Okay, everybody, the week Side Podcast is back alongside Jenny Rerentis. I'm Connor Or We're coming to you on Monday, recording this on Monday around two pm. And as it stands right now, I mean, this is what we're looking at right at this very moment, that it doesn't seem like there's gonna be a whole lot of college football this season, and so, um, we're going to talk about the NFL season. Our season preview issue is going to hit news stands tomorrow. Um, as it stands right now with a lovely story by Jenny Rerentis on the cover, which is very excited, very excited to talk to her about that in a little bit. But UM, let's just first acknowledge the weirdness of the fact that we have no idea what's going to happen, the impact that this is going to have on the NFL season on you know, they're not going to have spring college football. You know, we've seen evaluators already saying that this combine is going to be monumental because you know, there might be a ton of kids without any tape that you're going to get to look at transfers, who's leaving early. I mean, this is going to be, UM, I think chaos sort of hitting the funnel right now and everything's about to explode. Yeah, it seemed like the decisions from Yukon and then the MAC Conference were kind of the first two moves that really got the ball rolling for the Power five conferences to reconsider the season, and everything really came to a head on Sunday night. Um, you had indications that there would be no football season, that conferences were meeting to discuss this issue, and then you had players saying they wanted to be able to play but also would hope to unionize, which is another significant development. So it's been a pretty chaotic twenty four hours for college football. And so then the NFL is kind of moving ahead. Scheduled things came to ahead I think sooner for college football for a lot of reasons. You know, we've had UH players UM who have had you know issues after testing positive for COVID. We had entire teams that had to be quarantined. The NFL right now is in this training camp kind of lockdown type mode. It's it's not a bubble, obviously, players are going to and from, but it's kind of the normal constraints of training camp, and so we don't really know yet if it will work for the NFL. Obviously, they are in a better position than college football because players are represented by a union. That is the big difference here, where working conditions and everything that goes with returning to work in a pandemic had been hashed out ahead of time and there were clear protocols and plays across the board. Um, So we still don't know if it's going to work for the NFL, but they are certainly in a better spot right now than college football. Yeah, I thought um our teammate Ross Dellinger did a good job of illustrating one of the main issues, which was, you know, there there were doctors on these conference calls with the heads of all the power conferences and saying, you know, there are studies that are coming back from Germany that even six or seventy of the people who get the coronavirus and then are asymptomatic and move on still have hard issues, you know, and that impacts athletes significantly. Um you know, I mean if the speed at which your heart beats, or the size of your heart or whatever is going on there, I mean that significantly impacts someone who does an aerobic sport, right, and who has to worry about, um, you know, all their conditioning and all that kind of stuff and and how the heart's pumping and all that kind of stuff. And so it blows my mind that we've gotten this far already down the down the road with the NFL where and and everyone just kind of looking over at college football now and saying, Jesus, this is gonna be us um, And it's hard not to think that it will be, right. I mean, the NBA seasons kind of plotting along. I mean, there's some little signs of positivity here and there. Major League Baseball seems to be, you know, stumbling and then recovering, stumbling and then recovering. But you know, we're really going to have such a better idea about this in three or four weeks than we do now, and I really don't know. Yeah, And what you raise is such an important point that we don't have all of the answers on the long term impacts of COVID. And that's why it was so silly earlier this soft season here people discussing like, hey, it's a competitive advantage if athletes get it. Now they don't have to worry about getting it in the fall, when first of all, we don't even know how long that you would have immunity from getting the virus, and then secondly, we don't know the long term impacts on the body. And as you mentioned, the research coming back has indicated that for some people it can be severe and long lasting, and we know it impacts the circulatory system, has neurological impacts. So those are very serious things beyond just a simple virus that you get over. So, UM, it was never a binary thing where you either have a you know, a it will outcome or a mild case. There's a lot of outcomes in between. And I think for college athletes, especially who are eighteen to two years old, who are not getting paid, who are not professional athletes making this decision, um, who also have school to deal with, they're just are a lot more considerations at play. And UM, I think once you had conferences saying we're stopping play because we don't believe that it's safe, then it really put the pressure on the other conferences, I think to say, well, you know, we can't make the claim that it's safe if other conferences are saying it's not. Yeah, there's a huge divide, I think, Um, And good for the college players for standing up, and good for them recognizing the power of you know, union leadership and what that can do for you. Um, and hopefully there's some movement made on that front. But it's it's so funny, just like how we've learned to justify our wallets and not the other way around, you know. And it's so crazy to look at all the pundits out there today, UM saying oh, well, this is ridiculous, and these kids want to play. I don't know if a lot of them want to play, like you know, I think a lot of them are scared. Uh, and they're scared for a good reason. You know. I'm scared. You're you know. I don't want to speak for you, but I think that we're all a little genuinely freaked out about this thing. Still. Yeah it's August, and yeah we've been living with it, and yeah we've gone to a few outdoor dinners or you know, walks in the park or whatever. But that still doesn't mean that this doesn't freak us out. And I think it especially should freak out young healthy kids who don't know how this is going to affect them, and it's just like, I know we've said this a million times on the show, but it's like, God, if we could have just paused for a year and acknowledged that this was going to happen, you know, and just said, let's just give ourselves a chance to get back in one and we'll take the hit, and you know, we'll just say that, heyw was a crappy year and there's nothing we can do about it. But instead we're just it's just constant fighting and I don't think it makes anything healthier or better or easier. Yeah, I think it's interesting how so many things have come into focus. And obviously the unionization thing was something that was approached by the Northwestern team a few years back and didn't go anywhere, but it's such an important issue, and this really puts it into perspective that, you know, if players do want to play, they wanted to do so by having the best chance to have all the best protocols in place and have a say in what those protocols are, and they didn't have that, so it seems like it was just an impossibility to move forward without them having a voice and getting to a place where they were, you know, had a role in creating what this season would look like. So that's where the NFL has, you know, an advantage is that both sides work together and they got to a place where the players who chose to go forward with the season, you know, felt some comfort level, but you can't really know fully. I mean that's why I think the opt out deadline is is kind of a tough one because it's like you have to say yes by early August and you don't actually know how things are going on to unfold the rest of camp. Um, you're kind of basing it off a very limited set of like okay, well it seemed okay for a few days, but we don't know what it's going to be like when there's potentially travel for games or when there's tackling. They haven't even had practice yet, you know. So Um, I think, like you said, Connor, Um, maybe players want to play, but maybe they also don't have all the information. And I don't know that anyone making a decision to play can feel a hundred percent confident about how things are going to be. No. I totally agree. One thing though that I am a confident in is that the story we're gonna talk about next is a banger. I'm very excited Jenny brentis writing about Lamar Jackson. It's like I think back to um, you and I um in that playoff press box in Baltimore when they lost to the Chargers two years ago and everybody was saying, you know, put Joe Flacco back in. This kid doesn't have it. But there was some of these late theatrics and he got them back into the game. And to me, that was sort of the the birth of of Lamar Jackson and what we ended up seeing. And I thought you took a really cool angle to it that. You know, so many times along the way in his career, he's been pressured to change positions. Um, you know, we heard the idiocy um during the pre draft cycle about how he should be a wide receiver. And now he's voted by his peers as the best player in football and that has a huge trickle down effect on on a younger generation of football fans that are watching that. Right. Yeah, you know, in less than two years, he basically flipped this on its head, right. The stigma of being dual threat, well, that used to really just mean that you were a running quarterback, and Lamar Jackson made it so that it means both. He's equally inclined to run as he is to pass, and he's confident in his abilities to do both, so much so that his teammates say he never forced himself to do one or the other. Didn't go out there saying like, hey, I need to show that I can be a pocket passer. Obviously he made the jokes about not bad for a running back, and that's clearly something that fuels him, but not to the degree that he cared more about proving that he could pass the ball instead of getting the first down or getting the most yards in any given play. UM. And so I think the confidence with which he plays the position, and also the resolve that he's shown through his football career, including with the support of his mother, have really inspired a generation of young athletes. And so I ended up talking to a handful of kids who played football in South Florida. UM Lamar Jackson grew up training at McNair Park and Pompano Beach, and his quarterbacks coach there, Van Warren or he was He was a youth coach who specialized in quarterbacks, and he as Van puts it, he didn't particularly have any expertise, but he taught himself because he was sick of seeing his good athletes be moved to other positions and told they couldn't play quarterback when they moved up the ranks. So he taught himself and learned quarterback mechanics and taught started teaching quarterbacks so that no one could use that as an excuse to move them. And so he worked with Lamar Jackson. They had this Sunday afternoon ritual of going to McNair park. It was Van Warren, it was Felicia Jones, Lamar's mother. They would train him and when Lamar Jackson graduated from high school, Van thought it was over, and Felicia said, no, if we proved we did with Lamar, we can do it with other kids. So they continued these Sunday sessions at McNair park. Um they are for all positions, but also quarterbacks, and Lamar will come back and visit. And so there's some kids there who admire Lamar because they play at the same park that he did. There's also other kids that are connected to him in other ways through his throwing coach Joshua Harris Um his son is a quarterback. There's other players that he knows through UM through the foot all circles, and there's basically a lot of young athletes who might have been moved to other positions, whose coaches have tried to move them to other positions, and who have said, no, I this is the position that I play. I want to play quarterback like Lamar Jackson. I mean, I spoke to to one young kid, um Neo, Maiah Howard, and he was inspired to try playing quarterback when he first saw that clip of Lamar Jackson hurdling a Syracuse defender during his Heisman season, and he thought, I can do that. He played quarterback um Now. He went to Junior Olympics one summer, competed in the hundred meter dash. He's a really fast young kid, one of the fastest kids in the country in his AID group. And when he came back, the coach decided, oh, let's put him out wide receiver because he's so fast. So his dad's his dad said, you know what, let's switch teams. He can play somewhere else. He now wears number eight for uh Coincidentally, a youth team that's that's name the Ravens. UM. So that's kind of how Lamar has inspired fired kids, UM. And you know, his mother also talks to parents in the area about if you believe in your child, don't let them lose confidence, support them in their dream, you know, even if that means talking to coaches, even if that means switching teams, like you have to support your son's dream, like, don't let that dream die and be an active participant in saying you know what, and he can be a quarterback. And I think the fact that it was successful for Lamar has given confidence to kids and their parents. And she was Lamar Jackson's mother was demonized throughout the draft process, and you know, sort of this you know, smother mother, whatever you want to call it, you know, helicopter parent, whatever you want to say it. But I think it's just it's indicative of how we tend to assign, you know, different tropes or whatever it is or biases to two different people when you know, every single one of the quarterbacks in the NFL who does not look like Lamar Jackson, their parents were pushing people around at the youth level. Do you think that you know, Jared Goff got to where he is or you know, you know, I'm I'm I'm not you know, picking on one person in particular. I don't know this for sure, but do you think that all of these quarterbacks that grew up and went to these elite high schools and had all this training had parents that just sat idly by And we're like, well, it's great, Yeah, you can put matt little Matt, Mattie Stafford at running back to if you want. No, of course not. I mean they all had these parents, and so I think it's refreshing to see Lamar's mom in a different light, and in the light that I think that she deserves to be seen. I mean, she made this happen. There was a resilience there, especially then people at every turn we're saying, no, you're wrong, he needs to go somewhere else. Connor, you don't see the same kind of pushback for say, Archie Manning and the way he's orchestrated his children's career. Great example, Eli didn't play for the team, right, I mean Eli picked which team he played for, right. So I mean here you have a mother who thought that her child dream which he was right about. They were right. He is a quarterback. He can play quarterback. He challenged the perceptions of quarterback at every level of football. But that's a good thing, right. I mean, we've seen this exciting, thrilling outcome, this redefinition of the quarterback position because of his dream, because of the sport of his dream. And it's not just about him. Yes, of course she wanted a support her child. But I think it's really cool that they left this legacy at Nicknair Park. You know, Lamar and Felicia are there less now. I mean when he went to Louisville, that she and Van Warren kept this this Sunday afternoon tradition going. Um. You know, now she she lives with Lamar during the season. She obviously plays an active role in managing his career. Um, so she's there a little bit less, but they visit frequently in the off season. Um, if she's there and he's not, she'll sometimes put him on FaceTime. UM. At that park in the youth league there, Heisman trophy is like the Lamar Jackson Trophy and the street is named Lamar Jackson Way. And you know, I think it's a lot of quarterback X have a relationship with the community where they grew up in. But I think this one is really special and it's really different because I think that there are a lot of hurdles for black athletes to play the quarterback position, and that's always been the case. We've missed out on so many black quarterbacks through the years. They were moved to other positions. You know. Covering the NFL Connor, we all know, uh position coach or who is you know was made of running back or a dB or something else. Um. I mean we've all been there at practice. I mean covering the Jets. We saw it with like Anthony Glenn and Dennis Thurman. They would throw the football and I remember asking them, like, man, you have a great arm. But when they were growing up, they didn't have that option to play quarterback. They are moved to either running back or defensive back, and they both had a lot of success there. But it just makes you think about all of the quarterbacks you missed along the way. So I think it's what's unusual is just this gift that Lamar is giving to younger generations. UM. And you know, I think the redefinition that he's having really will have ripple effects. Um. Obviously, we have seen a shift in the quarterback mold during the years, but I think Lamar did it in a really exciting way, and he was unanimous m v P. I mean on draft night when he was waiting in the green room. I don't think anyone would have said that in a second season he would be Union and m v P. But Lamar would have said it, and his mom would have said it, and all the people surrounding him and the Ravens, to their credit, you know, listen, they passed him up, right, they didn't. They traded down the first round picked a tight end that they then traded away. But then they traded back into the first round they got him. And as you mentioned, Connor that that playoff game in his first year, that was a loss. And obviously the playoff early round loss is a hurdle the hell have to get over in his career, and he's committed to getting over. But that moment was really important because it was John Harbaugh saying, like, I'm committed to this guy and he's our guy for the future. We're not going to go back to Joe Flacco. We're going to grow with him. He's going to be the centerpiece of our offense. We're going to build a new offensive scheme unlike anything the NFL has seen around Lamar Jackson. And we also believe that the skills he has are not the ceiling that he will get more accurate as a passer. How many times have you heard people say a quarterback can't get more accurate. It's it's just like it's lazy coaching trope. Well, he got more accurate as a passer, right, And so I think that they really challenged UM a lot of those norms from a coaching perspective as well, and so I think Harbaugh deserves a lot of credit for that. Joe Burrow, I think his completion percentage went up almost thirty points and between his junior in serior. So, yes, you can get more accurate. And a lot of that starts with the coaches who are saying that we can't make them more accurate. Believe it or not, UM, But you know, just I think one final point on this that I think is amazing, UM, is that you know, we talked about Dennis Thurman, Anthony Lend, some of the um black coaches that we knew when we were covering the Jets, and and others that we've gotten to know along the way. More black quarterbacks means, you know, hopefully eventually more black offensive coaches in the pipeline, right. I mean that's a good thing. And you know, we how many times now if you look at every staff, the quarterback guru or the rising young star is typically like a quarterback that kind of bottomed out in the NFL at some point at a young age, but was seen as studious enough to latch on as a coordinator or something like that. I mean, we're setting ourselves up for a near future, hopefully where the pipeline can be replenished by other quarterbacks who have had different experiences, you know. I mean, it's just outrageous that it hasn't happened to this point. But fewer kids who have to change positions mean more black quarterbacks, and more black quarterbacks mean more black coaches. And I think that that's a good thing for the NFL in the long run and something that they've been trying to I don't know if they've been trying to fi for that long, but at least they're starting to pay attention to and realize that it's a huge problem. Yeah, And I think that's a great point to Connor because obviously Lamar Jackson is this unique talent. It's not like a Lamar Jackson is going to come along every year. So every quarterback that shares his dream that's coming up in his footsteps in South Florida or anywhere else in the country is not going to have the same success that Lamar Jackson has had. However, they can have whatever success they pursue or whatever success you know, they were able to achieve, and that doesn't necessarily mean being the m v P in the second NFL season. Maybe they can go to college. Um, you know, one of the goals of Felicia was to help kids get college scholarships and be on a path to do so, maybe they play football in college, Maybe they go into coaching. Right, There's a lot of other ways to contribute. But I think you're exactly right when we open these doors, you know, it's it's not just about being the m v P. It's about being a quarterback coach or just changing these perceptions that have been there for so long. And so I think there's a wider impact than just like one generational talent like Lamar Jackson is. For sure. Well, I mean, if if that didn't sell it because I'm telling you there's more good stuff in there. So go buy the magazine. It comes out if you if you have a safe way of doing so, or you're a safe way of doing so. Yeah, exactly, they'll see it. It's gonna look great wag wins or something, you know, Yeah, yeah, or wherever magazines, yeah, wherever they're sold. So and while you're there, while you open the magazine or if you go online, connor story is already online. Um, you'll can see connor Or's byline and he's got a great piece on what Joe Montana's experience with the Kansas City Chiefs in the early nineties can tell us about Tom Brady's experience. And you open this story with a really great anecdote that made me laugh out loud. Connor, why don't you start there? Well, it's been my lifelong dream. I've already gotten the words salvia into Sports Illustrated and now fart So, um, some really proud moments from my parents there for sure, um, and all my teachers. But uh yeah, So the first offensive meeting that Joe Montana went to as a member of the Chiefs, like this was a long drawn out process. It was covered vigorously in the media. Um. You know, the Chiefs were battling the Cardinals for the right to sign Montana. Was very Peyton Manning esque in the recruitment UM, and there was all these rumors about where he was gonna go and what he's gonna do. And so they finally land him, and you know, Marty Schottenheimer has opened up his mind and he says, Okay, I'm gonna throw the ball and I'm done being so strict strict as a as a running guy. I'm gonna pass. We're gonna get the best quarterback that we can find. Um. And so they bring Montana in. There's a ton of excitement. They go to start the meeting in the place just reeks um, and you know everyone's looking around being like, what's going on? Um, And it gets so bad that they have to literally evacuate the rooms. So like, imagine the worst fart you've ever smelled, um times a million. Uh. That filled up an auditorium and uh they had to leave. And so you know that all along everyone's kind of looking around saying, well, what the heck? That was weird? And you know, people slowly start to realize that it was Joe Montana. He brought a stink bomb into the facility and lit it off on his first day to be like, hey, you know, I am one of you. Um, I am not above or beyond anybody else. So though I would imagine somebody else would have gotten cut for doing something like that, but it was. The story is kind of about this herculean effort that he went through to to not stand out, you know, to to say that I am no more important than you. And a lot of his former teammates said, you know, we think a lot about that. When we heard about the Tom Brady news, It's like, yeah, this guy's a great quarterback, and he's got a legendary work ethic, there's no doubt, but like it's these little things that you can do, um that make you a part of the team. And not every superstar does that particularly well. I mean, you look at Michael Jordan's he do that particularly well in Washington, I don't think so, you know, and there are other guys that don't translate as well to that second team when you've already had that transcendent status and the Chiefs for good those two years. I mean, it wasn't. It's not something that we think about a lot, because it wasn't like they won a super Bowl those years. But they were good. Yeah, I mean they had good teams. And you know, it's funny because, you know, one of the players told me that Joe Montana is famous for um the line in the Super Bowl where it's like, hey, did did you see John Candy over there? And his whole thing was, you know, making him seem calm in these chaotic situations, and it calmed everybody else down. And he would do that routinely in Kansas City. You know, he would go into the huddle and he would say like, hey, you get a load of this person in the stands, or you know, you see what this person is wearing whatever, um and he would carry that with him and the players said that they had never experienced something like that in their lives, where you know, someone just instantly made everybody feel so calm. And he would say things like, you know what, I'm I'm going to win this game, so just give me, you know, two or three seconds in the pocket and we'll figure this out. This is what I do. And so, you know, I think that in that way he was that Joe cool guy that they always expected. But then after the games, he's taking you out to dinner. You know. He would take a different position group out every night of the week after wins, and so he would divvy it up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And he was always out with these guys. You know, he was always present. And I think that that went a long way, you know, and then it it fostered that mutual care. You know, he took the blame for every missed snap, and his center told me that never in his entire life at a quarterback taken blame for a snap. And here's Joe Montana saying, this is my fault. I didn't put my hands in the right place. And all this stuff goes a long way. And so it was interesting to talk to both his teammates and then Tom Brady's former teammates to say, like, how close is this guy to what Joe is and where is his level of you know, emotional intelligence and can he can he respond in a way that Joe Montana responded. Yeah. One difference in Montana starting over versus Brady starting over was that it was clear that his error was ending right. He was injured. Steve Young was their different situation with Brady where you know, while there was probably uh an understanding internally that this might be or would be Brady's last year, there wasn't a clear succession plan in place. It wasn't obvious until he announced that he was going elsewhere. So how do you think that difference will play into it? Yea, so Paul Hackett, who was the offensive coordinator of that team. So that's that's the biggest factors that Tom had a choice and Joe did not have a choice. As much as Joe wanted to think that he could still be the quarterback of the forty niners, there was a humbling there where you had to recognize that it was time to move on and that you you'd actually physically been replaced. And I think that that creates a different way to handle things emotionally. You are humbled in a way that Tom Brady I don't think has ever had to be humbled um before, and so it's fascinating to see, you know, how he's going to take that um and spin it forward, you know. Um. I talked to Matt Castle for the story and he said that, yeah, I mean Tom Brady was at the beginning of his career, before he reached that superstar status, he was at the Outlaw drinking with all the guys, um, which was kind of their biker bar hangout place. Um. He can't do that anymore. UM. I think as as famous as we think Joe Montana was in the nineties, I think Tom Brady is probably a hundred times that in terms of not being able to go out, um and enjoy yourself privately, um, in a semi public setting. But at the same time, he's like, you know, if there was a private party, Um, if there were um, you know, a kid's birthday, you know, anything where the guys were getting together, Tom was there, you know, and yucking it up with everybody, and it was a totally normal part of that process for him. In a very important part of that process for him. So if you're Bruce Arians, I mean, I think that that lends well to the future, Like you hope that he once we were able to gather safely, you know that he takes that seriously because I think that you just can't have you can't just bring a quarterback in and have him sitting around and basically be this untouchable entity, you know what I mean. Yeah, I mean, looking back, it's pretty remarkable that it was so seamless for Joe Montana to assimilate into the Kansas City team and the community and everything else after his story career in San Francisco. Do you think that it will go as seamlessly for Tom Brady. I think one of the interesting things that um I had heard during the story was that Tom in New England, UM would, you know, treat everybody differently, but in a good way. So if Randy Moss made a mistake of practice, you know, he would take him to a very quiet place where nobody else could see them and say, hey, you know you mess this up, and you know this is what we're gonna do to fix it. If it was Wes Welker, he would scream at him in front of everybody because he knew that that's how West liked to digest information. And I think that those little glimpses of the way that Tom can understand people and read people, you would hope that that bodes well for the future in Tampa, right. I mean, there are stories going back too early in his days in Foxborough, you know, after he won his first Super Bowl where you know, some scrub and sy see Tom Brady in the Yournald. He'd know their name already. He knows something little about them, and that was something that he took very seriously. Uh, but it does he continue to do that now when he really doesn't have to anymore? Right, it's not the Patriot way. He can be free of that. He can act however he wants to act. Um, but will he you know? Or is part of the Patriot way that we it because of what Tom Brady did through those years. So I think it's going to be interesting. Is sort of a Chicken or the egg thing that we're all looking out for. Yeah. No, it was really interesting insight into both Brady and Montana and a lot of good stories that made it a really fun read. Connor, So I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. It's a weak side issue of sports illustrating. How exciting is that? Yeah? Yeah, So yours ran online Monday. Mine was supposed to run online Tuesday. By the time the episode comes out, we will see um maybe a college football day understandably, so, so you know, we'll see how it goes with the online Um but definitely both will be in the magazine this week. And it's a weird time to talk about season preview, but I think, you know, we both learned something reporting our stories and hopefully readers find it interesting as well. That's right. You know, we're going to talk season preview now until there is no season to preview. Uh, we've we've we've pounded the table enough to say, I don't think there should be a season, and I don't know if there's going to be a season, But now that it seems like there's going to be, uh, we're just going to keep keep on previewing. Jenny, Yeah, yeah, Well, and in the meantime, we have a lot of vegetable recipes to get us through, Connor. I don't know if you noticed that several people wrote in with some vegetable recipes that I'm going to sort through and maybe try out. So stay tuned with that. You know how we love our vegetable recipes. If you miss last week, we revealed our plans to open a either a vegetarian or vegan or at least vegetable forward Talk Forward, definitely vegetable Forward, um called Root. It is our backup plan. So we're just collecting recipes and we appreciate re or feedback on vegetables or football or really any other topic. So as the great chefs say, create the restaurant that you would want to eat at, And so I envisioned Jenny and I, weary from a long training trip, stumbling into this vegetarian taco oasis and just having our fill you know exactly right that is that would be a go to for the training camp trip which we normally would be on right now. But we can at least imagine, so hopefully some of these recipes will kind of give us that flair for you know, trying new things and what would have been a road trip. So well. We will be back later this week with more news topics, more discussion um and as always, thanks for listening to the Week's Side podcast. This podcast is me Jenny Rerentis and Connor Or. We are produced by Shelby Royston, Size, Executive producer of Podcasts as Scott Brody Ben Eagle is director of Editorial Projects and product Mark Marievik is Ameritus Executive director of the MMQB. 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Okay, everybody, the week Side Podcast is back alongside Jenny Rerentis. I'm Connor Or We're coming to you on Monday, recording this on Monday around two pm. And as it stands right now, I mean, this is what we're looking at right at this very moment, that it doesn't seem like there's gonna be a whole lot of college football this season, and so, um, we're going to talk about the NFL season. Our season preview issue is going to hit news stands tomorrow. Um, as it stands right now with a lovely story by Jenny Rerentis on the cover, which is very excited, very excited to talk to her about that in a little bit. But UM, let's just first acknowledge the weirdness of the fact that we have no idea what's going to happen, the impact that this is going to have on the NFL season on you know, they're not going to have spring college football. You know, we've seen evaluators already saying that this combine is going to be monumental because you know, there might be a ton of kids without any tape that you're going to get to look at transfers, who's leaving early. I mean, this is going to be, UM, I think chaos sort of hitting the funnel right now and everything's about to explode. Yeah, it seemed like the decisions from Yukon and then the MAC Conference were kind of the first two moves that really got the ball rolling for the Power five conferences to reconsider the season, and everything really came to a head on Sunday night. Um, you had indications that there would be no football season, that conferences were meeting to discuss this issue, and then you had players saying they wanted to be able to play but also would hope to unionize, which is another significant development. So it's been a pretty chaotic twenty four hours for college football. And so then the NFL is kind of moving ahead. Scheduled things came to ahead I think sooner for college football for a lot of reasons. You know, we've had UH players UM who have had you know issues after testing positive for COVID. We had entire teams that had to be quarantined. The NFL right now is in this training camp kind of lockdown type mode. It's it's not a bubble, obviously, players are going to and from, but it's kind of the normal constraints of training camp, and so we don't really know yet if it will work for the NFL. Obviously, they are in a better position than college football because players are represented by a union. That is the big difference here, where working conditions and everything that goes with returning to work in a pandemic had been hashed out ahead of time and there were clear protocols and plays across the board. Um, So we still don't know if it's going to work for the NFL, but they are certainly in a better spot right now than college football. Yeah, I thought um our teammate Ross Dellinger did a good job of illustrating one of the main issues, which was, you know, there there were doctors on these conference calls with the heads of all the power conferences and saying, you know, there are studies that are coming back from Germany that even six or seventy of the people who get the coronavirus and then are asymptomatic and move on still have hard issues, you know, and that impacts athletes significantly. Um you know, I mean if the speed at which your heart beats, or the size of your heart or whatever is going on there, I mean that significantly impacts someone who does an aerobic sport, right, and who has to worry about, um, you know, all their conditioning and all that kind of stuff and and how the heart's pumping and all that kind of stuff. And so it blows my mind that we've gotten this far already down the down the road with the NFL where and and everyone just kind of looking over at college football now and saying, Jesus, this is gonna be us um, And it's hard not to think that it will be, right. I mean, the NBA seasons kind of plotting along. I mean, there's some little signs of positivity here and there. Major League Baseball seems to be, you know, stumbling and then recovering, stumbling and then recovering. But you know, we're really going to have such a better idea about this in three or four weeks than we do now, and I really don't know. Yeah, And what you raise is such an important point that we don't have all of the answers on the long term impacts of COVID. And that's why it was so silly earlier this soft season here people discussing like, hey, it's a competitive advantage if athletes get it. Now they don't have to worry about getting it in the fall, when first of all, we don't even know how long that you would have immunity from getting the virus, and then secondly, we don't know the long term impacts on the body. And as you mentioned, the research coming back has indicated that for some people it can be severe and long lasting, and we know it impacts the circulatory system, has neurological impacts. So those are very serious things beyond just a simple virus that you get over. So, UM, it was never a binary thing where you either have a you know, a it will outcome or a mild case. There's a lot of outcomes in between. And I think for college athletes, especially who are eighteen to two years old, who are not getting paid, who are not professional athletes making this decision, um, who also have school to deal with, they're just are a lot more considerations at play. And UM, I think once you had conferences saying we're stopping play because we don't believe that it's safe, then it really put the pressure on the other conferences, I think to say, well, you know, we can't make the claim that it's safe if other conferences are saying it's not. Yeah, there's a huge divide, I think, Um, And good for the college players for standing up, and good for them recognizing the power of you know, union leadership and what that can do for you. Um, and hopefully there's some movement made on that front. But it's it's so funny, just like how we've learned to justify our wallets and not the other way around, you know. And it's so crazy to look at all the pundits out there today, UM saying oh, well, this is ridiculous, and these kids want to play. I don't know if a lot of them want to play, like you know, I think a lot of them are scared. Uh, and they're scared for a good reason. You know. I'm scared. You're you know. I don't want to speak for you, but I think that we're all a little genuinely freaked out about this thing. Still. Yeah it's August, and yeah we've been living with it, and yeah we've gone to a few outdoor dinners or you know, walks in the park or whatever. But that still doesn't mean that this doesn't freak us out. And I think it especially should freak out young healthy kids who don't know how this is going to affect them, and it's just like, I know we've said this a million times on the show, but it's like, God, if we could have just paused for a year and acknowledged that this was going to happen, you know, and just said, let's just give ourselves a chance to get back in one and we'll take the hit, and you know, we'll just say that, heyw was a crappy year and there's nothing we can do about it. But instead we're just it's just constant fighting and I don't think it makes anything healthier or better or easier. Yeah, I think it's interesting how so many things have come into focus. And obviously the unionization thing was something that was approached by the Northwestern team a few years back and didn't go anywhere, but it's such an important issue, and this really puts it into perspective that, you know, if players do want to play, they wanted to do so by having the best chance to have all the best protocols in place and have a say in what those protocols are, and they didn't have that, so it seems like it was just an impossibility to move forward without them having a voice and getting to a place where they were, you know, had a role in creating what this season would look like. So that's where the NFL has, you know, an advantage is that both sides work together and they got to a place where the players who chose to go forward with the season, you know, felt some comfort level, but you can't really know fully. I mean that's why I think the opt out deadline is is kind of a tough one because it's like you have to say yes by early August and you don't actually know how things are going on to unfold the rest of camp. Um, you're kind of basing it off a very limited set of like okay, well it seemed okay for a few days, but we don't know what it's going to be like when there's potentially travel for games or when there's tackling. They haven't even had practice yet, you know. So Um, I think, like you said, Connor, Um, maybe players want to play, but maybe they also don't have all the information. And I don't know that anyone making a decision to play can feel a hundred percent confident about how things are going to be. No. I totally agree. One thing though that I am a confident in is that the story we're gonna talk about next is a banger. I'm very excited Jenny brentis writing about Lamar Jackson. It's like I think back to um, you and I um in that playoff press box in Baltimore when they lost to the Chargers two years ago and everybody was saying, you know, put Joe Flacco back in. This kid doesn't have it. But there was some of these late theatrics and he got them back into the game. And to me, that was sort of the the birth of of Lamar Jackson and what we ended up seeing. And I thought you took a really cool angle to it that. You know, so many times along the way in his career, he's been pressured to change positions. Um, you know, we heard the idiocy um during the pre draft cycle about how he should be a wide receiver. And now he's voted by his peers as the best player in football and that has a huge trickle down effect on on a younger generation of football fans that are watching that. Right. Yeah, you know, in less than two years, he basically flipped this on its head, right. The stigma of being dual threat, well, that used to really just mean that you were a running quarterback, and Lamar Jackson made it so that it means both. He's equally inclined to run as he is to pass, and he's confident in his abilities to do both, so much so that his teammates say he never forced himself to do one or the other. Didn't go out there saying like, hey, I need to show that I can be a pocket passer. Obviously he made the jokes about not bad for a running back, and that's clearly something that fuels him, but not to the degree that he cared more about proving that he could pass the ball instead of getting the first down or getting the most yards in any given play. UM. And so I think the confidence with which he plays the position, and also the resolve that he's shown through his football career, including with the support of his mother, have really inspired a generation of young athletes. And so I ended up talking to a handful of kids who played football in South Florida. UM Lamar Jackson grew up training at McNair Park and Pompano Beach, and his quarterbacks coach there, Van Warren or he was He was a youth coach who specialized in quarterbacks, and he as Van puts it, he didn't particularly have any expertise, but he taught himself because he was sick of seeing his good athletes be moved to other positions and told they couldn't play quarterback when they moved up the ranks. So he taught himself and learned quarterback mechanics and taught started teaching quarterbacks so that no one could use that as an excuse to move them. And so he worked with Lamar Jackson. They had this Sunday afternoon ritual of going to McNair park. It was Van Warren, it was Felicia Jones, Lamar's mother. They would train him and when Lamar Jackson graduated from high school, Van thought it was over, and Felicia said, no, if we proved we did with Lamar, we can do it with other kids. So they continued these Sunday sessions at McNair park. Um they are for all positions, but also quarterbacks, and Lamar will come back and visit. And so there's some kids there who admire Lamar because they play at the same park that he did. There's also other kids that are connected to him in other ways through his throwing coach Joshua Harris Um his son is a quarterback. There's other players that he knows through UM through the foot all circles, and there's basically a lot of young athletes who might have been moved to other positions, whose coaches have tried to move them to other positions, and who have said, no, I this is the position that I play. I want to play quarterback like Lamar Jackson. I mean, I spoke to to one young kid, um Neo, Maiah Howard, and he was inspired to try playing quarterback when he first saw that clip of Lamar Jackson hurdling a Syracuse defender during his Heisman season, and he thought, I can do that. He played quarterback um Now. He went to Junior Olympics one summer, competed in the hundred meter dash. He's a really fast young kid, one of the fastest kids in the country in his AID group. And when he came back, the coach decided, oh, let's put him out wide receiver because he's so fast. So his dad's his dad said, you know what, let's switch teams. He can play somewhere else. He now wears number eight for uh Coincidentally, a youth team that's that's name the Ravens. UM. So that's kind of how Lamar has inspired fired kids, UM. And you know, his mother also talks to parents in the area about if you believe in your child, don't let them lose confidence, support them in their dream, you know, even if that means talking to coaches, even if that means switching teams, like you have to support your son's dream, like, don't let that dream die and be an active participant in saying you know what, and he can be a quarterback. And I think the fact that it was successful for Lamar has given confidence to kids and their parents. And she was Lamar Jackson's mother was demonized throughout the draft process, and you know, sort of this you know, smother mother, whatever you want to call it, you know, helicopter parent, whatever you want to say it. But I think it's just it's indicative of how we tend to assign, you know, different tropes or whatever it is or biases to two different people when you know, every single one of the quarterbacks in the NFL who does not look like Lamar Jackson, their parents were pushing people around at the youth level. Do you think that you know, Jared Goff got to where he is or you know, you know, I'm I'm I'm not you know, picking on one person in particular. I don't know this for sure, but do you think that all of these quarterbacks that grew up and went to these elite high schools and had all this training had parents that just sat idly by And we're like, well, it's great, Yeah, you can put matt little Matt, Mattie Stafford at running back to if you want. No, of course not. I mean they all had these parents, and so I think it's refreshing to see Lamar's mom in a different light, and in the light that I think that she deserves to be seen. I mean, she made this happen. There was a resilience there, especially then people at every turn we're saying, no, you're wrong, he needs to go somewhere else. Connor, you don't see the same kind of pushback for say, Archie Manning and the way he's orchestrated his children's career. Great example, Eli didn't play for the team, right, I mean Eli picked which team he played for, right. So I mean here you have a mother who thought that her child dream which he was right about. They were right. He is a quarterback. He can play quarterback. He challenged the perceptions of quarterback at every level of football. But that's a good thing, right. I mean, we've seen this exciting, thrilling outcome, this redefinition of the quarterback position because of his dream, because of the sport of his dream. And it's not just about him. Yes, of course she wanted a support her child. But I think it's really cool that they left this legacy at Nicknair Park. You know, Lamar and Felicia are there less now. I mean when he went to Louisville, that she and Van Warren kept this this Sunday afternoon tradition going. Um. You know, now she she lives with Lamar during the season. She obviously plays an active role in managing his career. Um, so she's there a little bit less, but they visit frequently in the off season. Um, if she's there and he's not, she'll sometimes put him on FaceTime. UM. At that park in the youth league there, Heisman trophy is like the Lamar Jackson Trophy and the street is named Lamar Jackson Way. And you know, I think it's a lot of quarterback X have a relationship with the community where they grew up in. But I think this one is really special and it's really different because I think that there are a lot of hurdles for black athletes to play the quarterback position, and that's always been the case. We've missed out on so many black quarterbacks through the years. They were moved to other positions. You know. Covering the NFL Connor, we all know, uh position coach or who is you know was made of running back or a dB or something else. Um. I mean we've all been there at practice. I mean covering the Jets. We saw it with like Anthony Glenn and Dennis Thurman. They would throw the football and I remember asking them, like, man, you have a great arm. But when they were growing up, they didn't have that option to play quarterback. They are moved to either running back or defensive back, and they both had a lot of success there. But it just makes you think about all of the quarterbacks you missed along the way. So I think it's what's unusual is just this gift that Lamar is giving to younger generations. UM. And you know, I think the redefinition that he's having really will have ripple effects. Um. Obviously, we have seen a shift in the quarterback mold during the years, but I think Lamar did it in a really exciting way, and he was unanimous m v P. I mean on draft night when he was waiting in the green room. I don't think anyone would have said that in a second season he would be Union and m v P. But Lamar would have said it, and his mom would have said it, and all the people surrounding him and the Ravens, to their credit, you know, listen, they passed him up, right, they didn't. They traded down the first round picked a tight end that they then traded away. But then they traded back into the first round they got him. And as you mentioned, Connor that that playoff game in his first year, that was a loss. And obviously the playoff early round loss is a hurdle the hell have to get over in his career, and he's committed to getting over. But that moment was really important because it was John Harbaugh saying, like, I'm committed to this guy and he's our guy for the future. We're not going to go back to Joe Flacco. We're going to grow with him. He's going to be the centerpiece of our offense. We're going to build a new offensive scheme unlike anything the NFL has seen around Lamar Jackson. And we also believe that the skills he has are not the ceiling that he will get more accurate as a passer. How many times have you heard people say a quarterback can't get more accurate. It's it's just like it's lazy coaching trope. Well, he got more accurate as a passer, right, And so I think that they really challenged UM a lot of those norms from a coaching perspective as well, and so I think Harbaugh deserves a lot of credit for that. Joe Burrow, I think his completion percentage went up almost thirty points and between his junior in serior. So, yes, you can get more accurate. And a lot of that starts with the coaches who are saying that we can't make them more accurate. Believe it or not, UM, But you know, just I think one final point on this that I think is amazing, UM, is that you know, we talked about Dennis Thurman, Anthony Lend, some of the um black coaches that we knew when we were covering the Jets, and and others that we've gotten to know along the way. More black quarterbacks means, you know, hopefully eventually more black offensive coaches in the pipeline, right. I mean that's a good thing. And you know, we how many times now if you look at every staff, the quarterback guru or the rising young star is typically like a quarterback that kind of bottomed out in the NFL at some point at a young age, but was seen as studious enough to latch on as a coordinator or something like that. I mean, we're setting ourselves up for a near future, hopefully where the pipeline can be replenished by other quarterbacks who have had different experiences, you know. I mean, it's just outrageous that it hasn't happened to this point. But fewer kids who have to change positions mean more black quarterbacks, and more black quarterbacks mean more black coaches. And I think that that's a good thing for the NFL in the long run and something that they've been trying to I don't know if they've been trying to fi for that long, but at least they're starting to pay attention to and realize that it's a huge problem. Yeah, And I think that's a great point to Connor because obviously Lamar Jackson is this unique talent. It's not like a Lamar Jackson is going to come along every year. So every quarterback that shares his dream that's coming up in his footsteps in South Florida or anywhere else in the country is not going to have the same success that Lamar Jackson has had. However, they can have whatever success they pursue or whatever success you know, they were able to achieve, and that doesn't necessarily mean being the m v P in the second NFL season. Maybe they can go to college. Um, you know, one of the goals of Felicia was to help kids get college scholarships and be on a path to do so, maybe they play football in college, Maybe they go into coaching. Right, There's a lot of other ways to contribute. But I think you're exactly right when we open these doors, you know, it's it's not just about being the m v P. It's about being a quarterback coach or just changing these perceptions that have been there for so long. And so I think there's a wider impact than just like one generational talent like Lamar Jackson is. For sure. Well, I mean, if if that didn't sell it because I'm telling you there's more good stuff in there. So go buy the magazine. It comes out if you if you have a safe way of doing so, or you're a safe way of doing so. Yeah, exactly, they'll see it. It's gonna look great wag wins or something, you know, Yeah, yeah, or wherever magazines, yeah, wherever they're sold. So and while you're there, while you open the magazine or if you go online, connor story is already online. Um, you'll can see connor Or's byline and he's got a great piece on what Joe Montana's experience with the Kansas City Chiefs in the early nineties can tell us about Tom Brady's experience. And you open this story with a really great anecdote that made me laugh out loud. Connor, why don't you start there? Well, it's been my lifelong dream. I've already gotten the words salvia into Sports Illustrated and now fart So, um, some really proud moments from my parents there for sure, um, and all my teachers. But uh yeah, So the first offensive meeting that Joe Montana went to as a member of the Chiefs, like this was a long drawn out process. It was covered vigorously in the media. Um. You know, the Chiefs were battling the Cardinals for the right to sign Montana. Was very Peyton Manning esque in the recruitment UM, and there was all these rumors about where he was gonna go and what he's gonna do. And so they finally land him, and you know, Marty Schottenheimer has opened up his mind and he says, Okay, I'm gonna throw the ball and I'm done being so strict strict as a as a running guy. I'm gonna pass. We're gonna get the best quarterback that we can find. Um. And so they bring Montana in. There's a ton of excitement. They go to start the meeting in the place just reeks um, and you know everyone's looking around being like, what's going on? Um, And it gets so bad that they have to literally evacuate the rooms. So like, imagine the worst fart you've ever smelled, um times a million. Uh. That filled up an auditorium and uh they had to leave. And so you know that all along everyone's kind of looking around saying, well, what the heck? That was weird? And you know, people slowly start to realize that it was Joe Montana. He brought a stink bomb into the facility and lit it off on his first day to be like, hey, you know, I am one of you. Um, I am not above or beyond anybody else. So though I would imagine somebody else would have gotten cut for doing something like that, but it was. The story is kind of about this herculean effort that he went through to to not stand out, you know, to to say that I am no more important than you. And a lot of his former teammates said, you know, we think a lot about that. When we heard about the Tom Brady news, It's like, yeah, this guy's a great quarterback, and he's got a legendary work ethic, there's no doubt, but like it's these little things that you can do, um that make you a part of the team. And not every superstar does that particularly well. I mean, you look at Michael Jordan's he do that particularly well in Washington, I don't think so, you know, and there are other guys that don't translate as well to that second team when you've already had that transcendent status and the Chiefs for good those two years. I mean, it wasn't. It's not something that we think about a lot, because it wasn't like they won a super Bowl those years. But they were good. Yeah, I mean they had good teams. And you know, it's funny because, you know, one of the players told me that Joe Montana is famous for um the line in the Super Bowl where it's like, hey, did did you see John Candy over there? And his whole thing was, you know, making him seem calm in these chaotic situations, and it calmed everybody else down. And he would do that routinely in Kansas City. You know, he would go into the huddle and he would say like, hey, you get a load of this person in the stands, or you know, you see what this person is wearing whatever, um and he would carry that with him and the players said that they had never experienced something like that in their lives, where you know, someone just instantly made everybody feel so calm. And he would say things like, you know what, I'm I'm going to win this game, so just give me, you know, two or three seconds in the pocket and we'll figure this out. This is what I do. And so, you know, I think that in that way he was that Joe cool guy that they always expected. But then after the games, he's taking you out to dinner. You know. He would take a different position group out every night of the week after wins, and so he would divvy it up Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. And he was always out with these guys. You know, he was always present. And I think that that went a long way, you know, and then it it fostered that mutual care. You know, he took the blame for every missed snap, and his center told me that never in his entire life at a quarterback taken blame for a snap. And here's Joe Montana saying, this is my fault. I didn't put my hands in the right place. And all this stuff goes a long way. And so it was interesting to talk to both his teammates and then Tom Brady's former teammates to say, like, how close is this guy to what Joe is and where is his level of you know, emotional intelligence and can he can he respond in a way that Joe Montana responded. Yeah. One difference in Montana starting over versus Brady starting over was that it was clear that his error was ending right. He was injured. Steve Young was their different situation with Brady where you know, while there was probably uh an understanding internally that this might be or would be Brady's last year, there wasn't a clear succession plan in place. It wasn't obvious until he announced that he was going elsewhere. So how do you think that difference will play into it? Yea, so Paul Hackett, who was the offensive coordinator of that team. So that's that's the biggest factors that Tom had a choice and Joe did not have a choice. As much as Joe wanted to think that he could still be the quarterback of the forty niners, there was a humbling there where you had to recognize that it was time to move on and that you you'd actually physically been replaced. And I think that that creates a different way to handle things emotionally. You are humbled in a way that Tom Brady I don't think has ever had to be humbled um before, and so it's fascinating to see, you know, how he's going to take that um and spin it forward, you know. Um. I talked to Matt Castle for the story and he said that, yeah, I mean Tom Brady was at the beginning of his career, before he reached that superstar status, he was at the Outlaw drinking with all the guys, um, which was kind of their biker bar hangout place. Um. He can't do that anymore. UM. I think as as famous as we think Joe Montana was in the nineties, I think Tom Brady is probably a hundred times that in terms of not being able to go out, um and enjoy yourself privately, um, in a semi public setting. But at the same time, he's like, you know, if there was a private party, Um, if there were um, you know, a kid's birthday, you know, anything where the guys were getting together, Tom was there, you know, and yucking it up with everybody, and it was a totally normal part of that process for him. In a very important part of that process for him. So if you're Bruce Arians, I mean, I think that that lends well to the future, Like you hope that he once we were able to gather safely, you know that he takes that seriously because I think that you just can't have you can't just bring a quarterback in and have him sitting around and basically be this untouchable entity, you know what I mean. Yeah, I mean, looking back, it's pretty remarkable that it was so seamless for Joe Montana to assimilate into the Kansas City team and the community and everything else after his story career in San Francisco. Do you think that it will go as seamlessly for Tom Brady. I think one of the interesting things that um I had heard during the story was that Tom in New England, UM would, you know, treat everybody differently, but in a good way. So if Randy Moss made a mistake of practice, you know, he would take him to a very quiet place where nobody else could see them and say, hey, you know you mess this up, and you know this is what we're gonna do to fix it. If it was Wes Welker, he would scream at him in front of everybody because he knew that that's how West liked to digest information. And I think that those little glimpses of the way that Tom can understand people and read people, you would hope that that bodes well for the future in Tampa, right. I mean, there are stories going back too early in his days in Foxborough, you know, after he won his first Super Bowl where you know, some scrub and sy see Tom Brady in the Yournald. He'd know their name already. He knows something little about them, and that was something that he took very seriously. Uh, but it does he continue to do that now when he really doesn't have to anymore? Right, it's not the Patriot way. He can be free of that. He can act however he wants to act. Um, but will he you know? Or is part of the Patriot way that we it because of what Tom Brady did through those years. So I think it's going to be interesting. Is sort of a Chicken or the egg thing that we're all looking out for. Yeah. No, it was really interesting insight into both Brady and Montana and a lot of good stories that made it a really fun read. Connor, So I really enjoyed it. Yeah, I really enjoyed it. It's a weak side issue of sports illustrating. How exciting is that? Yeah? Yeah, So yours ran online Monday. Mine was supposed to run online Tuesday. By the time the episode comes out, we will see um maybe a college football day understandably, so, so you know, we'll see how it goes with the online Um but definitely both will be in the magazine this week. And it's a weird time to talk about season preview, but I think, you know, we both learned something reporting our stories and hopefully readers find it interesting as well. That's right. You know, we're going to talk season preview now until there is no season to preview. Uh, we've we've we've pounded the table enough to say, I don't think there should be a season, and I don't know if there's going to be a season, But now that it seems like there's going to be, uh, we're just going to keep keep on previewing. Jenny, Yeah, yeah, Well, and in the meantime, we have a lot of vegetable recipes to get us through, Connor. I don't know if you noticed that several people wrote in with some vegetable recipes that I'm going to sort through and maybe try out. So stay tuned with that. You know how we love our vegetable recipes. If you miss last week, we revealed our plans to open a either a vegetarian or vegan or at least vegetable forward Talk Forward, definitely vegetable Forward, um called Root. It is our backup plan. So we're just collecting recipes and we appreciate re or feedback on vegetables or football or really any other topic. So as the great chefs say, create the restaurant that you would want to eat at, And so I envisioned Jenny and I, weary from a long training trip, stumbling into this vegetarian taco oasis and just having our fill you know exactly right that is that would be a go to for the training camp trip which we normally would be on right now. But we can at least imagine, so hopefully some of these recipes will kind of give us that flair for you know, trying new things and what would have been a road trip. So well. We will be back later this week with more news topics, more discussion um and as always, thanks for listening to the Week's Side podcast. This podcast is me Jenny Rerentis and Connor Or. We are produced by Shelby Royston, Size, Executive producer of Podcasts as Scott Brody Ben Eagle is director of Editorial Projects and product Mark Marievik is Ameritus Executive director of the MMQB. Keep up with our entire lineup of podcasts five days a week by subscribing to the mm QB NFL podcast for free on Apple Podcasts, and while you're there, please do us a favorite and leave a reading and review. It really does help other people find the show. Is also available on Spotify, Radio dot com, Stitcher, s i dot com, and wherever else you listen to podcasts.