The NFL Owners Summit & More Belichick Blues

0:04Congratulations! You made the varsity, the podcast. My name is John Arand, and I am Puck's sports correspondent and the host of this pod. And today, I am excited to have ESPN's Seth Wickersham rejoin the podcast. Seth wrote a couple of really great behind-the-scenes stories from last week's NFL owners meetings in Minnesota, so I wanted to get him on this pod to tell us what this all means. Seth is coming out with another book called American Kings, a biography of the quarterback, so we'll hit him on that too. Oh, and I couldn't have Seth on without asking him about Bill Belichick too. But before I get to Seth, here's what I'm watching these days.

0:46To everybody listening, prepare yourself for a ton of stories about just how bad NBA ratings are going to be for the finals this year. I'm talking right now on Tuesday afternoon, just before the Knicks and Pacers play game four. So maybe the Knicks will pull the series out. They're down two games to one right now in the best of seven series. And if the Knicks win, all these stories will be moot, as the presence of the top TV market should help bring in viewers. Now, here's a list of people who are pulling for the Knicks big time. Bob Iger, Jimmy Pataro, Rita Farrow. That's Disney's ad sales chief.

1:29ESPN and ABC, they won big ratings, of course. Not much of a headline right there. there's not much that can be done for ad sales this year, but the viewership from this year's final will help ESPN and ABC set higher rates for next year's final. And the inclusion of the Knicks would help guard against ABC having to produce what they call make goods. Essentially, credits that networks have to give to advertisers for programming that underperforms in terms of ratings. Usually those credits are free or deeply discounted ads elsewhere on the schedule. But you know who should be totally unconcerned about all of this?

2:07Adam Silver and the rest of the NBA. Okay, let's say for the sake of argument, the Pacers make it through to the finals where they'll meet probably the Oklahoma City Thunder, another smaller market team. Oklahoma City leads their series against Minnesota three games to one right now. So let's say the Pacers and the Thunder make the finals and draw teeny audiences. Well, the NBA hasn't even started its new media deal with Amazon, NBC and ESPN yet. The NBA still has 11 years before it has to renegotiate its media deal. So if the league is ever going to have a poorly viewed finals, this is the one it should be.

2:50In fact, I think the NBA should view this as an opportunity to market some stars that really haven't cut through a mainstream that is still addicted to old school guys like LeBron James and Steph Curry and Kevin Durant. After all, the current MVP, Shea Gilgus Alexander, plays on the Thunder. And the Pacers have Tyrese Halliburton, who's been playing lights out these playoffs. So this is my PSA to you. Take these stories that are coming about the NBA Finals ratings with a grain of salt. Ratings stories provide a snapshot at the health of the league, but they really don't matter in the grand scheme of things.

3:28With the NBA this year, they really don't matter at all. Now, let's get to Seth Wickersham. The NFL owners met last week in Minnesota, and Seth Wickersham had a bunch of really good behind the scenes stories. Seth, I care so little about the tush push, but I love the tush push debate around it. Like if they ban it, I don't care. If they keep it, I don't care. But the whole debate that's going on around it, I find to be totally fascinating because you have NFL owners just sort of like really going at each other. The competition on the field you saw in the boardroom last week. Take me through some of your reporting specifically on that tush push.

4:19It was really interesting because, you know, most owners meetings are pretty boring. And we think of these guys as these, you know, individual CEOs. But for the most part, groupthink prevails. Like you don't see a lot of close votes, especially since like the relocations happened, you know, you know, in 2015, 2016. So, you know, there's things that flare up from time to time. But for the most part, you know, these meetings are relatively perfunctory. And this was different because there had been a report that morning that it was expected that the ban on the Tush Push was going to prevail, which is generally recognized as the position that Roger Goodell wanted.

5:09and um so jeffrey lorry got up and this was not even in the privilege session this was in the general session so it's a bigger meeting full of league and team executives rather than the privilege session which is really only owners and the highest level of league executives so jeffrey lorry the owner of the philadelphia eagles got up and he i think was expecting this to go down, expecting his opinion to go down. And so he talked for the better part of an hour. And it was a Hail Mary. You needed the music to play him off at some point, Seth. Yeah. And he pulled out all the stops. And at times, I think he came across as incredibly insightful.

5:56At one point, he said that he had talked to the chief medical officer of the NFL, Alan Sills the night before, and Sills had backed off some of the medical research that had been reported that Sills said. In the meeting, a league executive actually pushed back on that. But I think that Laurie came ready to rock. And at times, I think he came across as well-spoken and well-researched. Other times, I think he came across as smug, as if he had invented the play. But towards the end of it, he ended up making what was really a crude reference for someone who really has been a good owner with not a lot of slip ups during his time, where he basically was trying to describe the situation that the Eagles are in as a win win.

6:47And this is high level spin. so you know he was basically saying like look if it if the tush push prevails we get to keep running a play that no one can stop and if it's banned then we get to um you know say that we invented a play that was so successful that the league had to ban it and he referred to it as a teenage boy's wet dream to do something like that so then nfl evp troy vincent who i think in these settings as one of the few people who's not afraid to go back at owners. You know, you remember that during the inmates running the prison reporting that we had in 2017, when he pushed back at Bob McNair when he made that reference.

7:32And he said, you know, he thought what Laurie had said was disrespectful, especially to a lot of the women in the room, that he would make such a a crude analogy. And, um, you know, it, it, then Lori kept going and, you know, finally, you know, I think there were some owners like, you know, are you ready to wrap this up? Jed York of the 49ers said, you know, you know, are you done talking basically with a, with a, with a swear word in there? I'm not sure if we can go there on this podcast. Um, and then it was the, the general meeting was broken and they went to the privilege session and that's where they actually had the vote and um it didn't prevail the ban went down and um i think that was a really interesting moment because usually you know i think that roger goodell rightly deserves a lot of credit for knowing how to read the room and knowing better than to bring up a measure that you know he wants that that won't go that and you know having owners stand up and sort of be the faces of it like the Packers were, even though I think the Packers also wanted it banned, at least Mark Murphy did.

8:38I don't think that they were carrying Roger's water with that. You think that that was overstated, the idea that they were using the Packers? Yeah. I mean, I think that that's a nice idea. But I think that the Packers, the highest levels of the Packers, Mark Murphy wanted the play to be banned. I don't think that the football people had that strong of an opinion. And, you know, it went down. And I think it was a surprising defeat, you know, for the NFL. I do think that at some point it'll probably get banned. But, you know, that's how it went. And, you know, again, these meetings are usually pretty slow.

9:18And, you know, this one both went on for a long time and tested people's patience and, you know, had some fireworks to it. Why did Roger Goodell bring this to a vote if he wasn't certain that he had the votes? I don't know. Again, you know, he's usually pretty masterful at that. And, you know, maybe this is an example of owners, you know, pushing back a little bit. You know, I mean, Roger's a very powerful commissioner. And I know that as much as he's been credited over the years with, you know, managing his bosses, the 32 owners, well, you know, he's a very powerful commissioner. And when he gets behind something, it usually gets done.

10:03I don't know why, you know, exactly other than like, you know, it seemed like, you know, Jason Kelsey got up and he spoke and I think that I don't know if he changed minds, but I think he helped solidify minds. You know, he said, he pushed back on the idea that he had retired due to the tush push. And he said, you know, something to the effect of, if I could run 60 tush pushes a game, I would do it. I'd come back. And, you know, I think that that, I think that really solidified any owners who might've been wavering that they wanted to keep this play in for the time being. And I think that, you know, Jason Kelsey came across very well.

10:44And I think that One thing Roger has done really well, I think, especially in the post-deflategate, post-Ezekiel Elliott time, is improve his relationship with players. I don't know with the union exactly, but with players he has. And it wouldn't surprise me if prominent current or former players end up having regular sort of voices in those meetings to let owners hear from some of the more thoughtful players. There has to be a spot on the Eagles for Jason Kelsey just to go in for the tush push. If that's what he truly wants, my goodness. Totally. It'd be like the quarterback that they just keep on for Hail Marys.

11:29Exactly. As he harmed to go. Right. Yeah. So who changed? Do you think that Lori's hour long talk changed minds? Or were there minds to change? Who changed the minds? How do the minds change in that room? Um, generally speaking, you know, like I said, I think that minds don't tend to change a whole lot, you know, in that setting. I think that like Kelsey's speech was really well done. And I think solidified the teams that were not in favor of the band. Um, but you know, it's a divisive issue. It's weirdly divisive for a play that's run so infrequently. Um, I was at the owner's meetings in West Palm Beach earlier this year.

12:14And it was interesting to see the dichotomy in opinion between coaches and GMs and owners. You had circles where coaches from other teams would be talking to owners from other teams about how ridiculous this ban was. And then the owners would go out and vote the way that they wanted to vote. But I think within teams, you had situations where, you know, coaches didn't care that much, you know, whether it was banned or whether it was allowed to play, you know, continue and owners voted how they wanted. And so it's an interesting, like I said, it was an interesting moment. moment. I don't know if it is the last time we'll hear about this, but for what it was, which is a league spring meeting, it was a really interesting moment about, it clarified, I think, a lot about where people stand and again, how these things end up working, how power works in the NFL.

13:18Seth, you're such a good reporter. I know most reporters hate to get into the prediction game. You did, however, already say that you think the tush push is going to be banned. What's your timetable? Like, what does that ban look like? Is it after this season? Is it... What has to happen for that to happen? Yeah, I'd imagine that it'll continue for this season and then, you know, it'll give the people in the league office who are passionate about this, you know, an entire season to kind of, like, build support. And, you know, nobody wants to see an injury. If there was one injury that happens during that play that proved to be a bad injury, you know, I think that could sway things quite a bit.

14:01I don't think that's what anyone wants. I think that, in fact, you know, the league is, I think, trying to get out in front of this, you know, by not having a catastrophic injury on that play. But, you know, I'd imagine that next year at the meetings that take place in March, I'd imagine maybe we'll hear a little bit more about it. Maybe a vote. I'm not quite sure. One more quick question about last week's meetings. There were some reports that they were going to vote on Roger Goodell's contract extension, which everybody believes is going to come. That vote didn't happen. Is there anything to read into that?

14:44it's interesting because there were those votes i think it caught the league by surprise um it caught some owners by surprise others were not surprised by it and so um you know one person kind of put it you know who who is a very savvy um league mind you know put it as you know the owners are reminding roger that it's their league um you know and that's the story out of that meeting that, you know, he wanted the tush push through and, you know, obviously getting clarification on it, you know, getting a ratification on a contract would be a good thing. Um, I don't know if I'm quite willing to go that far.

15:23There's a lot of time for them to read, to do Rogers contract. He's been talking to owners about it and, you know, the, the owners have been talking amongst themselves about it for a long time. Um, I met with a, with a top level executive, um, for a team who mentioned that it was very wise and a savvy piece of negotiating on Roger's part that his current contract is up right in between when the broadcast opt-outs are and the next collective bargaining agreement would be up. And so that provides him a lot of leverage if this is a job that he wants to continue doing for the foreseeable future. All signs are that he does enjoy doing that.

16:10But, you know, that was kind of an interesting twist. You know, how much I'd read into it, I don't really know. I mean, at the privilege session, they talked, you know, about the tush push again. They took the vote. The vote got out pretty quickly. They talked about the deal with my employer, ESPN and NFL Network potentially happening. And, you know, but there wasn't anything on Roger's contract. They talked about that. So it wasn't even that it wasn't brought up for a vote. It wasn't even discussed. But the prevailing wisdom is that an extension is a fait accompli pretty much, right? I think so.

16:53I mean, I think that it would take something huge for that to happen. I do think that owners would like to have a better sense of the bench. And the league has had some talented benches and had some talented people leave because Rogers not wanting to step aside and the owners not showing a lot of willingness to make changes. I remember years ago in a story that Don Van Atta and I did, it was around the time that Jerry Jones was considering suing to block Roger Goodell's extension. That was in the fall of 17. An owner told us, owners look at the role of commissioner like switching from an iPhone to a Samsung.

17:50Do the pictures transfer? Does my music go? Do I have to redo all this formatting? like at the end of the day, they like to stick with the thing that they know. And, you know, Rogers done a good job as commissioner, I think for the owners, even though, you know, I think a lot of owners would like to, you know, see that bench developed a little bit more. Seth, let me take a quick break. I want to come back and I want to talk about another one of your favorite topics, Bill Belichick.

18:25What's up, guys? I'm Candace Dillard-Bassett, and you may know me from my time on The Real Housewives of Potomac or as a part of the latest cast of The Traitors. And I'm Michael Arsenault, author of the New York Times bestseller, I Can't Date Jesus. On our podcast, Undomesticated, we don't just say the quiet parts out loud. We're putting it all on the kitchen table and inviting you into the chaos. If you're ready for bold takes, real talk, and a little fun, come join us. Listen to and follow Undomesticated and Odyssey podcast, available wherever you get your podcasts.

19:18like you, you obviously are more, um, uh, on the ball than I am. But you had a book that was released. When was it's better to be feared release? That was, that was. Yeah, it was October of 21 of 21. All right. We'll try to get that back on the bestseller list here, but it was, uh, it was, it was a book about the new England Patriots dynasty, uh, which I have to tell you, I think I read that in like a span of like two days or three days. I mean, You just it's a thick book and you just get right through it. One of the main characters, obviously, of that book is Bill Belichick. With what's going on with Bill Belichick right now and his love life and his college coaching, you covered him and you were part of that book for so long.

20:04Is this surprising to you where he is right now? I think there's elements of it that are surprising. So let's zoom back. I mean, I think that since, you know, the early part of 2020, when Bill opened the door for Tom Brady to walk out and Tom took him up on that, it hasn't been a great run for Belichick. Obviously, they, you know, they, they draft Mac Jones. Mac Jones didn't really work out at all there. You know, not a lot of successful offensive performances without Brady. I think three out of his last four seasons there were losing seasons. And so, you know, a narrative has taken hold on Bill.

20:46And, you know, Bill Parcell has always told Belichick, you know, they can never take those championships away from you. But the narrative that's been happening on Bill is so strong at the moment that it almost feels like it. You forget that this guy is so masterful and won so many championships and did it in such a unique and novel fashion. So look, he ends up getting shut out. Jeremy Fowler and Don Van Dant and I wrote about really his failed attempt to land a new job after he and the Patriots split up. And then he sits out of coaching. He writes a book, which I read and I liked it a lot. and he ends up in North Carolina.

21:33David Halberstam had written a book with Belichick. It was a book where they were cooperating together, although it wasn't exactly an as-told-to. But when the late great Halberstam did an interview, he talked about how he could see Belichick landing in college and spending his final coaching years in college because of the way that he, you know, at his essence, he's a teacher. And so the fact that he landed in North Carolina, I don't think is surprising. Now, what has happened since then? You know, you have to think that the higher ups of North Carolina, the one thing that they thought they were purchasing when they made him the state's highest paid public employee was a buttoned up, drama free football program.

22:17And it has been the opposite of that. Some of that is not Belichick's fault. A lot of it is. And some of it is the fault of his girlfriend. But Bill has always been introverted and kind of had a personality that was ill-suited with the fame that coaches began to accrue really during his time in the NFL. And this is on a different level. And, you know, I think that it has to be bothersome on a pretty, you know, fundamental level that, you know, there's very little discussion about their team, very little discussion about their players, very little discussion about what defenses he's going to draw up to slap around Davos Swinney's offense.

23:05And, you know, it's there's an entire industry at this point that's very competitive and completely dedicated to the relationship with him and his girlfriend. And so, you know, that's like I said, when you look at like everything that's happened really since 2020, you know, by and large, it's been I think it's been a tough stretch. You mentioned that he's an introvert. I still laugh at, I think it was on Fox when Gronk and Tom Brady were acting out what it would be like when Bill Belichick is trying to recruit a player. Like, we don't really need you or want you, but yeah, you can come if you want, I suppose.

23:41That has to give you a little bit of, yeah, he's a great teacher. He's a mastermind at coming up with defenses to figure things out. My goodness, I have 20-year-old kids. You know, like I he that the Bill Belichick name doesn't really work and seduce them much. And and if he's not sort of gregarious enough to bring them in, like I I wonder how good he is going to be at the at the college level. Yeah, I mean, that's the thing. And I think that that priority probably relishes. You know, I think that it's been a long time since he entered, you know, any sort of space in football as a kind of underdog, you know.

24:19And I'm sure that that part to me is really something I'm fascinated. Because look, we'll talk about it in a bit, but I wrote this book on quarterbacks. It's out in September. And one of the things I talk about in there is how the college game is just a fundamentally different game than the NFL for a couple of reasons. But one of them is just as basic as the hash marks. It's so much easier in college to create space on offense. And it's so much easier in the NFL to take away space on defense. And I'm fascinated to see how he does this. But, you know, you're right. I mean, you know, it may not work.

25:01And, you know, if it doesn't, you know, it's just, you know, again, having written a book about him and having, you know, thought a lot about, you know, how this journey, you know, might end whenever Bill Belichick decides that, you know, he's ready to retire to Nantucket full time. I did not see a lot of this coming. Where is Seth Wickersham going to be on game one of UNC? Are you going to be down there? Are you going to be tuning in from wherever you happen to be? That's a great question. I haven't even thought about being down there, but maybe it'd be worth it. I mean, look, I think that he alone, I know you mentioned that maybe for 20-year-olds and especially in the NIL world, rightfully, they should go where they can get compensated to a point where they feel like it's fair.

25:49But I do think that he's a draw. I mean, you've seen some of their ticket sales numbers go up. I mean, I think it's going to be interesting when, it's kind of hard to imagine this, but when conference rivals North Carolina and Stanford meet and Belichick and Andrew Luck are talking before the game about what it's like to be in the college game, that's going to be an interesting conversation. Conference rivals. Stanford, a part of the Atlantic Coast Conference. I will never get used to that at all. Seth, let me take one more break. And I want to talk about your new book, which, as you said, is coming out in September.

26:35Seth Wickersham has another book coming out in September called American Kings, a biography of the quarterback that goes through the whole history of quarterbacks. Caught a little bit of buzz over the past couple of weeks with a report on Caleb Williams during the draft. Caleb from Washington, D.C. He went to my high school, Seth. So I feel an ownership toward him. Gonzaga High School in D.C. I visited the high school and I was reporting on it. You know, and that field is so, you know, the football field's right there on the block. It's a really cool, you know, campus setting. When I went there, it was not artificial turf.

27:12It was hard dirt with like shards of glass. coming out of it. Sounds about right. But that's neither here nor there. Before we talk about the book, as you're reporting that out, did you have a sense that was going to catch fire? That's a story that was going to have the legs like it did? Not exactly. But the book that I wanted to write, it's called American King's A Biography of the Quarterback. And I'm essentially trying to write about anyone who's ever played. and, you know, both myself, who was a failed high school quarterback, although I did play a little bit, um, to, you know, John Elway and Johnny Unitas.

27:50And, you know, you know, so it's not a history of the position, although I do get into it and how, you know, it became this celebrated and cherished thing in our culture that, you know, was up there with politicians and movie stars. Um, turns out it goes back to 1885 and 1906. Um, but, you know, it's, it's contemporary and, And I write about current guys. I write about guys in high school and what it's like to do that right now. I write about guys in college, what it's like to be a quarterback right now in the NFL, what it's like to be a retired Hall of Famer and kind of live with that set of skills that you had to build within yourself that is really incongruent with normal life.

28:31And Caleb was one of them. What drew me to Caleb was that he was really the first professional amateur quarterback. I mean, he was the first one who you would see in commercials on commercial breaks during games that he was playing. And, you know, so he was, he shifted the paradigm in a sense. And I wanted to, you know, report on that. And then, you know, as I was around him a little bit and around his family and USC and whatever it was, you know, it was obvious that, you know, I think his dad, who's a very smart guy, wanted him to have a sense of agency. over his future employer, have what John Elway had in 83, had what Eli Manning had in 2004.

29:15And, you know, once he set out to try to find ways around the draft, if there was a loophole or, you know, a way to go to the United Football League for a year and then re-enter the NFL as an unrestricted free agent where he could pick his team, he wanted to try to explore those. And, you know, Caleb, you know, he was driving the bus. This was his decision, but he had concerns about the Bears too. Obviously, his dad told me that Chicago is where quarterbacks go to die, and there's a lot of truth to that. I think that when Caleb went to the combine and he met with Kevin O 'Connell, who was not only quarterback in college, but played with Tom Brady for a year and has been around some of the best and brightest offensive minds, he spoke quarterback.