The Doug Gottlieb ShowOn a Friday edition of The Best Of The Doug Gottlieb Show: Live from the site of the Final Four in San Antonio, Doug paints of picture of where college basketball is as a sport right now.
Doug points out how wrong Jay Bilas is when he talks about player movement in college hoops.
Doug weighs in on the new Geno Smith-Raiders marriage. Doug welcomes Former Bucs GM Mark Dominik to talk about Aaron Rodgers, the Raiders and all of the other major headlines around the NFL.
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We're broadcasting from bar nineteen nineteen. A lot of my friends and some of my coworkers stopping buy. We'll do our podcast after the show, so we'll have some other dignitary stopping by. But I just got a chance to I was in the NABC. That's a National Association of Basketball Coaches head coaches meeting.
Right.
It's pretty cool, right, and they have three hundred and sixty four seats. I'm one of them, and Matt Painter is I mean, he's great. And he stood up and said some impressive things, interesting things in regards to where the sport is where it needs to be, and kind of gave his own thoughts as a guy who played for a national championship last year, a guy who's coaching at his alma mater and has led his al monitor to a resurgence and being a consistent national contender. And I'm just sitting over there, going like, man, this's my first year. Do I ask a question? Do I say something? And then I was pulled into a panel which is discussing, among the other things, the possibility of unionization, of making players employees, you name it. We talked about it, and then as I was walking out, then the next discussion was going to be about private equity coming in and buying up athletic departments, right, And You're like, what world am I in? When I was a kid, I would come to the Final four with my dad. One of us would get to go per year. And I sat up there and this is what I said before I left. I said, you know, when I was a kid, I listened to Roy Williams and Guy Lewis. I listened to Eddie Sutton and Jerry Tarkanian and all these other legendary basketball coaches left to Giselle give presentations on an overhead projector. Do you guys remember what an overhead projector is?
Right? It's exactly what it look what you think it is.
It's a like a lit up screen where you can either draw on it or you have this kind of thin sheath and you write on a thin sheet and then you know it's transparent, and then it projects it up onto a screen and they would draw x's and o's and use the lane and show you different ways in which you played offense and defense. When I was a kid, college Basketball's Convention, which is what goes on at the final forts the National Convention for basketball coaches, it was about basketball. And all it's about now is money, right. That's the reality of it. That's the reality of and and the greed over money and what we've what we've instilled on our kids. As it's now our generation, my age people are running the world and suing the NCAA for more, more and more and more and more and more money because it's like this is a new concept that schools make money off their students. Of course, they make money off all their students, not just their student athletes. And it's not to say that student athletes don't deserve some I always thought that it's pretty awesome to get a scholarship. Those things are harder to get than ever for the more expensive than ever before, more valuable than ever before. Should they have given him spending money?
Sure?
Do we think that would have stopped this legislation? No, because greed is not good. Greed is striking at the core of what's going on in collegiate sports, the professionalization of something that was amateur for so long. Here's Jim Nance, of course, legendary voice of the NCAA term. This is first year not calling the field. Here's Jim Nancy was on a Dan Patrick earlier today.
My concern on your question is future college basketball that may not live as we know it another five hundred years, and may not live another fifteen years because the portal in the NIL it's difficult.
I don't know, paint it and doom and gloom.
I don't want to say it's not to be extinct, that's not going to.
Be, but what we knew it as what we grew up with.
That doesn't that model doesn't exist anymore, and some people have a real problem with that.
Yeah, I think the the issue with the issue with how.
Jim put it is he didn't and he's you know, he look, he's always been the voice of something. Is he didn't say if he had a problem with it, he had a problem. I think the problems go hand in hand. The problems go hand in hand. And the problem with the transfer portal isn't the portal itself. It isn't that you can put yourself in a transfer portal and people like myself can go and look at a list of players and decide who they want.
The problem is.
That you can transfer without any sort of recourse, and if you drop a contract that has a buyout in it or a noncompete clause previous to now, they've been able to go and pretty much any contract can be made null and void. So you know, listen, I understand that the woe is me. We went from people lying, and I say lying, I mean lying saying college student athletes are going hungry, They're going to bed hungry, to guys reportedly making two to three million dollars to play college basketball for thirty one games plus a tournament. There's a wide span in the middle between those two and we have yet to be able to land on that. At the end of it, these are four great teams and we should be focusing on the actual basketball and the coaching, but unfortunately money can ruin everything. College basketball is never pure. It was never you know, white is the driven snow, but it was not polluted like it is now now. It went from kind of off white, sort of an a crew mother of pearl to now just this kind of gray, mucky mud, especially at the top level.
My level, it's it's a little different.
Yes there is money, but it's a it's uh, I feel like it's of the reasonable level and it's just really for support, so you have you know, you're not broken college, although you know, kids spend money anyway, so they go broke in college. Doesn't really matter how much you give them. But you know, it's when you have to list two or three previous schools for players, and when you're talking about that player, and those two or three previous schools are their colleges, let alone the three or four high schools. Like, we got a problem. We got a problem. But the train keeps going down the station. I'm not really sure. I mean, I know how you fix it. I just don't know, if you know, the issue is that you have state judges that are fanboys or fangirls, and so they they strike down on any sort of legislation which should stick.
And I think the reason the.
NCAA hired Charlie Baker to be, uh, their president, is because he's been in Washington connections in Washington, and the only real way to get this thing done is to get uh uh what's it called, uh, jay stew when you have when you're oh man, it's like legislation proof. It's I forget the term. I'm blanking on it right now.
Immunization.
Huh, immunity, It's it's immunity, but it's uh, there's a different word for it. Gosh, golly, I'll think of it anti trust stuff, anti trust, anti true. When once it gets some anti trust legislation passed, uh, then it becomes unassailable by lawsuit. And until that happens, we're gonna be stuck in this, in this waiting game.
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It's the way tire buying should be. Hey, yo, welcome in. Mm hmmmm.
So I guess this is actually a question. We'll get to John Morant being fined upcoming, but this is an honest question.
Uh.
I know, Ilo, I know you're you know, you play it off that you don't watch sports because you you bootleg your your TV networks or whatever, but I know you do. Uh, Jay Stu, You've always been a consumer of the hiring of sports. You don't outside of the Dodgers and baseball. I mean, you watch a ton of NFL, but it's not like you're watching college basketball games on a you know, on a on a Wednesday, right Like you have a life.
Sam.
You obviously a huge Hawkeye fan, both men's and women's, and like Big ten basketball, but you're a purveyor of all all sports. I guess here's my question, okay, and I'll make a statement in a second, is do you care about all of this other stuff, right, does it affect your viewing of it? And I say it because here I am at the Final four and it's still kind of the same in like it's a weird thing to be me now. Where for my lifetime I was a fan as a kid. Then I was a player and I would come to these things with my dad, and then I was a broadcaster covering it, and so I've always got to be around. Now I'm a coach, staying at the coach's hotel. And you know the way it works now is, you know, two different sorts of people hit you up. Either people who want a job and think you're gonna hire them, or people who have a player and think you're going to want that player. And sometimes the player is, hey, I'm going to get you this player. Can you get me a job? Right, So that's that's what ends up happening. But I was I was taken him back today by you know, you have to do these head coaches things, and I'm on a couple of I'm not in any committees, but i was, you know, out of the head coaches meeting with the NABC, and then I'm on a couple of different panels and none of the talk was about actual basketball, you know, and and basketball has changed dramatically from when I played, and you know, we talk about it all the time with older coaches. Before the Final Four, I was just on the phone with coach Bennett.
That's Dick Bennett.
He coached famously at Green Bay, at Wisconsin, at Wisconsin Stevens Point, at Washington State Course. His son Tony won the national championship of Minnesota just you know, six years ago.
I mean, see at Virginia. It was in Minnis.
But he's at Virginia, and you know, again, it's like you're sitting there thinking to yourself, Huh, at what point are we going to talk about basketball? You know, because it just it keeps changing and evolving, and even how your recruit players changes. But it's all the talk anybody wants to talk about.
Is the money.
That is a fantastic and fascinating issue, slash question that you raise. And I'll start by saying, as a fan, it will not affect the way that I watch the Final Four this weekend. I will fully be immersed in the games, which is really the main reason why all of us love sports so much. I will take it a step further and say that as a fan, I stopped watching the regular season of college basketball as a fan years ago, So that can't be blamed on the current NIL climate because that ship had already sailed. I will say this because we're talking about different perspectives here, general fans, media members. I honestly cannot imagine having to deal with it, Doug from your perspective as a coach, because the reason you got into this to coach, that's way down on the laundry list.
You have to.
Focus on personnel, money, nil. And the main reason, at least I think you're doing this, the peer coaching for you and all your colleagues is now way on down the list.
Yeah.
Yeah, well it's always been way on down the list, right. There's lots of things in managing a program the way on down the list, yep. But you would you would think you would think there's other issues that people want to get to, you know, even even the non coaching issues that people want to discuss. And you know, you watch Florida and I'm pretty close to those guys.
Todd's a good friend of mine, some of his assistants are.
As well, and they really do capitalize on their use of analytics and the decisions they make in the game are based upon what the math tells you to do.
Right.
I'll give you an example that, again I don't know how many people know this actually happens, but they can be playing defense with fifty five seconds to go in the first half and they will foul. Usually free throw shooters will sixty percent below or when you have the seven, eighth and ninth foul, there's three fouls in a row that are one and ones, and you watch in the game tomorrow, they will foul intentionally. You'll sub ind guys that don't play as much, they don't absorb, and they'll try and foul sub sixty percent free throw shooters if you have them on the floor, and they'll do it because again the numbers tell you that that's a smart thing to do because it increases your volume of possessions. And you know, if you're trying to score at a rate of one point one five ppp and you're trying to hold them below you know, one point zero ppp, that's points for possession. Like the numbers tell you a six below sixty percent free throw shooter on a one to one, you want a foul. And again, I know, I think Iron Eagle's great. I don't think he'll get into the to the analytics because I don't think you know, Raf or Grant Hill pay a ton of attention to it. But there'll be a bunch of different things they will do from substitutions to when you call time out, to the pace by which you play, to when you shoot threes to winy like all that stuff, and I'm telling you, like none of it gets discussed because all anybody's talking about is and part of it is timing of it. Monday, a judge is going to rule whether to accept the settlement. And if this settlement is accepted, basically what it's going to be is the power for are going to have, you know, somewhere between two and four and a half million dollars to spend on basketball from their revenue share.
And you know, though there will.
Be other lawsuits, that'll be kind of the status quo for the next we think several years in college basketball.
It's all anyone is talking about.
And I just again I think Jay s dou you and I discussed it, like part of the beauty to college is that, you know, you watch a kid like Braden Smith at Purdue where he starts off as a freshman, improves, improves, improves, and then his senior year and you're like, man, we really developed that guy.
But that is the He is the exception, not the rule. So does it affect you, Jason.
Yeah, I mean I I consider myself the Don Draper of sports producers. I do like high level stuff, you know, like high level topics, you know, kind of in the abstract as opposed to like data day games. So I don't I don't get bogged down in the weeds and watching games and stuff. But I will say this about college basketball, I'm with Isaac. It lost me years ago because of the lack of familiarity with the players, and the player movement has not helped that. But this was kind of baked in. I wasn't going to follow the season, probably to begin with Cooper Flag was a little bit of an interest for me. All that stuff that you just described I know exists, I know is important in your world, and ultimately we'll be talking about next week, but it doesn't move my needle. The actual play this weekend will move my needle. I don't know if that answers your question. But I'm interested in the basketball this weekend and not what you just described.
Which part not the analytics part of it.
Well, the analytics is one thing, but the whole thing about what is going to decide or the lawsuit's going to decide all that stuff.
That's putting a crunch on the coaching staffs. It's you, guys, Doug, like the fans only want to know about what the roster looks like, you know, with the season about to start, but it'll leave everybody in the dark until those rosters are assembled. It's just it's just so much more like the pros now and then I really do think it's not like.
The pros though. Well, but I mean the pros guys stay more than a year, of.
Course, sure, sure.
So it's it's not it's like a basketball.
You do see guys going taking an aile money and might they might spend more than a year at a college program though, right, I mean I've seen that guys will be uh with U now maybe two years, like let's just say two years. But yeah, it's sometimes it's just a one year deal. So it's even more it's even more scattered than the pros. Yeah, to your point, So.
Does it Does it affect you viewing college basketball? Oh?
Man, does it affect Well, if I'm starting by watching my favorite team and watching their games, the fervor of the passion has not been diminished Again. Once that team is assembled and everyone's paid and the contracts are signed, I'm locked in for the year. But then the during the off season and it's chaos, and that is a turnoff. Once the season starts, I'll be tuned in. But no, I'd say it doesn't. But it's kind of feeling like, no, I don't think. I don't think I'll stop watching college basketball because of the NL stuff.
But it's just gross. It feels gross. Doug Big, Big Mic is in, Big Mic is in. He I think he wrote this as a statement. It's like a mic drop in. In other words, maybe this is our end point from Big Mic. Fans don't care how the sausage is made.
Good boom, Yeah, we just want to eat well said, Yeah.
I don't know if that's the case.
Maybe more, maybe more traditional college basketball fans do care how the sausage is made.
Again, but it's here's what it's like to me. Okay, And again, I could be I could be wrong. There everyone knows a high school that has move ins, right, and everybody knows the high school that has guys kids that just kind of grew up together playing together, right, and now you have and it's like and then there's always the private school that has kids from they just going there's always like one private school in every big city that tries to compete, competes against the public and it's like not fair. They have kids from all over, they get the best of the best of the best, and oftentimes they'll play two or three years at the public school and then they go to private school for their senior year, right and every and you kind of like it doesn't feel as organic as team building. It doesn't feel sort of special. And you're getting fewer and fewer those public schools that have kids that all matriculated through. There's like just a handful I produce, like one of the only ones. And even they've added a kid here or there, they've had to move in here or there.
But now like everybody is just.
Collecting players, so I and and again it's like the lust for money, and I like I get it, Like I'm sure had I, you know, after my.
Junior season at Oklahoma State. We led the country.
I led the country and assists and I had, you know, start off at a very very good year, and then I went through the doghouse with my coach and didn't start for eight games. I'm sure there would have been a tough conversation there and I would have I'm I went guessing I would have stayed, but I would have been handsomely compensated, probably not to the very top level. But I don't know, like, how would my life have been different had I after my junior like I was really I was. I was ready to leave midway through my junior season, bags packed team was going to Creyton, then to Vegas, and then I was not coming back.
Just send me my stuff. I'm good, I'm out.
And uh didn't play particularly well against Creighton and didn't start against UNLV and then played great, had fifteen assists, We win the game, We go home for Christmas break, and I'm kind of back and I'm like, eh, and back then, if you were going to transfer, you had to do it before a second semester started. A couple of games, Back still didn't didn't play very much, and then all of a sudden he started writ before second semester he started playing me some more, and you know, we finished up strong.
But it was a really tough year, really tough year.
So you know, my decision, My guess is, you know, I was older, like I'm if i'm if I'm looking at a parallel to myself.
I was older.
Uh would have been twenty three years old my senior year and looking to you know, if somebody says, hey, you could leave Oklahoma State, and I'm sure Oklaham State, we would have been, you know, below whatever the going rate was. You know, I was offered two hundred and fifty grand to stay and then offered five hundred grand to leave. But the things that happened in my senior year were magical. The bonds that I've built there are from like, yeah, my kids go to Oklahoma State. You know my son is you know, like he you ask him, now, where are you going to school? Oklahoma State?
Don't care. I'm going to Okla State. That's where I'm going. That's our school.
Obviously, got married, got got engaged, got married right after my senior year, like all of these things. That's always been a home base and I just don't think any like it drives me crazy when I heard I hear j Billis, who's like one of the foremost voices, completely nullify any part of college lifestyle. And look, I get it, Like college is a lot less like it was when I went. There's the social scene at most of the schools. Is is just different because you're on your phone, you know, you take classes online, but it is at any of these bigger schools. It is still kind of a throwback. I get it, Chat, GPT and all this sort of stuff. Like dudes aren't cramming the way they used to. Instead they're cramming on ways in which they can hide the fact that they use chat, GPT with other sorts of apps.
Right, I just I just want to crawl out.
Of my skin when I hear people make it out like, yeah, just go to another school. Yeah, just go to another school. Like, man, that's not what it's It's not about ten twenty thousand, it's not even about one hundred thousand more dollars. And that might sound crazy to you based upon whatever you make, it would have been a lot of money for me, a lot a lot of money.
It doesn't feel like college, Doug. I mean, it's like we don't even hear about that. We don't hear about academics.
Like get people going schools are making all this money. They've always made money, dummies. Schools have always made money, and then they ask you for more. That's what they do. I just I'm maybe I'm a romantic, But like my boy Brian Mott not he's a high school coach at Ouassa.
His son's heavily recruited. Like he's coming to join me here.
We're gonna have a drink when I'm when I'm done, Like any of my guys that are in basketball, I'll see them this weekend. And I just can't imagine. And like I transfer, I got in trouble. I left Notre Dame. I was probably gonna leave anyway, But those guys. I'm still kind of close to those guys. But imagine if I was at three schools like you, you don't keep up. You're in a lum of a place. There's no letterman jacket that you have. I have my Notre Dame letterman jacket.
I don't wear it.
I just I don't. I don't understand where we're going. Actually I do understand we're going. I think you hit it on the head, Sam, it's gross.
What about gross guys getting signed to multi year deals, Like you're signing a letter of intent, but that comes with money, and that you can't leave for more and you're signed and if you if you breach that, then you pay some kind of punishment.
Well, I mean again, this is where again I'm gonna attack j Billis because he's he's just stating things which are categorically false, and no one on ESPN or another shows calls him on it. And he's like, well, it's just the same. The portals always open for college basketball coach.
He's like, no, it's not.
If you want to leave, you have to pay a buyout, and even that happens so seldom in comparison to players transferring out, like what you're comparing apples to oranges. In no way is being the head coach at all comparable to being a player. When you're the head coach, you're responsible for you know the people I'm responsible for and I have I mean, part of what what you do and when you wait for a state institution is I have to do not like progres supports, I have to do reports on all the people who report to me. That's my staff, which is three full time assistants, a director of basketball ops.
I have a.
Director of player development. I have a guy who's head of analytics and video. I have my training staff that is technically, at least partially underneath underneath me.
You don't have to do reports on the rest of us, do you.
I don't.
Okay, Lo and Krawn continues to be annoying.
They're all respond I'm responsible for all of those players and frankly some of their girlfriends. I have one that has a wife when something goes wrong, like, I'm responsible for it.
So there's so.
Much more to it to being a head coach than being a player. And Jay stating otherwise is it's so laughably wrong it's offensive. And then oh yeah, by the way, like hey dude, how about a buyout? You know, like, well, that guy the coach just leaves Willie, No he doesn't. It's not willy nilly like you have to move families. You have to decide about moving other people's families. And then oh yeah, by the way, you kind of work your whole life to get those jobs, get those opportunities, and work your way up in whenever fashion you work your way up. You don't just leave a job here or there. It's like, well, Kevin Willard, he just left Maryland. Yeah he was there for what four years? Completed a cycle. Players are there for nine months and they're responsible for just themselves and to your to your to your question or your statement, Sam, Yes, a multi year contract would be great. The problem with multi year contracts and buyouts is you will you can find a friendly judge who will say you can't keep.
A kid from transferring schools.
It's the whole thing is insane, and none of it is about education, nor is it about a nords. Is it about like team and what builds for the rest.
Of your life. I just and Doug wins I don't understand.
In college basketball and college football, we have talked so little about guys being academically ineligible academics themselves. Like we used to be like, oh well he didn't his grade point average wasn't high enough, so he's got to sit or it's disciplined. We don't hear about that anymore, and I'm worrying. I'm wondering, where is the where's the academic portion of this?
We forget that it's.
Not because we're on academic probation. As a program, we had the second highest GPA in team history. So we talk about it all the time. But no, I mean it is there is some magical pen out there that nobody's academically ineligible.
How is that possible?
You're making a lot of money through the school.
How is that possible?
I don't know.
It gone away academically eligible.
It's disappeared. It's like, we don't even that's got to be hammered down. We need some regulation with that. And you signing contracts, and like you got to get the grades, you got to go to class, you got at least go to class. Online education has to be a part of it, even if it's like just symbolic for the rest of us just to nod and say, Okay, they're there for the right reason. They're there to make money, but they're also there hopefully to work towards credits.
They're not take college to make money.
But of course not. But that's the reality, right, isn't.
It that now? The reality that we've created.
I know it.
It is sad, gross, It is sad and gross, But then there should be if you're going to make a million dollars in one year as a college basketball player or a college football player. Then I don't know, you got to put some knowledge in your head a little bit at least.
Yeah, and listening, I'll credit my guys, my guys that have remained and the guys that were signing. It's not about the bottom line. Will will they get compensated?
Yeah?
Yeah, But I know at the top level that we get to a point to where it's not about those things.
So yes, do you think that right now we're sort of in the wild West, the last frontier of like payments to guys in college football and college basketball that are just gonna shrink in like five to ten years, because I mean, you look at these collectives and you gotta get the owners.
I don't think.
I don't think you'll see guys making guys. I also don't think guys make what they're reported to be make.
Sure, right, don't it's the agent's talking it up.
But I think if a number does come out, it's like someone's being paid two point five million for some college quality. That just seems to me like there are guys in the NFL that make less than that on a one season basis.
So I feel like it's going to show.
It just doesn't make economic sense. What what's gonna happen.
Is donors are going to rebel, They're gonna be.
Well, that's some of it.
But what's going to happen is that when the Olympic sports go away, when gymnastics, when softball at some places, when track and field, when swimming, when lacrosse, when those go away, as well as when there becomes you know, seventy five Division one schools and everybody else's Division three because because they'll just say, hey, it's just not worth it to us, it's not worth it.
And look this this newest thing.
If it gets signed, people think that it'll postpone that possibility.
For ten years. I don't know if that's the case.
But you know, eventually we'll probably get to I don't know, two hundred Division on schools instead of three sixty four. So and you may think, well, good, that makes it separation the best, the best. Okay, So that means you're telling if we're just doing men's college basketball, do the math here, there's fifteen people you get your next year. There's a roster cap of fifteen. You don't have that fifteen. But even if they do thirteen scholarships do thirteen times one hundred and fifty. That's how many kids you're telling we're no longer paying for your school for You're not paying for you to go to school. We're no longer paying for your school.
You know.
They're like, whoa wait, wait, wait, hold on, hold on, there's enough money to go around, Like, no, there's not. There's enough money at the very very top, not enough money for everybody else.
It's not how it works.
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Sorry, Jannis became the first player in NBA history behalf thirty five, twenty and fifteen. Congrats Giannis and Tennakoupo Beema or Express pros Pro of the Week. You know, I've said this for a long time, and I know it to be true, but I'm glad that Florio of all people, wrote about it today Mike Florio's Pro football Pro footballtalk dot com. He reports in his final analysis, the contract between Geno Smith signed and the Raiders isn't much better than the contract his replacement in Seattle, Sam Donald, signed with the Seahawks. Smith presumably could have gotten the same deal or something close to it if he stayed in Seattle. However, there was another wrinkle at play. Per Sars with knowledge of the situation, Smith want to reunite with Pete Carroll on kasch him before. That doesn't mean Smith deliberately overshot his contract negotiations with the Seahawks with a hope and be traded in Vegas, but it was part of the overall thought press process for smith in it all worked. My guess is I mean, can we read between the lines here right? That's what Gino wants it to read as. I don't think it matters. I think the Raiders massively overpaid Gino. I think the Seahawks really preferred you know, they preferred Sam Donald. He fits their offense better, he is better, he's younger, he's better, had a better season than Gino had. And Gino of course wants to make it look like he's loyal to the guy he played for before.
But this is a real thing.
So oftentimes we get you know, guys get accused of hiring the wrong people almost always. You want to hire somebody you've worked with before. I mean, even take my job right, two years ago, I was a finalist for the Green Bay job and Sundance Wicks got the job. Why my athought director Josh Bunette. He worked with Sonny before at Northern State, had a great work relationship. He'd been a head coach before, he knew how he operated, it worked, And then I think the reason he turned to me was we had a relationship, you know, a totally different thing, different time, different deal, different time of year to make the job happen. But you want to hire somebody you've either worked with before, you have a working, intricate knowledge of Scott Shapiro is my boss. He got to Fox Sports Radio from ESPN. I worked together with him when he was at ESPN. We have a work He knows my strengths, he knows my weakness is He's not an idiot. Jason and I had worked together, but we hadn't worked separately. Right he was producing shows locally and then he worked at Fox TV, so our past cross and of course I remember him from the Rome Show and I would appear on the Roam Show. So there's a working intrigonage. None of that is surprising. What is surprising to people is that you have worked with them before and they get a new job and they don't turn to people that they know. That usually sends up alarm bells over what your relationship was when you were together previously. Doug Gottlieb Show here on Fox Sports Radio. The Draft is up coming on April twenty fourth, and twenty fifth and twenty sixth April twenty All that week will be broadcasting from right Across from lambeau Field to two locations, the Legacy Hotel and the bar. The bar is a it's a small chain in Green Bay and.
You guys would love it.
One of the bars that's closer to where I live and to the school actually has indoor sand beach.
Volleyball courts connected to it.
This one, which is the bar at Home Grin, which is on Mike Hombrian Way, has pickleball courts, indoor pickleball courts attached to it. So Dan Patrick and I will be broadcasting both from there. I bring up the draft because now we're kind of in draft mode. Right now, we're in draft mode and the Steelers, I think we can assume they're going to get Aaron Rodgers. Right if you had to guess Dan Byer, even though right you don't want to really, I mean not Dan, I'm sorry, Chason Stewart, even you want you want to guess the likely that Aaron Rodgers is a Pittsburgh Steeler, knowing that the rumor is he's going to announce it on Monday when Pat McAfee has a live show.
I believe it to be true. I think it's done. What do you think?
Yeah, I think the that internet rumor is going to go the same way Aaron Rodgers' words about Jimmy Kimmel being on a list that nobody wants to be on. I think it's gonna go that way. We're gonna Tuesday is gonna come and go, and there's gonna be no Aaron Rodgers. But yeah, ultimately he will be on the Steelers. It seems like the only option for both parties. And you know, Aaron's just gonna make it difficult. He's the he's the former hot chick who still thinks they're hot, and he's going to be difficult and the courting process not understanding or being self aware enough to know that the difficulty you experience in the courting process. Smart people are like, oh, this is what I have to live with if I marry that person. Screw that.
Yeah, it's a that's a that's a tep pill to swallow, especially those of those are dopes and that significant others looking at you like you're you're jeweling.
Out the side of your mouth. I don't know.
I'm fascinating to see the quarterback thing, because, as you know, last year's quarterback class was supposed to be good.
It was not.
This year's quarterback class is not supposed to be good, and it's probably not. But what does that mean for cam Ward? What does that mean for sdor Sanders? What does that mean for text Dart? And then you look at so many of these teams and the way in which many of them have been successful. Seahawks when they draft to Russell Wilson, Niners obviously as well here they've done it with second and third day quarterbacks. Is that the trend? Is that the trend? Let's get to Mark dominic Key joins us now on the Doug Gottlieb Show on Fox Sports Radio. Mark, Let's start with Aaron Rodgers hasn't said anything about the Packers, but did play catch with their new star wide receiver, and he appears to be sort of out of options.
What's the like good? You think he becomes the starting quarterback of the Pittsburgh Steelers.
Yeah, I mean certainly feels like a right. I mean, you know, I think the Giants that kind of made their bed and made their decision to go with Russell and whatever the draft folds, and Pittsburgh seems like the landing spot. I think it's just coming down to the fact that does Aaron want to play and I guess Aaron's really struggling with that clearly to be this deep into it. We're about to start Oka's here in a few weeks, and that's where you'd like to have that decision made. So I look at the Oka's and say, we'll get that decision by OTA day, because I think that's the critical part. If he's going to want to go to be a new system, gopis a new quarterback and meet all the new players, he's got to make a decision before to see the start the OTA day, So I think that's probably the drop dead day to see what's going to happen.
If you were drafting, where would you draft you? Door Sanders.
I've always said I thought he was more of a ten to twenty or ten to twenty five player. You know, I've recently been talking about Jackson Darks. I think closed the gap a little bit more than people realize or want to admit. I like you, Door Sanders, but I have struggled a little bit with you know, the amount of Saxon took in college. Even we can beat up the offensive line all we want, but you know the reality is not everybody has a great offensive line and not as good a players, and maybe other teams too, you know, at Ohio State or wherever it may be. But there's just a part of me that says, you know what, there's a lot of risk there. And I think the risk is the fact that whether or not he can uh, you know, run a normal system and run through the progressions instead of having to create the way he has to create so much in Colorado.
I answer a great question, what do you think the answer is, Yeah, that's.
Where I struggled, right, That's where I mean. I cam Ward I have no problem with, but Shador when you watch him, you know he's this is not fair, So I do not think he is. But he's a little more that Johnny Manzil where he runs around until he finds something to happen. Now, I think you should have stands a much better player than Johnny Manziel coming out. He's a better player, who he's much more instinctual, all those things. But when they think of those guys that are like just kind of you know, make things happen because they run around it and wait for things to open up that should do. And again I've said, you know, the complete extent is really exceptional. But I also think that because he took sacks, he didn't want to throw away bad you know, bad balls. You'd rather take a sack and throw the ball away, And to me, that's something that you can't do at the next level.
No question about it. No cause.
Mark Domini's our guest's former gym in Tampay Buccaneers. He joined us for his weekly pop here on the on the Doug got League Show on Fox Sports Radio. Okay, how far behind is Jackson Dart behind Shure Sanders. I think you're close.
I mean, I think it's like within the fact that I think they're both going first round. I don't think should do or standards like suddenly not he's not the first round player or anything like that. But I do think it's closer than maybe people can't admit or will admit. And so, you know, I think Jackson Dart can sneak into you know, the you know, top fifteen kind of a spot.
You know.
I think the Saints are a real player. I think there's other teams that are real players, and I think there's teams maybe behind them might grove up. So I think those three guys should all go around one and then I think we'll have to wait till round two to see the Jalen Milroe, the queen you were, the other players pop off the board.
Yeah, yeah, no pressure, but that's next weekend. We need we need an answer by that fact. Yeah, we need is Mark Dominick. He's our guest here weekly stop here on the Doug Gottlib Show on Fox Sports Radio. Longtime front office members. His entire professional life has been working on the Nation Football League, of course, former general manager of the of the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Uh okay, does Aaron Rodgers at this age with this skill set, does he solve the Steelers problems?
Yeah?
I think he can. I actually do. I mean again, the Steelers team out performed last year, uh, you know, and that they can.
Uh.
I think the defense is going to carry this. They've obviously, you know, stepped up and grabbed DK Metcalf who you know. Yes, there are people out there like well you got Primadonna's I think Mike Thomas can handle that. Like I believe that Mike knows how to handle those guys. But I think it's the ones that aren't focused because he doesn't mind the Prima Dona. He wants to focus the attention to be about the team and not for me. I know he's works on it with Pick. We're seeing obviously the Steelers let go of a lot of receivers who just couldn't quite do that. I think DK will come in line the he sees exactly what's going on, and I think the Steelers haven't done yet. I look boarded watching them in the draft to see exactly what do they add at the running back room? What do they added tied end him, because I think that's really the area is that you're going to have to watch them, and I think that's where they're going to focus, is, you know, how do we get guys to score more points? We've got to be more explosive offense. I think they're gonna look for that as well as like guys like last year that really didn't get to play at Roman Wilson, which I think will be a nice little fit for whoever the Steeler or if Aaron Rodgers is still quarterback there.
Yeah.
Mark Dominic's our guest here on the Doug Gottlieb Show on Fox Sports for do you think you can like you're trying to save your job and it's James and Russell Wilson. I mean, I know he has a reputation as a quarterback whisper, but I just I think Russell Wilson's shot, I just do.
Well, tell me I'm wrong.
Well, I think there's still enough in Russell will and where they feel like they can do it, specifically because of the elite neighbors, and I think the Giants also when you when you look at what they've got to do in that football team, I think that they're going to be in better shape than you're realism. I mean, they I know that they've they've got really nice picks. Obviously, uh in each round with high picks, you know it's going there. But think that the extra third round draft think is going to be helpful those because they got four in the top one hundred and those four are going to be a big part of what they are. And obviously it's it's to pick one. Is you know, whether it's Travis Hunter, which adds you know, a huge piece of the defensive side and in and a weapon that you can kind of use sporadically on the offensive side. That really feels good. But I also think that they're still really good about, you know, the defense where they are in terms of Brian Burns and Dexter Lawrence. I think that they think that. I think they see themselves. It's a little bit better team. And I think like Tyler Newman and Drew Phillips who they drafted last year are really good young players. And so there's pieces here on defense. I think you're going to feel better. This comes down to what's running back do they like in the draft and where do they take them? And then you know, how do they you know, continue to get one more wide receiver in this door?
Fascinating fascinating stuff. Geno Smith.
I like, I get that you bring over a quarterback that has similarity and he's now become kind of this wily veteran. But I don't get the money that they gave him. I just I just don't, you know, I don't think I could be wrong. I don't think there are other options where he's going to make, you know, twenty five thirty, Like if he's a that's not placeholder money he's making.
Is it? Oh?
I think it is by the structure, you know, And I think this is this is why, you know, when we talked a lot about you know, what was going on was Seattle, you know, and the way that they structured the deal obviously for you know, Sam Darnold is kind of what they did a geno like. It feels like that kind of a structure, like we're not sure we're to keep this guy, but we certainly know that we can get out of it if we need to. We can move on if we want to. And I think that's what their goal was when they said, hey, look we'll go God deal with you, g know, but it's not going to be where we see other quarterbacks getting to and so you know, I understand that I don't love it either. You know, that wasn't the move I expected them to do as well. I really thought that this might be a better move to them to kind of wait and see how the draft played. But you know, you've got to deal now with Gale Smith where if you want to walk away from it, you can as well. And that's I think really what the critical things that they were looking for.
Fair enough Stut Gottlieb Show here on Fox Sports Radio. I'm fascinated by the Niners, Like, you know, I get it. You got a quarterback as mister irrelevant and he's good. And I understand how this is kind of the way business has always gone, where you got a quarterback, he's a good quarterback. You know, you have cost certainty by giving them a long term deal. But I mean it feels like there's going to be a six a sixty million in the yearly salary and again, like.
You're gonna have to jettison.
And I also know and I think you and I have discussed this some of those guys that they allowed to walk out the door, and they've said, hey, it's because we've got to pay our quarterback. They didn't really want back anyway, right. I mean, I think the Deebo Samuel Dial was a bad deal. The second was signed because of where they felt like he was, you know, injury wise, and he wasn't the same guy. But I mean, is he good enough to carry a franchise if they don't have the level of talent they've had during his time so far.
But Brock Pretty, Yeah, yeah, I think so he is. I like rock pretty, I like the way he fits the ball. I think that they still have a ton of weapons around him. And I've said I think Ricky Pearsall is going to be a breakout player in twenty twenty five. I think he's going to be a guy that people like questioned, you know last year is your first rounder in it? You know sadly gets obviously shot to is no to none of his fault. And yet I think that they told you everything about Ricky Percell by the move they're making. And I think that they have been very very outgoing in terms of their words about Rock Party, whether it's ownership, whether it's head coach, whether it's GM. There's nothing shy or in a bash like trying to work on a good deal. Like they're not trying to like, hey, let's not talk them up so much so we can maybe get him for fifty the way they talk him up, this is going to be fifty five to sixty a year. They Yeah, And I know Shanagan. I've worked with Kyle Shanahan.
Uh.
If he's bought into a guy, I'm going to trust that Kyle's got the right mindset. But I like just the way he reads progressions, the way he goes to things, and I think he's got a moxi comb that's in a winning mentality that you know, I'm you know some people it's it's hard when you're mister irrelevant, but you know he's already done more than I think Tony Romo good in his career as an undressed quarterback.
Yeah no, no, listen again, I agree with all of those things, but there does come a limit where you're.
Like, yeah, I don't know about beame him sixty year.
I didn't think so either took. I was. I mean I was. I was more like during this, you know, the season was over, I'd like, if you get him in that forty five to fifty and build it up to fifty and then builds it up to fifty five, I felt pretty good. But I don't think it's back because the way that they're publicly talking about them, that's too strong of words to feel like you've got any leverage to do nothing right. So you've given the agent every bit of the of the you know, the candle, and said, you tell me what it's going to take, and then when they're sitting there and publicly say, hey, look, I don't think there's gonna be any issue about getting extension done. As an owner, that's that's music to an agency. Years and I've been surprised how harp Day said it because I think I was played it the other way to try to least uh, you know, save the organization some cash for you know, future endeavors.
Any idea what the Cowboys are doing?
Well, you know I don't. Here's what I say with Joe Milton. It tells me New England can't stand Joe Milton. Right, there's no reason to trade away Joe Milton for a fifthron pick. Uh, you know when you got him on his rookie field his second year, unless there's a problem in the club. I mean, and Rabel was even there last year, but you know Elliot Wolf was and he was part of the team that picked him. So what's changed so fast that you looked at Joe Milton and said, well, he came in the last game and actually played better than people thought. And now suddenly like I got to get him out of the building? Can I?
Can I? Can I? Okay? Can I throw out a possibility? Oh? Sure? Okay?
So you have a young starting quarterback who's your guy. You've decided he's your guy.
Right, yeah?
And then Joe Milton's a young quarterback, Like, we don't need a young quarterback who thinks he wants to play behind a young quarterback. We need a wily old guy that's you know, happy to be there, kind of quasi quarterback coach Josh McCown sort of type.
And whereas the Cowboys they got Dak. Dak's their guy.
He's not threatened and oh yeah, by the way, he's always hurt, and so the Cowboys can take that risk. Is there a way in which that's really more the case?
Well, so here's the thing though, the way I look at that and struggle with that and the fact that you basically got back your pick your youth on Joe Milton, right, and that's what you've done. But you know, what if something goes wrong, what if Drake may goes down or they got their Josh downs. He's their veteran quarterback. He's their guy that's going to kind of like, you know, walk them through everything. That's the guy that they said, hey, look he's going to be our guys.
Right.
But I look at it is like, there's nothing wrong was holding onto Joe Milton? What if he had a great preseason, right, And now suddenly you're like, wait, second, what can I get for him now? Because you know, even though I don't want him, I might get a third or fourth because he played really good in the preseason, even though internally I clearly don't think he's a good player. If Drake May can't handle the fact that you know, it's like, well maybe Drake May's worried of competition, well then I got the wrong quarterback in the first place. So I just I don't give away quarterbacks. So again, I don't love I didn't like the trace in this move for the Cowboys, but I don't mind this. You give up a fifth, you get back a seventh, and you get a young quarterback. I don't think it's going to work out because I'm going to trust the Patriots would never do a deal like this unless they knew that there's something wrong about the player.
Good enough, great stuff. Man, can't wait to see you in Green Bay. We'll talk next week before you make that track. Thanks so much for being our guest here on Fox Sports Radio.
Good to be with you, Doug ENJOYR Weekend, Buddy,
