Leroy Hoard, Former NFL Running Back

Alright, the NFL schedule is out. Let's chat a little football right now with one of our pals who played in the NFL for a bunch of years, made the Pro Bowl in 1994, did play his college ball at Michigan. Now does a radio show on WQAM in Florida.

That, of course, is Leroy Hoard. Leroy, how you been? What's happening?

What's going on? I'm just relaxing, you know, planning all the road trips that hopefully I'm going to make this year for this NFL upcoming season. But we got to start you off actually with your Dolphins, the team that you cover now and talk about religiously. They have a heck of a roster, but it all comes down to can the quarterback stay healthy? Just what's kind of been the conversation this offseason with the Dolphins fan confidence in Tua? That's really been the issue with whether he could stay healthy.

But look, I would say this. You know what kind of unlucky you have to be to get the concussion the way he got them, you know, and from that standpoint, it's unfortunate, you know, serious, but unfortunate. Situation that he got two or three concussions last year. I was in a very similar situation. In fact, if you remember, I want to say last year, Bill Belichick talking about he had a guy who was cleared to play but had a concussion and he sat him out.

I was that guy. And so it's a difficult thing to go through. I really don't think anybody understands what a player goes through when that happens.

Neither does the player, right? And it's unfortunate that it happened to him. But, you know, I played eight more years after that.

You know, so going through it and understanding what I went through and understanding just like, man, yes, falling down, you know, hey, how about not making the field so hard? You know, not playing on that rock turf. You know, nobody ever says that, but I think it all depends on his health. I will say this, the scheduling didn't do the Dolphins any favors. Think about this, that they're on the road the first two weeks. They go to L.A. and then they go to New England and then they have to play in Germany. So that's three away games right there. You don't play a home game till your third week.

So if you get through, you know, the first couple of weeks looking pretty good, I'm guessing of the next 15 games, you're going to play majority of them at home and you're going to feel pretty good about, you know, playing that schedule at home. And the other thing, too, Leroy Hoard, when you look at Tua, you know, he's going to be held to a different standard because how public this was and also the previous history to like if he gets a concussion, I think it's going to be a while until we see him back on a football field. Well, you can't predetermined. Help. Right.

And I say that for this reason. If he does get a concussion, you can only treat that. At the time, you can't say, oh, we had to last year or whatever, and I get that's what people want to do.

But if he's healthy and he's cleared, if he chooses to play right, then you play that. That's the nature of what we do. It's a dangerous sport. The only way you can stop it is stop hitting. How many people want to watch football if there's no contact?

That's the nature of the beast. I do understand the concerns that everybody has for Tua. I do understand the severity of concussions. I understand what players go through when they get concussions. Sometimes it's a very scary thing as a player, not watching somebody else if you go through it because there's certain things that you're unsure of. But if you have the right medical staff and you go through the process, you know, at some point, if it continues to happen over and over again, you got to make a much larger decision. But you can't treat an injury or a concussion like, okay, he had two last year, but that means that, you know, we have to be more careful with this. Like, I get that's what people want to do.

When you're cleared, you're cleared. Leroy Hoard here with Dust. When you look at the rest of the AFC East, I'll put New England in that fourth spot. How do you rank them one, two, and three when you look at the Bills, Jets, and Dolphins? I'm going to give it to the Bills, but I certainly have questions about what the hell Josh Allen is talking about, right? I need to be more of a pocket passer or whatever. I think he was given a gift and you have to play and use that gift to win football games. And that is that maybe you select how you run, but nobody's afraid of Josh Allen sitting in the pocket. It's the other stuff in combination with his ability to throw the ball that makes him terrified.

If you eliminate one of those things, I don't think you're doing yourself any favors. I'm going to give it to the Bills, even though I have questions about, you know, about that. I'm going to say the Dolphins are going to push him. I think their defense is a lot better than they played last year. I think, you know, Mike McDaniel has said there were certain times in the year when he should have committed to the run more. I mean, Zach, think about this. They had two running backs who averaged almost five yards of carry.

That's unheard of. And so the fact that he feels that maybe they should run it a little more, I think I agree with that. That'll help the passing game that much more.

You're dynamic as far as offensive, as far as speed. And then you added Vic Fangio on the defensive side, who's considered a guru, and they have talent defensively. They were a little banged up last year. And the secondary had some guys injured up front. They added Chubb in the middle of the season. So all these things are coming together defensively. I think they're going to be pretty good, and I wouldn't be surprised if they won the division.

I'll go to Jets, and then I will say, does anybody have any faith in McCorkle? You really have to do it. It's not him. It's a situation.

That's not a good situation. Hey, wait, wait a minute. Let me ask you a question.

Go ahead. Leroy Hoard with us. When Brian Flores was the coach, did anybody cut two or break? Even though it was said when he got drafted that he wasn't going to play the first year, and then he played the first year, and they held it against him? No, nobody did. So I'm not asking that.

I'm not going to give anybody else a break. I mean, I can't disagree with you, but if you look at how they've done things for the last 20 years, besides Randy Moss and Antonio Brown, who? Yeah, well, they had Brady. They don't have Brady anymore.

They have to adjust with the times. Again, you have to understand that sometimes people's mentality, think about this. We just spent the last two or three years questioning whether it was Brady or Bill, right?

And so if those questions are out there, what do you think Bill's gonna do? I'm gonna win doing it the same way I've been doing it just with another guy. Right? Well, it's not gonna work to another Super Bowl if he doesn't go get more talent.

Okay, but okay. How long is it gonna take that lesson to be learned? When he breaks the Shula win record, and then eventually he'll walk away or something like that. I don't think he's ever gonna adjust. I love Bill, but he's not gonna adjust. He's stubborn.

You know that. Why would he? When they asked him, are you gonna do this or this or this? What makes you think?

And what did he say? 25 years. Yeah, and that's not a Bill Belichick answer because Bill never cares about the pass with players, right? But so like, are we to the point now that you get a question what Bill Belichick does after this?

The last 20 plus years? I love him, but what he's doing right now doesn't build to a winner. It doesn't.

And yet, at the end of the year, you will always talk about the New England Patriots possibly going to play, right? Sure. Now, though, even even with the roster construction being bad, the guy gets the coaches ass off and get them to 8 to 10. I'm sure. Right.

So, so what? I can't explain it. Look, there's one of the things you have to understand about coaches and you've talked to enough of them. They are stubborn. And part of the reason why is when a coach gets fired or a coach goes to a different place.

He gets into his mind. If I'm going out, I'm going out my way. And I don't blame anybody for believing that because the Cleveland Browns ran Bill Belichick out of town. And so after that, if you look at the way he's done things since then, I'm going to do things the way I think they should be done.

If you don't like it, I can live with that. But the success speaks for itself. And I think a lot of times we question what coaches do and how they do it and when they do it and who they play and who they don't play and how they, you know, Bill Belichick and running back is like, let me tell you, no bueno. How he treats running back. He's done in his whole career. Don't know why I haven't asked him, but that's just one of his one of his deals and he's had success.

He's had success doing it. And it's like at some point we got to say, hey, the best coach we've ever seen while we were alive. Let's I'm going to trust it before we let you run.

I only got a minute left here. Leroy hoard. What are your expectations for the Browns this year? I think it was unfair to think that Deshaun Watson was going to come in and seriously saved the team.

They had a lot of other issues. But I do see that, you know, they they've improved that certain certain areas. I do think that Deshaun Watson with a full offseason and a lot of his stuff behind him where he can concentrate on football is going to be closer to the guy we saw when he was in Houston and not the guy we saw last year. He's going to be able to work with his receivers. I think one of the things that I'm going to look forward to is this Kevin Stefanski now has a mouthpiece. In the locker room, but it works both ways because every coach has that guy on the team that can go to him and explain the thoughts of the players without it getting too contentious. You see what I mean? And I think that Kevin Stefanski having that guy in Deshaun Watson is not only going to help with he does but help how the team does things because guess what at the end of the day.

If they don't have a successful season Deshaun Watson going to be there. So it's it's it's in everybody's best interest to make sure that that relationship works Leroy horn always appreciate the time. Thanks so much. You're the best my friend. Thanks. Have a good one.