Revisiting Pre-Draft Outstanding Questions

25:34Tom Pelissero:When it was brought up to me in our meeting, hey, did you see the letter Hockey Lee wrote? And I thought, well, that's funny. And then later, as I'm trying to write this script, I'm not finding it anywhere on, like, Google searches or whatever, but I'm like, where did y 'all see that? And then the producer that had it's like, oh, it's on Eisenstein. So I read your feed, and I'm like, there it is. I see the quotes that work, and I just splat, I just slam it in there on the script and read it on television. Fake news. Fake news. Hashtag, yes. Hashtag fake news. I'm mortified. Apologies to Mr. Hockey.

26:04Tom Pelissero:I'm sorry. We did not know. That was not our intent. We didn't know it was going to happen like that. That's entirely on us for not vetting. It goes off to me that I'm not able to find this anywhere but there. But again, and this is where I'll turn it and point at you and blame you, when you're a source of information and you've got stuff no one else has got, you think, yeah, sure, I've got the Huckooly retirement butter. And it's, I guess, believable that he's got his own stationery with himself on it and there's a watermark of him as a rat. As believable as it is that he's going to go sort out the lactic acid with this regimen.

26:40Tom Pelissero:Vigorous regimen. Vigorous regimen. I beg your pardon. You're the best, man. You're the best. I'm sorry. You're the worst. Don't spoof me like that.

26:54Tom Pelissero:We did have one other piece of veteran quarterback news a short time ago. Coming out of the New York Jets. Do you think we need one more? Jets coach Aaron Glenn announcing Tyrod Taylor having a knee procedure. Hope he's back week one. But they'll see. No more preseason for Tyrod Taylor. Again, Tyrod Taylor, who has had more ill-timed injuries, maybe than any quarterback I can remember. Yeah, man. Keeps coming back. Great guy. He's a pretty efficient quarterback when he plays. He was the quarterback on the Buffalo team that went to the playoffs in 2017. He's got some things that he's accomplished in this league.

27:41Tom Pelissero:Here's my question for you. Brockman, I'm going to test you on this. Don't look. Don't cheat. Eyes up. Name another quarterback besides Justin Fields and Tyrod Taylor on the Jets roster. All right, so TJ loves Mike White, but we saw him play for Buffalo over the weekend. Can I get a hint? one was an undrafted free agent who played at i think kansas state a couple years ago and the other one was drafted played at an sec school this year was drafted this year drafted this year from an sec school tj jump in if you got it one of the like one of the good sec schools or and i bring this up because if tyrod's not ready to go week one and you don't acquire somebody else.

28:26Tom Pelissero:This is the guy who will be in the lineup for the New York Jets. Can you name either of these quarterbacks? No. Absolutely not. I will give you I have no clue. I will give you initials. Okay, great. Here we go. The initials of the quarterback who was an undrafted free agent a couple years ago. We're talking about the Jets, right? The Jets. Or the Jets. Initials are A.M. Played at Kansas State. is on the Jets roster. Austin Matthews. Okay, that's... No, that's... That's a hockey player. That's not it. All right, hold on. A.M. This is... Nope. This guy is... Nothing is coming. This is like you not being able to name the vice president.

29:15Tom Pelissero:This guy's one step away from having the nuclear codes. Something happens to Justin Fields right now. This guy could be played. This is the Kansas State guy? Played at Nebraska and Kansas State. I'm looking at Adrian Martinez. Adrian Martinez is the answer. If you had said Nebraska, I would have got it. Currently listed as the number three. All right, now this guy was drafted. This guy was drafted this year from an SEC school. All right, which one? Initials are B, C. There's so many now. One step away. Justin Fields gets stepped on again. This guy is playing in week one against the Steelers. If Tyron's not ready to go.

29:59Tom Pelissero:Coming up on the sheet. BC. Blake Corum. Wrong school conference position and name. Did they play in the bracket last year? They did not play in the bracket. I have interviewed his head coach on this show. Oh, my God. his his head coach's first name is Eli yes I do remember that no no idea oh uh uh uh uh no not gonna get it his last name's cook there you go I'm gonna give I'm gonna give I'm gonna give that count Brady Cook Brady Cook never heard of Missouri quarterback Brady Cook He was a legit player. Drafted. Missouri. No one thinks about Missouri as an SEC school. He was undrafted. I thought he went in the seventh.

30:53Tom Pelissero:He was undrafted. I'm sure that's what threw me out. That was the issue. This could be an entire game. We could do a full three hours on just trying to name the third string quarterbacks on roster. I don't know how interesting that would be after the 30th minute. Unless it's like a Detroit where you kind of know because they're going through it. where and in hookers out there. Right. And now year three, coming back, you had the knee at Tennessee. I get the fun player watch. I can do Cleveland. Cleveland's easy. Cleveland, there's six on the roster right now. We're constantly talking about these guys.

31:27Tom Pelissero:Cleveland, I think everybody can go six deep on that roster. And by the way, Greg Olson is going to join us shortly here. I don't know if Greg Olson could go three deep on every one of these rosters. He probably could. He's calling the Seahawks game in week one. I mean, I don't even know who the Pats third string is after Josh Jobs. Hold on. Seahawks depth chart right now. Something happens to Sam Darnold. Oh, my gosh. Actually, this is an easy one. You should know these. One guy's back there, and one guy was drafted this year. I have mentioned him on this show. Matt Flynn. No. I saw him play the other day, so I know this.

32:04Tom Pelissero:Matt Flynn, Tavares Jackson, Russell Wilson. That was 2012. This guy was drafted this year. I talked about him on this show today. TJ, you go. Oh, it's Drew Locke and Jalen Milrow because I watched them. Jalen Milrow honestly should just be the starter. All right, 49ers depth chart. Can you name another quarterback besides Brock Purdy on the depth chart of the 49ers? Absolutely. They clearly have three more. Jimmy Garoppolo. Well, one you should be able to get. I know one Brockman. If you can't get this, oh my God, I think we have to ask you to leave the show for the rest of the day. I'm just going to say this full life.

32:49Tom Pelissero:I know Mac Jones. Mac Jones is on the roster. They also drafted a quarterback. The 49ers drafted a quarterback. Who is that quarterback? School. Yeah, give him a hint. He was in the college football playoff. this year. Top four teams? That's in initials KR. You have five seconds because Greg Olson's here. Oh, Curtis Rourke. Curtis Rourke. TJ Jefferson just dominated. TJ! What I have to say was one of the great four-minute drills we've ever run on this show as we awaited the arrival of our guy Greg Olson right here. Greg, thank you very much. I'm not going to test you on third, fourth string quarterbacks.

33:31Tom Pelissero:We figured just in case a lot A lot of things go wrong in your week one game, the 49ers and the Seahawks. We wanted to know who was going to be able to step in. How are you doing, buddy? How's everything going? Yeah, I'm glad you're not testing me on that. I'm getting ready for the Bills-Bears preseason game this Sunday that I have up in Chicago. And, you know, as anyone who's ever participated in a preseason game, it's really going to test your knowledge of NFL roster depth. So you just pray that as many starters at least give you a series or two as they can, because with these roster sizes not being cut down like in years that get used to in the old days, it's certainly a challenge.

34:11Tom Pelissero:You're going to see a lot of Tyson Bajent in that game, so that's going to be a lot of fun. Hopefully his dad's around, get to see one of the great arm wrestlers of all time and the guy who handed me the worst loss I've ever had at anything in my life when I arm wrestled him at the Senior Bowl a couple of years ago here. So you've got a lot going on, including the launch of Youth Inc. today. It's a content and commerce platform. And you got some cool stuff coming in terms of your guests. Tell me about this. Yeah, so it's cool. So it's kind of a two-pronged approach that we're trying to tackle here in the youth sports space.

34:42The content piece was something we've been kind of exploring for a couple years now. And as a dad of young kids who coaches a lot of their teams, both my sons and my daughter, I grew up playing for my dad. He was my high school football coach. So, like, this has been my world my whole life. And I found myself saying, I don't know what we're doing. Like youth sports, I don't recognize youth sports anymore for middle school and high school and younger kids. Like it doesn't feel like it used to. We're going to go and find out why. And we've had some really cool conversations today. Our episode with Tom Brady launches.

35:14We got Malcolm Gladwell and CJ Stroud and Ryan Day and, you know, world bestselling authors, the mental sports psychologists like Michael Gervais, athletes, coaches. And then on the other side of that, through the education and the entertainment, through the content piece, we've also said, listen, there's a huge disconnect in the experience for families as far as supporting their children's teams through fan wear and team gear. If anyone's ever tried to buy a sweatshirt through their kid's school or travel baseball team or whatnot, it is not the same experience as you would get, you know, going to buy a Panthers jersey or a T-shirt or something more, you know, college or pro-oriented.

35:54So we're trying to take that model and bring it down to the youth sports so you can go on there, find your team, find your high school and buy premium, high quality stuff, all customized with your kids high school team or middle school teams logo. So we're looking to kind of take on that youth sports commerce platform that doesn't really exist at any significant scaled level. And we think the ability to provide this content as a consumer facing brand awareness kind of acquisition type piece, the two aspects of the company go very well together. And overall, just trying to improve the experience of everybody that's participating in the youth sports atmosphere.

36:34Tom Pelissero:I've had a lot of thoughts about this subject, Greg, in recent years, because I got two daughters. They're 11 and 8. The 8-year-old is kind of just coming into it and getting really excited about the sports. And frankly, the 11-year-old kind of lost some level of interest because you had this very early splintering of your friends who are good at soccer are going to go play club. And it is going to be year-round, basically one long season. And they're practicing four times a week. And they're going and driving to games. or you stay in the house league, which is just kind of, it's the same team.

37:07Tom Pelissero:It's like the same club that puts it on, but it's just kind of this smattering. There's no officials. It's parent coaching. Like there's no in between. I remember growing up in the eighties and nineties. I think I'm a little older than you, but it was like you played in your, your house league, but you played basketball and then you played baseball and then you played football and you had this rotation and everyone you knew did that. And it was like fifth or sixth grade before there was even like weekend travel stuff. How much is that in your mind and through your conversations altered the dynamic surrounding new sports?

37:36Oh, it's everything. What you just said is happening in every American city at every age level. And it's just getting younger and younger and younger with each passing year. What used to not happen for the specialization that used to happen late in high school for some people that's now happening in elementary and middle school. And it's really, of course, it's the adults, right? We're not creating environments. We're not creating spaces that tolerate, but more important, encourage kids to say, this is the time to go out there and explore what you like. You don't have to make your decision on what sport you are as a 10-year-old girl.

38:12I don't know what you're going to be good at. I don't know what my 12-year-old son is going to be good at when he's 17. How big is he going to be? How strong? What's his level of interest? Does he rather hang out with his girlfriend? Does he want to go with his butt? We don't know any of these things, yet we're trying to rush these decisions. So it's a huge area of the conversations that we're having. And, you know, I had it with Malcolm Gladwell, who's obviously written some of the most pioneering literature on just exploring, you know, from his outliers to, you know, to leadership things like talking to strangers.

38:42I mean, just some of the books that he's written in that space are just so relevant to the conversation and to be able to sit down with him and really get these answers, you know, talking to Tom Brady about his early childhood specialization or lack thereof. So what you're saying right now is the inspiration and a big part of why we're going on, because I don't have a lot of the answers. I know what I'm experiencing with my three children versus what I want it to be versus what it is are not always aligned. But we're going to have a major reckoning here in America. We're going to have a major reckoning at high schools because they're going to have a hard time filling all of these different teams' rosters every season.

39:19because if every kid in the school just plays one sport, you're inevitably, unless you're a 3 ,500 kids school and you just have a million kids at the school and you can support it, you're gonna find high schools now just dropping sports because you just don't have enough kids to share if everyone's only playing one sport. So I challenge coaches, I challenge administrators and parents to say, regardless of what everyone else is doing, we're not gonna tolerate that. I'm the baseball coach. I want you to go play football. I'm the football coach. You should walk into the gym after the state championship and go play on the high school basketball team in front of your school.

39:52Like that's the way it should be. It's healthy. It's good for them mentally. It's good for them physically. And, and the pressure and expectation that the adults are putting on kids that if you don't just play for me, you're going to get left behind it. I think it's very dangerous. And it, and again, it's not in the best interest of the kids.

40:11Tom Pelissero:My favorite part of outliers is in like the first 10 pages where it's the hockey roster and everyone was born in January. And I'm I knew it. If I were born two months earlier, I would be a world-class athlete. Instead, I'm sitting here behind this desk. All right, a couple of hard-hitting football questions for you here, Greg. I know you know Travis Kelsey well through, you know, tight end university and everything. Can we show the photo of Kelsey on the GQ cover? I really want your breakdown of this right now, Greg. Tell me about what you're seeing here from Travis. Listen, if there was a guy in the world, forget in the NFL, If there was a guy in the world who should be on the cover of GQ with whatever that animal, whatever that animal is around his neck.

40:54I don't know if it's real or not. I don't know how much they're into animal rights. I don't personally care. But I'd be curious. He is made for that. Like he has when you're around Travis, forget how good he is on the field. And I've gotten to know him personally really well. Like he I mean, he is not. I did not see that one. but he's just so comfortable. He's so authentic. Like he just is that guy. He is your, he's everyone's best friend in every room he's in. He makes everybody feel like you've known him for 20 years. He's comfortable wherever he is in his own skin. Like I can just see him down in South Florida and the Everglades or wherever they're doing this, just completely embracing everything about this photo shoot.

41:37And if that's me in that outfit, holding a crocodile or an alligator, assuming like I'm stiff, I'm awkward. I'm uncomfortable. Like that's just Travis. And he is just as good of a player as he is. He's that good of a dude. He's fun to be around. He's great to your kids. He's great to your family. Like he's just that guy. And I've really enjoyed getting to know him over the last couple of years at a personal level and just being around him and spending time. And he's, he's arguably one of the most popular famous people in the world right now. And it couldn't have happened to a better guy.

42:10Tom Pelissero:You look at some of the quotes in the article on a serious note here. He talked about the last two years weren't up to his standard, which everybody reached a certain point, Greg, in their career where it's just like you might not be that same guy anymore. And as much as you say that's below my standard, that might be the new standard. When you look at Travis, or for that matter, some of these other really veteran tight ends in the league, guys like George Kittle, who are at kind of a different stage in his career, you're around all these guys. You see them like, what do you envision for them here in 2025?

42:40Yeah, so I think Travis is kind of a victim of his own success. I think he ended his streak of 1 ,000 yards at seven. It was unheard of for guys to go that level of consistency in production year in and year out, especially at a position like tight end where there is such attrition and injury rates and just the falling off the other side of the cliff in your mid-30s is pretty much the standard. he was defying all of that for the position so then all of a sudden you don't get a thousand yards a couple seasons in a row and people lose their minds but I think when you look at what he's done in the postseason what he's done obviously in the regular season throughout his career I mean he's approaching the conversation I think he's already there is when he retires being the best guy to ever play the position and I don't think I ever would have expected that when I was coming up it was Tony Gonzalez and then Gronk kind of got onto the doorstep and the longevity of Travis with the production.

43:37I never thought anybody would ever catch a Tony Gonzalez because you're talking 17, 18 years of that level. It was just, it was unheard of. That's Travis. And then you factor in post-season success, Super Bowls, all the records that he has in the playoffs. His career really stands on its own, but you know, the guys like Kittle and Kelsey and those guys are just different. You know, they're just uniquely talented, their work ethic, their expectation that they hold of themselves. You just can't coach that. You can't teach that, right? There's a lot of guys in the league you can coach to run routes, but you just, you can't find guys that just hold themselves to that level of expectation and accountability year in and year out and can play like that.

44:17So those guys are special. I think we've got a young crop of tight ends that are coming up behind them and have a chance like Brock Bowers and Laporta and some of these young guys that have come in to the league the last couple of years. This, this could be a golden age of the NFL tight end position as far as just across the board. Every team pretty much has a legitimate guy. And that was not the case when I came into the league early in my career.

44:40Tom Pelissero:And as a reminder, a lot of those guys you just mentioned played multiple sports when they were kids and it worked out just fine for them in the long run. Youth.inc is where you can find out more about Youth Inc podcast and a brand that is being launched today by Greg Olson. Greg, thanks a lot for the time, man. Great seeing you. Appreciate you guys. Thanks for having me. It's a fascinating thing with the tight ends and with a guy like Travis Kelsey, because you watch it, and for him to say it himself, you just watch Travis Kelsey on the eye test, and it looked different in the past couple of years, but time is undefeated.

45:16Tom Pelissero:Everybody hits that certain point here. Does he have one last special season? And that might be the maximum that he has. for right now he's holding alligators shirtless in a field of lily pads i don't i mean i assume there's more from this photo show we could do it we could do the final hour of the show on that backup quarterbacks and alligators here we go i'll actually do a lot more other stuff than that

45:43o'reilly auto parts can help take the guesswork out of your vehicle's check engine abs or maintenance light with o'reilly veriscan the service is free and provides a report with solutions verified by ASE certified master technicians ask for an O 'Reilly Veriscan today. Rich Eisen here. Running a small business means every hire matters. A bad hire costs time and money, but the right one helps your business grow. The challenge? Finding that person without sorting through resumes. That's where LinkedIn Hiring Pro comes in. It screens candidates so you can focus on conversations with qualified talent.

46:16With Hiring Pro, you can hire with confidence and build the team you need. Join the 2.7 million small businesses using LinkedIn to hire. Get started by posting your job for free at linkedin.com slash eisen. Terms and conditions apply. What are your feelings now that Alex Smith has been unofficially traded away to you? Phraseology here. It's awkward. It's awkward. I honestly don't know how to really accept it. I mean, through my entire career, you can't say Travis Kelsey without Alex Smith. I mean, he's been my quarterback. He's been the guy that's arguably the, I owe a lot of my success to him.

46:55You know, so it's going to be awkward going into a huddle, like I said, with anybody but Alex. But I know Pat is ready for the opportunity. Sure. He's taking a lot of mental reps and a lot of notes from Alex and how this thing should be ran. Alex ran it to an absolute T this past season. and, you know, obviously everyone's excited to see what he can do. Well, how did you learn about it yesterday? The trade? Twitter. Twitter, yeah. My girlfriend called me and told me what's going on with Alex, and sure enough, I went on Twitter, and everything told me that he was being traded to Washington. Now, you know, we don't usually get into the personal life here on the show, but is this the young lady from Catching Kelsey?

47:35No, this is not the young lady from Catching Kelsey. So it was Catching Kelsey. We just need to put that show in, like, the archives.

47:45It was a fun show, but it really wasn't that fun afterwards. And yeah, so it was catching Kelsey and release. Yes. Catch and fumble Kelsey. It's not a catch. It was not a catch. It was one of those. The ground isn't a catch. Jesse James isn't a catch. The relationship did not survive the ground. It didn't. It didn't. But now we have a catch. Amazing. Okay. Might have a catch. Might have a touchdown. Oh! Might have a touchdown. Ah! So that was a celebration dance, then, of such a source. There will be if further review. It's under review. The catch is under review. So we'll see. We'll see where it goes.

48:33All right. The red challenge flag still in the pocket for Travis Kelsey on the Red Challenge Show. And look, Mahomes, we had Chris Harris of the Broncos on game day morning in the playoffs. And he said when he was looking at film of Mahomes and he played a couple of series against him. Yeah. He says this kid's got some serious ability. The Broncos said that. Yeah. Have you seen anything of that note yet? Without a doubt. I mean, what he does in practice is it's fun to watch him in practice because he's on the scout team, kind of just being a backyard quarterback, throwing it every way imaginable you can think of.

49:10Sidearm, underhand, putting the ball anywhere on the field. So it was definitely fun watching him in that regard. And like I said, it's going to be exciting to see where you can go with it because the expectation is definitely high.

49:26Tom Pelissero:Travis Kelsey, that's seven and a half years ago right there with Travis Kelsey on the Rich Eisen Show during Super Bowl week. I think the day after Alex Smith, they had agreed to trade him away to Washington. At the time, Travis Kelsey, at that point, cool guy, pretty big celebrity, had that Catching Kelsey show that was... Like an E? Was that an E channel? It was like before, that was what his star was like. He was just kind of coming into his own as a football player, but obviously had aspirations and things like that. We've gone from that Travis Kelsey, again, cool guy, good-looking guy at that point, to this from GQ.

50:04Tom Pelissero:That is a, that's a transformation. Let's bring the snake one up real quick too, because the snake, this is the one that really gets me. I should recreate these photos. That might be the hair I'm going for too. Welcome back to the Rich Eisen show. So Travis Kelsey, we said Greg Olson on talking about Kelsey. And I've heard some of the same stuff that this is a motivated Travis Kelsey that in terms of the type of shape he's in where at times it looks like he was almost heavy. He's kind of pacing himself. He's looked good through the course of this offseason here. But it's funny, I think a day before the GQ shoot drops, Andy Reid was talking about distractions and saying this.

50:44Tom Pelissero:Well, you know, you understand because there were so many close games. But that's the National Football League. So I was proud of the guys and how they handled those. And when it's all said, it's winning the game. and we have we have winners and they they figured it out and so i was proud of them for that and um i we don't listen all the noise i mean you know if you do that you're gonna go crazy then you're not gonna have fun right so but you don't use the noise i don't care about that that's why i love you let's go win the game and the thing about noise is this isn't bad noise the chiefs have had plenty of bad noise surrounding them, various run-ins legally and injuries and things.

51:27Tom Pelissero:Travis Kelsey playing dress-up? Not all bad. There's inevitably going to be people who look at just everything here, going all the way back over the last couple of years and just say, was anything related to conditioning or the play? The fact that he's in the highest profile relationship maybe in the world right now, but it also might just be he's getting older. Nobody's sustaining that level of play at that stage in life. And if he does come out and have that type of year, he'll be defying a lot. Now, this is also a Chiefs team that found ways last year. And I've said many times, and I will continue to say, Patrick Mahomes may be the greatest player we've ever seen.

52:14Tom Pelissero:I believe he's the greatest player I've ever seen in my lifetime. And I know that Brockman, you're going to chime in with the guy who won seven Super Bowls, which is a completely fair argument. That guy. But the things that we see Patrick Mahomes do, the way that he lifts everybody consistently, the freaky stuff that he can do. Tom was the most ruthlessly efficient player I think we've ever seen. Certainly that I've ever seen. Just in terms of the way that he could dissect things. just the level of just everyday commitment to I'm going to beat you with my brain and I'm going to be the smartest person who's ever played the game and I know exactly how we're going to do this and all the little nuances and things that they were able to do that came from effectively being in one offense for 20 plus years Patrick Mahomes has one of the greatest offensive minds of all time and Andy Reid who certainly has helped him along Tom Brady had Bill Belichick there for a long time too, who taught him everything there was to know about defenses.

53:08Tom Pelissero:But with Mahomes, you just, you watch this. Remember Tom went through a stretch of a decade where he did not win a Superbowl and they had some good teams, but there was a long window there from the 04 to 14 seasons. I believe it was where he did not win a Superbowl. We've already seen Mahomes of course, put several trophies in the case. Now the question becomes here, as you're getting to that new stage with the Kelsey's as Chris, Jones is getting older, still playing at a high level, but getting older. They've done a good job being proactive moving on from guys like Tyreek Hill and winning a couple of Super Bowls after they traded away one of the most dynamic weapons in the NFL.

53:47Tom Pelissero:But their offenses look drastically different without Tyreek Hill. Well, you're thinking, and this part worked, they needed, they got the draft capital and they got the cap space to completely remodel their defense and degree their offensive line. What you're also betting on is, hey, we're going to draft and sign all these receivers and they as a collective will be able to elevate them that's hard to do when they're all hurt when every one of them rashi suffered a major injury last year you had you know xavier worthy who they drafted in the first round last year a little bit banged up hollywood was out hollywood was out for almost the entire season you know you've had juju smith schuster coming and going you're just you're trying to find some consistency one of the things they were most excited about going into this offseason.

54:35Tom Pelissero:What I was told was, hey, we've at least got kind of the same guys back. Well, once again, some of them have not been on the field. Then you throw on top of it the possibility, if not probability, of a Rasheed Rice suspension. You have some of the same concerns, which is where you're hoping to get the best Travis Kelsey. Maybe this time don't save it for January. We'd use you in September. I want to date with Rawls, Carty says. Rawls? Rucka asks This is the love story of real hinge couple Carti and Rucka Written and read by me, Nicola Dinan Listen to the free audiobook now