to play, he should start day one. Like who are you going to throw in next year? Zach Wilson, week one, like give me a break. And I just fear that they're going to ruin him before he really even gets a chance.

I think you're right. And I, and I hate the fact that that happened. I'm totally against teams throwing young quarterbacks in a fire when they're not ready.

Right. I hate the fact that the organizations have moved away from development players. I hate it. And I really hate it when you got a guy who I don't think is capable and ready just yet. He may be, he may be the guy down the road, but you've got to go out and get you a veteran to go out and start, start week one, go ahead and let Zach Wilson back whoever up, go get you a patch rusher. If we all know that if you're playing in the division with franchise quarterbacks, great quarterbacks, which they are in the AFC west, go and get you a patch rusher. They can put some pressure on the guys and go out and make some plays for you and live and die. What you have an open market that quarterback position bringing Zach Wilson in, he can step in and provide something. If they start with quarterback didn't happen, but you're setting yourself up to, to not be good for the next two or three years.

And you may not be there that those types of things. When they bring you in as high pager as much money as they have, they want immediate change. They want to compete immediately. I don't know if they can compete immediately with Bo Nixon. He may be the guy down the road. I just don't think he's a franchise player to come in and change what they're doing right now.

Yeah. And you got Jared. So then you got Zach Wilson. He's going to beat them out. He's ready enough to go in and play just that the lack of weapons really do concern me there.

And I don't think anyone could go there and have success instantly in your one. All right, Sean Merriman, before we let you run, tell me what we got cooking up with the, with the, the extension, the new venture here with lights out extreme fighting. Yeah. Yeah. We got lights out sports, my free multi-sports platform that were available on all major platforms.

Real cool. I think I've seen the pop up the other day on Apple TV. We're there now the fire TV, Apple, Android, we're all there and more and more announcements. We're having 15 channels starting in a few weeks with, you know, speed, vision, motor sports, outdoor fishing, hunting, outdoor America billiards darts, chess. So I wanted to create a locker room, but you come to a place of platform and just sports and nothing against those other streaming services.

I'm still a subscriber to the other ones, but I don't go there for just sports with lights out sports TV. You can download it now all major platforms and now lights out extreme fight. We got a big fight May 18th in Long Beach, California. We'd be streaming live. We have a five hour show in one night, 19 fight.

We'll be live on lights out sports TV. So make sure you guys download that. This is incredible. And, and we wanted to come in and make some waves with these awesome content partners.

And some people come there and see all sports and it is 100% free Sean. Appreciate it. Good deal. Thanks so much for doing this. Once again, You got it. Thanks for having me. Hey everyone, Boomer Esiason here. The NFL draft is behind us, and your favorite team is now gearing up for week number one. The free Odyssey app puts you right in the middle of the pro football conversation with the biggest sports radio stations from across the country, the local voices who know your team the best, giving you their unfiltered takes on the current state of your squad. It's always football season right here on the free Odyssey app.