Hour 3: Andrew Siciliano & Pro Football Hall of Famer Joe Thomas Talk Browns, Vikings & More

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0:41Find Starbucks frappuccino drinks wherever you buy your groceries. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Hey, everybody! Can't get enough of the Rich Eisen Show? You're in luck. You can find us everywhere. Watch us weekdays on Disney Plus from noon to 3 Eastern. Miss the show? We've got a podcast so you can listen anytime. But here's the best part. Our YouTube channel. Subscribe at youtube.com slash Rich Eisen Show and you'll never miss a moment. Now, on with the show. This is the Rich Eisen Show. Don't stop. With guest host, Andrew Siciliano. Andrew Siciliano. From the Rich Eisen Show's studio in Los Angeles.

1:28Earlier on the show, senior baseball writer for The Athletic, Tyler Kepner. Long-time golf writer, Alan Shipnock. Coming up, Pro Football Hall of Famer, Joe Thomas. And now, sitting in for Rich, it's Andrew Siciliano. Hey, everybody. Thanks for being here. I am happy to be here. We are happy that you are here. It is a weekend. It's a holiday weekend. We got golf. We got the U.S. Open. We have the U.S. men's national team about to continue its quest for this thing, which looks like a giant turkey leg, I'll be honest with you. And it looks delicious as we come up towards the noon Pacific time hour where that game will kick off in Seattle, three o 'clock Eastern time.

2:13The U.S. men's national team against Australia after a great scene here in Los Angeles yesterday at Los Angeles Stadium, where Switzerland got a win over the team that was not Italy. But I was still there. Only mildly disappointed that it wasn't Italy. But regardless, we're happy to be here. And happy that Joe Thomas, the Hall of Famer, is scheduled to join us coming up shortly live from his farm in Wisconsin. He has a brand new series in which he takes Hall of Famers out to his farm. Jared Allen being the latest. The Hall of Fame experience. Because Joe is a man of the people and a man of the farm and a man of the cattle these days.

2:54Yes. Do you get those at the fair or wherever? Like the giant turkey legs wrapped in bacon? So good. I have. So good. Have you not? No, I have. I'm just wondering if people indulge because they're huge. It's like Flintstones, Brontosaurus burger. What I'm going to be here shortly, he can tell us, are those roided up birds? They have to be. How are they not? But do they have a farm that's just for the fairs across the country? I've never thought about it. That's a great question. Because where are these giant legs coming from? Yeah, they're gigantic. They're a foot long. They're killer birds. Yeah.

3:41Like from the boys. Jason, do you have an answer? Oh, yeah. They got a lot of tattoos, a lot of fights. They're ready to go. TJ. They're just lifting nonstop. I'm looking it up now. I said the same time as you. I've never even thought about it. So now I'm going to look up. What are you finding? I'm literally typing it up as we speak. Are there roided up birds for fair? Because they do have the steroid Olympics, where they call the enhanced games. games. Right. That's the first time you ever came to me. You just thought I would know that one? No, I was trying to introduce everyone on the show. I'm sorry.

4:11I wasn't suggesting that you have experience with roided up turkeys. Like, of all things, you could have asked me. Roided up turkeys, by the way, a great fantasy team name. Pretty good. Fantastic fantasy team name. Pretty good. U.S. Open update. Let's get that out of the way here. Live from Shinnecock Hills, it is Wyndham Clark. golf name. Like that is, if you had to rank golf names, Wyndham Clark. Oh, it's a good one. That just screams I'm a really good golfer. Wyndham Clark, a 7 under with a 64. And then today a 69. He has a four-stroke lead over Matt Fitzpatrick, who shot a 70 today after a 67 day one.

4:58And he is at 3 under par. Xander Shoffley as well at 3 under. He's done for the day. 71 He won in a 66 day two, so five better than he was a day ago. Let's get a man on who can answer Chris Brockman's question. He's a Hall of Famer. If anyone would know, it would be Joe Thomas. It would be Joe Thomas. He's a Hall of Famer, also Hall of Fame Farms. He's a rancher. He's a cattleman. He's a turkey hunter. And he joins us now live on The Rich Eisen Show. Hi, Joe Thomas. How are you, man? Oh, I'm doing amazing. How are you guys? What's up, man? We are doing well. We're doing well. And Brockman just had this question.

5:34kind of randomly out of nowhere how did we get to it uh you had mentioned turkey legs turkey legs yeah how i don't know how we got there trophy so the trophy looked like a turkey oh yeah okay here's what i said so this fifa world cup trophy i said kind of looks like a turkey leg and brockman brought up the like county fair massive like dinosaur sized turkey legs you've seen them right wrapped in bacon oh yeah they're amazing actually when i was in uh high school senior year i went Went to visit Virginia Tech. It was one of my visits. The Hokies. But to a game, the Hokies, believe it or not, in their concession stands at that time, they sold a massive turkey leg as the featured entree in their premium concession.

6:15So who knew? Maybe they still do it. Maybe they don't at all. I haven't been back for a game yet. You didn't go to Blacksburg. You went to Madison. And for those that don't know, the Hokies are fighting gobblers. But Brockman's question was, Joe, do they have a farm, a ranch, where they roid up turkeys, like dinosaur-sized turkeys. How do they get turkey legs that big? That's a great question. I think they would need to do some type of genetic manipulation and cross it with like an emu or an ostrich, potentially, and you'd be able to get that same thing. So, hey, maybe there's a future for Hall of Fame Farms roided up ostrich, emu, turkey things.

6:56In. I'm in. Silent partner. We're in. We'll do it. I'll take your money all day. Hall of Fame Farms, by the way, is amazing. And you guys have gotten the steaks, right? Yes? Yes. Okay. Yes? I mean, I tried to get the steaks, I think, maybe last time they were out. But I got the jerky. There you go. And it was amazing, Joe. It was great. And I haven't ordered me to order somewhere. Definitely. It's amazing stuff. And when you go out to eat with Joe now, they come over and they say, hey, and our special of the day is this steak, whatever. Joe immediately says, hey, can you tell me where it's from?

7:34Like, what farm was it from? And the waitress has to go back to the kitchen. This happened recently. And come back and report. Oh, okay. And then Joe maybe orders the steak. But the reason, one of the reasons I wanted to have you on today is because you have this new series on your farm in which you invite Hall of Famers to Hall of Fame Farm. And the first episode is hysterical with Jared Allen because of all guys who seemingly know their way around your neck of the woods, so to speak, it's Jared Allen. And he shows up to teach you how to lasso. And you, I don't know if you did this on purpose, you threw him off the back of the ATV while he's trying to lasso a steer.

8:16Is he okay? Or a baby calf? Is he okay? He did survive. And the reason we were put in the situation is because he's planning to come out. We're going to film the first episode of the Hall of Fame experience. As you mentioned, I've got my farm in Wisconsin. We raised Hall of Fame Wagyu and Angus. Jared Allen grew up on a cutting horse ranch. We're doing a full ride bourbon, which is his new bourbon that he's launching right now. A collaboration with Hall of Fame Farms and full ride bourbon for Father's Day. We're launching it very soon. So let's do a show. Let's bring him out here. You can be our inaugural episode on YouTube.

8:50And he was supposed to bring his horses, which he has a number of them. but he was coming right from his daughter's volleyball tournament somewhere else. And he didn't have time to go to the ranch and hitch up the horses and bring them to Wisconsin. So he shows up with no horses, but he had a rope. So when he got in, I said, well, we have calves to tag. So we're going to have to figure out how to do this. And we allowed a few calves to get fairly big. Usually you try to tag them right when they hit the ground. But, well, we wanted to save them and see if we could lasso them with Jared's horses.

9:20So no horses. So I said, well, do you think we could do it off the back of an ATV? And he said, well, we might as well try because that's the only way we can find out. So Jared starts on the back of the ATV and he's lassoing. And the problem was when he went to throw, he actually got the back leg on the first calf that we drove up on, which was amazing to be able to do that on the back of an ATV for people that don't know. It's not a smooth ride through the cow-calf pasture on an ATV versus a horse. It's very bumpy, very tricky. and you've got a guy with bad thumbs trying to hit the thumb throttle and make sure we're keeping a perfect speed next to the calf as it's running next to its mom.

9:59So he gets the lasso on the back of the leg, and this is my first time doing it. I got no idea, but he pulls to tighten the lasso. But when he does it, this athletic Hall of Fame Farms Wagyu leaps and jumps through the lasso. So now the lasso is not on the back of the leg. And so now he thinks it's going to pull tight, right? And he's got to be able to pull the calf legs together. and then we jump off and rope it, but it jumps out of the lasso. And so he flips, that's over to the kettle. And I'm going and I see, and all of a sudden I feel that everything behind me is getting lighter. And I look around and there's Jared laying on his bag.

10:33And I go, oh God, we got our first insurance liability claim on the very first episode of the Hall of Fame experience. This is not going to be good if I break the leg of my Hall of Famer. I'm supposed to be showing a wonderful Hall of Fame experience on the farm too. So it didn't start well, but thank God the man is a man of steel. And he was no worse for the way he got up and we were able to continue the episode with many more roping opportunities. It's great stuff. Talking to all the famer, Joe Thomas. And I did not know this, Joe, and you seemingly were surprised as well. Jared Allen opens up like he brought all these different kinds of lassos like right out of the box.

11:10Yeah, the look on your face. Like, so there are different, what, like density of cord or length of lasso? Like what's going on here? So I was a shot put discus thrower in high school, college. And, you know, you've got your custom shots and discs that have the disc has different weights and different materials. You know, sometimes for different conditions, you got wind, you got no wind. You're, you know, trying to do certain things with how it fits, just like a golf club to your personal swing. And who knew? But apparently roping glasses are the same way because he showed up with like a branded case.

11:45You know, bowling's big in Wisconsin. And, you know, like the fancy bowlers that are rolling 500s and getting paid, you know, at least tens of dollars as professional bowlers in Wisconsin. They've got the fancy bowling cases. So Jared Allen's got his roping case and he's talking about this one's a little bit heavier if you're trying to do this. And this one's more stiff and this one's a little bit looser. And he's got all these situations. And I'm just sitting there like, Jared, as long as you got to rope, that's all we need. Because really, I'm not going to be roping any calves. I'm going to try my best, but there's no chance of success anyway.

12:15So you can just leave the rest of them in the bag. Maybe we'll talk about it later at a different point. It's great stuff, man. I'm not just saying that because it's you. I laughed. And Jared Allen's the perfect guest. Who are you looking for the next guy up or who else is doing the series? So we had Jared and then we had Barstool Sports out. Chef Donnie of the great Barstool Sports cooking shows that he's got down there. And then Kadic, who is their college and pro football expert. He's an offensive lineman from Indiana. So those guys came up for two days. And the cool thing about Hall of Fame experience and what we're doing with the YouTube is first episode with Jared was a little bit more about just introducing you to the farm, I'm introducing you to some of the characters, some of the cattlemen, herdsmen that work out here with me.

13:03And then each episode with the guests is going to cater to what the guest wants to do, the things that they like to lean into. So Bar School Sports and that experience is going to be totally different. Obviously, those guys are hilarious. Chef Donnie's an incredible cook. We got him cooking over an open fire up at a campsite that we set up up in the woods, a beautiful setting. We had an incredible night with them, especially the best part was cameras turned off, everybody left. And it was just the three of us sitting around the fire drinking beer, having laughs, listening to the coyotes howl and the owls hooting the trees.

13:32And it was just really, really fun because of how different and the contrast between we got our roping cattleman, Jared Allen here. And then we got our goofy, more funny, chefy, more food based show here with Barstool Sports. And we got Midwest comedian, Charlie Behrens. We filmed with him last week. So we've got a few in the can that we're putting together. We're editing and getting ready to release over the next couple of weeks. And then we've got unbelievable guests scheduled for the rest of the summer between chefs and musicians and more Hall of Famers and entertainers. And it's been just a lot of fun for me to be able to show people my life, what I've done transferring from the football field now to the farming field and raising cattle and learning this entire business myself, raising the cattle and then now selling Hall of Fame Wagyu beef on the other end.

14:22And it's been amazing and bringing fans and NFL fans and people throughout the country that are interested in farming, interested in all these amazing Hall of Famers, these musicians, these entertainers, and seeing them experience farm life for the first time. It's just been a joy for me, even if we didn't do any filming, if we weren't putting anything on our YouTube page. And the YouTube page is, and I have it up here, it's Hall of Fame Farms. Hall of Fame Farms. and it's not just the stuff on the farm like you're hanging out with Jacob Mizorowski as well and some of the brewers Ryan Braun which is kind of cool can we talk about football here for a second all right so for those that don't know and Joe obviously does I do the play-by-play for the Browns and Joe is there with our good friend an amazing broadcaster in his own right Chris Rose doing the preseason TV for your Cleveland Browns locally we have three games this year one of which by the way well of course there are three games in the preseason but only two for you guys because one One of them is going to be an Amazon Prime game.

15:17Browns and your Patriots week three of the preseason, a primetime affair. Joe Brockman asked me earlier, who starts more games this year? Deshaun or Shador? You want to take a swing at that? That's obviously the question everybody in Cleveland is looking to find the answer to. I think coming out of the offseason, it seems like Deshaun Watson is probably going to be the guy going into training camp as the starter. He looks pretty healthy coming off that Achilles tear that he had. And I think the experience that he has playing football, the arm looks like it's still there. The legs look like they've come back.

15:57And that's one thing Shadour doesn't exactly bring you right now is the ability to scramble. He's not exceptional at using his legs to get a first down, although he is very good at scrambling to make plays to be able to throw the football. I think Deshaun right now just gives that offense a little bit more versatility to be able to open things up and be more dynamic. And I think he'll probably be the guy, if I had to bet, who's going to start more games this season for the Browns, it would be Deshaun. It's funny. I went the other way. And I don't know that we know and I don't know that Todd Munkin knows.

16:30I don't know that there is a right answer here. I think eventually you've got to get to a point where, and listen, they may win games with Deshaun. The defense is how good. Like, can they actually be carry a team good? And the last two years, as good as they were, the offense was only scoring 16 points a game, so no defense is that good. Eventually, you have to turn to the younger guy because the core now is so young. But if Deshaun plays well, to your point, let's say he wins the job and he plays well, you're not going to bench him just for the sake of youth. So it's can he win the job and how well can he actually play?

17:08and being out there last week for minicamp, look, they both at times look really good. For both of them, it just comes down to consistency. And you know this, like they're in pajamas. It's a glorified passing camp. It's minicamp. They're in shorts. Like there are no pads. Like can you, you can get a feel I think for quarterback play, but you can't get a feel for the line. You can't get a feel for what that defense is truly doing against you. Until you get to camp. And I think people were upset because Todd Munkin had kind of said that I want to have my guy in place at the end of minicamp. But there's no game on June 11th.

17:51Like, don't you think healthy competition is a good thing for training camp, even if it's at quarterback? Yeah, definitely competition is always a good thing. I think Todd's words were more to the line of, we want to have a clear starter going in, So we know how reps are going to be split up to begin training camp so that all the guys that are going to be working around them, they know who the person is that is going to be under center that they're going to work with. They know the guy that's going to be calling the plays. The receivers have a chance to get ready and prepared for working with Deshaun.

18:24Because I think it is good knowing at that position at least what the depth chart looks like. And that's not to say it doesn't change in week two, week three, week four as they play preseason games. But I think just having some certainty so it's not a question that everybody's getting asked every single week. And that's the challenge for those other positions, right? Because when you're a receiver, when you're a tackle, when you're a running back, you want to focus on getting yourself better and being the best version of yourself so you can help your teammates. And if everybody's always asking you, who's looking better?

18:55Who's number one? Who's taking more reps? What's going on at the quarterback position? it just puts an extra layer of burden on you as you're trying to figure out your fit within that offense and so I think Todd just wanted to be able to say hey we're going to name who's first who's second we'll split up the reps give everybody certainty and then the competition happens within that structure which I think gives everybody just a little bit more calm and stability in training camp where their meat of the work for the season prep is going to happen because as you mentioned Those guys are out there in pajamas right now.

19:27They're not even allowed to get close and sniff each other anymore. At least when I was playing, we would wear pajamas, but we actually hit each other. So I actually would rather wear shoulder pads back when we used to do OTAs and mini camps because at least my shoulders were protected because the contact was the same. So it's a lot different. Training camp is where you're getting all your work. And I think the rest of that team deserves to know who's first, who's second right now. And then they can split the reps upward. Shadour is going to get probably some of those first team reps to give them an opportunity to work with that first offense.

19:58And then they can find out with true competition who's looking the best. And then maybe after a week or two, they might make a switch depending on how those guys are both playing. Talking to the great Joe Thomas, the Hall of Famer Joe Thomas. By the way, I just texted you accidentally. I meant to text Brockman. My apologies if that makes sense. Hopefully it's not a picture I don't need to see. No, no, no, no, no, no, nothing like that. But if you look at your phone later and go like, what is he talking about? It meant for Brockman. my apologies um but let's go there actually because he and I were discussing something else in your backyard in the NFC North you're in Wisconsin so we'll go we'll call the NFC North your backyard the other I guess you could say real competition there are other quarterback questions like can panics get back and what does Kevin do with with both panics and two if they're if they're both healthy who knows but in Minnesota there's a competition like there is in Cleveland I would say it's got to be Kyler because you don't go out and get Kyler to put him behind J.J.

20:54McCarthy. But if you're a veteran piece on that team, and they went out last year and spent money on the offensive line. They tried to make it work last year with a rookie quarterback. You see Justin Jefferson say, oh yeah, Kyler in practice. Obviously, he's picking up the offense, and that's a process, but you can see how he throws guys open. Don't you think the veterans on that team want to see Kyler Murray, kind of regardless of what he does in the preseason? We've seen J.J. love the kid, but let's just go here to see if it works. The Vikings spent a first-round draft choice on J.J. McCarthy, the quarterback.

21:33They were going to give him every opportunity to win that starting job. You basically give the starting job to that rookie quarterback when you take him in the first round. and when you admit the mistake and go out and get somebody and you spend the type of resources that they did to bring in Kyler Murray he is your starter and you're doing that because the guys around him your important receivers your players that you're counting on to make plays that are started and provided by the quarterback those are the guys that don't trust JJ and that's why you make the switch and so if you look at that situation JJ I think will firmly be planted as the backup.

22:10And that's not to say that he doesn't have a chance to continue to develop and then win the job at some point far down the line. But right now, it's clearly Kyler Murray's job. Yeah. And I want to see what it looks like. I want to see where Kyler Murray and Kevin O 'Connell can cook up. I want to see Kyler. It was not all his fault the last couple of years in Arizona, clearly. But he has taken a team to the postseason. It was many years ago. It ended in 2021 in LA when they lost to the Rams and Kyler finished that game on the bench. That's a whole other story. Didn't go back out there. But the guy was a number one overall pick.

22:46He does have talent. He is at the end of a contract, a contract that somebody else is playing or paying. I want to see him go out there and do his thing. Look, Andrew, remember we were doing Thursday night football. We were in Arizona. They were playing the Packers. And I remember in our pre-production meeting, we were talking about, is Kyler Murray the front runner to win the NFL MVP? And I said yes at that point. And they won that game. Green Bay was undefeated at that point. And then the Cardinals beat him. Beat him. He looked great. I mean, he's had really, really awesome stretches where he played as one of the best quarterbacks in the NFL.

23:22And I guarantee with Kevin O 'Connell being one of the best offensive minds in the NFL, he is licking his chops to be able to build an offense around Kyler to see if he can unlock that talent that he has, that he's played with and up to at certain long stretches during his career. And then with Kevin O 'Connell, who's one of the calmest coaches in the NFL, to be able to use that calm demeanor that he has to teach consistency and process with Kyler so that those rough stretches are eliminated and smoothed out. And they believe that he can be a pro bowl. He can be a great top five quarterback in the NFL.

23:57And so I'm excited to see if they can make that happen. I mean, that's one of the great storylines that we have going into this NFL season. because I think people have seen what Kevin O 'Connell has done with sometimes less than amazing quarterback play and what he did with Sam Darnold to be able to turn him and revitalize his career. And they want to see if he can do it again with Kyler Murray. By the way, I'm wrong. I totally reversed it. It was the Cardinals who were undefeated with Kyler. That's why we were having the MVP conversation. And Aaron Rodgers and the Packers came to town and beat them because, Kyler, there's a miscommunication on the end of the game, throw in the end zone.

24:32We were standing right there. And then Aaron tested positive for COVID and missed the following week. And then Jordan Love made his start. All right. It's all coming back together. You're brilliant. I'm not. I remember nothing. I have Google. All I'm thinking about is cattle in my head right now. Calving numbers. I got to go tag a couple of calves after this. So I'm glad you refreshed my memory. You're the only person who's ever ended his talk on the show by saying I have to go tag some calves. Yeah. Yeah. And you're not talking about like, like doing, doing gym stuff. You're actually going to go out there.

25:06No, no, no. We actually, um, I've got five local high school kids that work for me as interns in the summer and they're not huge men. Muscaday, Wisconsin somehow didn't get the big German jeans like Milwaukee did where I'm from. And so we have a massive bull calf that had an ear tag when it was born, it ripped out and now it's like two or three weeks. And this thing is the size of Sean Rogers at his peak. It's like three 60. and they can't tackle him. And so they're calling in the reliever. They're bringing in the lefty to see if I can come in and tackle him. They'll distract Mama so we can get a new ear tag in him.