Coming up this week on the Mark Cast. Well, here we are familiar
streets. Feel like I've been down this road before, to competing spring football
leagues in talks about merging. Feels just like CJ from Grand Theft Autosh.
Here we go again, So this time we will channel our inner Jeff Probes.
Everybody drop your buffs. It's time to merge. I thought, dare
play a Survivor clip on here. CBS gets a little trigger happy with demonetizing
YouTube channels. Big show this week. You know it's big when we bring
on the Professor Andrew Murray. You know him, you love him. All
the latest XFL USFL merger talk. What teams are going to survive win?
This kickoff going to be networks, the games are going to be on,
everything up to the minute last details. This is a stunning rollout of events.
I am genuinely shocked that we are here at this point. I could
not believe the announcement that was made on Tuesday, Well not the announcement,
but the reports were being made about a potential announcement for a merger. I
never, in my wildest dreams, thought that these two were actually going to
merge. I'm just gonna say that right now, because I thought, as
Evan had said before on your podcast yesterday, I just thought there was too
much egotism involved. And then, still talking CFL on the podcast headed into
week sixteen, we have Derek Taylor, the voice of the Winnipeg Blue Bombers,
coming on to share his knowledge. I wish I could give you a
real solution for it, because all week long we talked about last year's game
at this time of the year against Hamilton. It was, oh, hey,
you guys had just won a big game and then you went to Hamilton
and got whacked. What was the deal with that? And they said,
you know, wasn't that complacency. It wasn't that we took them easy.
It wasn't that we were looking ahead to the bye week so they were aware
of all these things. And then the exact same game happens, you know,
a year minus a day later, and they go into Hamilton with the
bye week looming, coming off a big win, and they get whacked.
And then if you're a fan of the XFL or the cf FELL you'll know
this. Gentleman Cam Phillips, of your twenty twenty two Great Cup Champion Toronto
argonauts stop him by the show, catching up with Cam even at the beginning,
Like you can't win fifteen games at once. You can't go win a
championship the first week, you know. So it's a process. So I
think you know the coaching staff and even the players, you know, which
we've bought in. I mean, that's really the culture now. You know,
we come to work, you know, we are who we are.
But when it's time to work, it's time to work. She'd be a
good one. I can subscribe. Hey, guys, welcome to the marcass
read here. A busy week certainly wasn't expecting this right now mid September,
driving into work. I had a week on gig here filming at the convention.
Get a text from a friend of the show listening Seth. The XFL
and the USFL are merging. Not kidding here, we are exciting times.
We've been down this row before. If you're new to the podcast, we
went through all of this with the CFL and XFL talks back at two years
ago. So I've been down this road. Not any not the spring chicken
here if you want to call it that, but we'll get you covered here.
This is kind of the exciting time. Football's fun. You know,
it's fun talking to you know, the CFL Week sixteen and all of that.
Of course, I love getting the expertise of all the guests. But
you know, this is our bread and butther I built this dang podcast talking
that merger talk. So I will be darned if we won't continue here giving
you guys the best information most up to date we can. Coming off our
big, really well attended, really well viewed live stream with we had Evan
and Anthony and then of course our XFL insider Mike Mitchell on that went almost
two hours on Wednesday night, So if you guys haven't had a chance to
check that out, Mike dropping lots of details that Andy and I will react
to today in terms of the kind of the combination of the teams who he
is hearing from the XFL is going to survive the cuts who he hears from
the USFL. You know, the networks, the games are going to be
on, time of year, everything's going to be played, all of that
stuff. We're going to bring on Andy today to kind of react to all
of that talk through you know, the two hour I love the live stream
episode because we get to do kind of all the listener interaction and all of
that stuff. But then I think it's helpful to kind of bring Andy in.
Okay, let's contextualize all of this, let's boil it down, kind
of talk through everything a little bit more in depth. So I think that
will be good. I said, if you haven't seen the live stream,
make sure you check that out. But we will obviously recap all of the
big news in the podcast today. Really appreciate Derek Taylor coming on Voice of
the Win they pick Blue Bombers, was going to hop on last week when
Jeff and I had our scheduling kerfuffle, but getting Derek on on the bye
week, and then of course Cam Phillips really appreciate him and everyone at the
Argonauts for sending that that big weekend, for them hosting the Hamilton tie Cats
there having the tremendous season, Cam is and then of course the team,
so really appreciate them taking the time. That'll do it for me today big
show. Have no idea how long Andy and I will go, but I'm
sure that will be a fruitful conversation. Like I said, you know,
make sure please thumbs up. The video got a lot of good feedback on
our live stream, but thumbs up, tell us YouTube the algorithm that you
guys are like in the video, and then you know, subscribe Torn notifications
if you have. It going to be a busy time here, you know,
with all this news and when everything's going to break, and so we'll
be posting shorts and episodes and live streams and all of that stuff. So
make sure you are please subscribe so you don't miss any of that. I
will see you guys at the ends. Well, here we are back again.
We have the Professor Andrew Murray. I went and got a little happy
hour with the wife. She had back to school night and it's been a
really stressful week with all of this year before. So we'll see you have
recorded everything else, have all my Derek Taylor and Camp Phillips interviews. Here
we can be a little more casual with Andy. Andy Murray the professor back.
How are you doing, sir, I'm great read Thank you for having
me on. I was so tempted to jump on your live stream yesterday,
but I had other things going on, and honestly, I mean it would
have been like walking into a fighter ring because I felt like there was a
lot of just a lot of emotion going on at the same time from a
lot of different angles, and I really wish I could have jumped in on
it. But actually I'm more happy now because I have kind of ruminated,
I've thought a lot about what's going on, and I can really have a
much more clear approach to what I'm going to say today. So I'm excited
to be on. But boy, I did not expect to be on this
week. Let me just put it that way. Yeah, let me put
it this way. When we bring on Andrew Murray is kind of like the
you know, break Glass. We need the professor, We need them on.
We have a lot of news subscribers. We've added like forty fifty news
subscribers here over the last couple of days. I think we hit like a
three thousand views over the last like twenty eight However YouTube tracks it's it's like
more than a day. But I appreciate everyone joining. Andy has been with
We've been doing this a long time, and I just welcome to the show.
I did my answer and everything, but we've been doing this, Andy
and I. We've gone all the way back through the trademark stuff and the
USFL and the XFL and coming back and the bag like we've gone through everything.
I appreciate everyone joining us. This is week one hundred and sixty three
of the podcast. Never missed a week. Maybe we're not the longest running,
but we've certainly been doing this as consistently. We'll get into all the
news. I think this is good because we did the live stream. If
you guys haven't seen the live stream, check that out. Two hours Mike
and you know, Anthony Miller and Evan on there. That's great. Hopefully
a little more concise today and just more focused because that was obviously craziness.
Before we get into everything, I just I have my National Spring Football League
had on and I wore this specifically today. I just tweeted about this and
this is my only little grand stand here. We'll get into all this stuff.
I've had messages sent to me all day, comments on the YouTube,
you know, because Mike and I think it came up last night in the
in the YouTube video like oh, you know they're getting rid because the rumor
is they're going to get rid of the XFL or the USFL, Brandy and
you know, combine whenever this mega super league comes to other and Mike and
I had joked, oh, it's a National Spring Football League because you know
of the Mike and I know it's a joke because when the USFL was originally
acquiring this is how long we've been doing this. When they were originally acquiring
all of the trademarks for all the new teams that they were going to roll
out, they had an NSFL, a National Spring Football League LLC that kind
of acted as a catalyst too. They were kind of able to acquire all
the trademarks transferred it because like Brian Woods owned some of them. He was
with the Spring like he was just really mess and so they used this holding
company and that's where the name came from, the National Spring Football League.
When they you know, obviously transferred everything to the USFL, that went away.
I registered the trademark for the clothing brand because I thought it would be
so funny because people were freaking out like, oh my god, it's not
going to be the USFL, what's it going to be. I went registered
it. Since then they emailed me and they're like, you know, trademark
office, what are your intentions with all of this? Like when are you
setting up the Spring Football League, all this stuff. Realized that there was
this maybe further of a joke than I wanted to go, so I let
it go abandon. I've gotten a lot of things sent to me today.
Hey, Fox Sports owns the National String Football League trademark. No, they
haven't, never have. I mean they might, they can, I mean
they certainly can. Now I have an abandoned You go search the trademark office
n SFL or National String Football League. The only thing that will come up
is my abandoned, dread dead trademark for the clothing or whatever. So I
just want to get that out there because, like I just emailed at like
an FOS writer, he had an article out today. Oh Fox Sports,
We've been doing this a long time. Welcome to you know, welcome to
whatever. I know, there's been a lot of like blurring stories right now,
so I don't know. Hopefully that wasn't too long of a ramble,
if that makes sense. Andy. I mean, you were ahead of the
game far before anyone else, before we even realized you were. You're a
trailblazer in that way. But I just have to say, this is a
donning roll out of events. I am genuinely shocked that we are here at
this point. I could not believe the announcement that was made on Tuesday,
well not the announcement, but the reports that were being made about a potential
announcement for a merger. I never, in my wildest dreams thought that these
two were actually going to merge. I'm just going to say that right now,
because I thought, as Evan had said before on your podcast yesterday,
I just thought there was too much egotism involved. I really thought that philosophically,
these two entities would never be able to come to the table and be
able to agree on anything. And look, we still haven't really even gotten
maybe even pasted other preliminary discussions. I mean, there's so many logistical things
that have to be ironed out. But as far as we can hear from
and see, it seems like this is going to happen. And I did
not have it on my bingo card. In fact, I'm not kidding you.
I was in the midst of writing an article about why it specifically was
not going to happen, and that either a league was going to be content
with or content with basically one of both of them falling away like one of
them was going to die and whoever was the last one standing was going to
survive and be the king of all spring leagues and grandstand and say look,
we made it, we did it. We are the champions. We've solved
spring league football forever. And now here we are with both of them basically
coming to the table and realizing potentially that they have to merge if they're going
to survive. And I did not think that was an ultimatum that was possible.
I really did not. So I'm I'm just as shocked as anyone.
Yeah, so just to set the record, you know, or to set
kind of the set the table here. And like I said, Mike was
on last night, A lot of credit to him and the work that he's
done. I know there's been a lot of like I guess Mike Mitchell,
Hey, I don't know. It was it was just really weird. Like
Mike came on last night. I thought it was a really good stream.
We had like I think record viewership we've ever had cocurrent. It's done great
views. Today felt really good, and there's been a lot of like,
well, Mike doesn't know what he's talking about, or this is wrong,
and I posted this in the group chat last night. I stand by everything
that we report on this show. I stand by everything that Mike reports.
I know Mike says things to us in private that may or may not,
you know, and then if Mike puts it out there, it's something that
he feels good enough to source, and I just I welcome that if any
if there was anything that has been fictitious we've ever reported. You know,
I worked in new this for a long time before getting into this, Like,
I don't want to get into this, like he said, she said,
whatever, But I genuinely stand by the work that Mike does, the
connections that he has. We rely on him a lot. I know Mark
relies on Mike a lot. We all do, so I just to me,
there's just been a lot of like credibility questioning of that. So I
don't know where that comes from. But Mike kind of the table, we
have what we're looking at, combining of the teams, looking at potentially some
from the XFL, some from the USFL getting rid of the Roughnecks, getting
rid of the Vipers Houston, you know, taking over there in April kickoff,
and then the mixture of games between that ABC, ESPN and Fox anything
else. I guess jarring that stands at to you from that and we can
kind of go through those piece by piece. I mean, the teams that
Mike announced yesterday really surprised me. I can't believe that the Roughnecks would be
on the chopping block before the Gamblers. Roughnecks have played in the market twice
in two different iterations of the league and have an established fanbase. And look,
you can tell me all you want about the Gamblers fanchise. I'm sure
they have fans. I'm not talking about the fans dating back to the nineteen
eighty five. I'm talking about fans now. And look, if people want
to come out of the woodwork and support them, great, But this is
not the entity that I thought was going to be chosen. This is not
the ip I thought was going to survive in this negotiation. If that indeed
ends up being the case, that would be absolutely wild to me, because
you know, listen, logistically, which coaching staff is gonna end up thing?
If you're going to talk about chopping off one of the Houston teams,
it's Curtis Johnson versus Wade Phillips and his staff and I don't know which one
is going to survive there. As far as the other teams, I'm surprised
to hear Birmingham. I mean, that's your champion, that's the two time
defending USFL champion. That you put a hub in for all of the teams
in year one and you put in year two with them in the New Orleans
Breakers. I don't understand that one. Well, you got to keep it.
I mean you can't get rid of that. I mean, if you're
if you're merging right, you can't get rid of the Stallions. You would
think after how much capital and how much well I've ben it needs. So
they're in, I mean they're in, right, So it's it's Stallions,
the Ohio I got the tweet up beer from the USFL Stallions. The Memphis
teams are presumably the breakers in Ohio based team because that's a mess there because
you have the modelers and you have the what the generals there? You have
nothing there in Ohio and then the gamblers taking over on that. So that's
one, two, three, four, and then I guess we would be
waiting on the other in ten teams total, so then it would be the
six from the XFL. So if I'm doing my mouth there right, yeah,
I had to drink I just for me. I mean, the teams
that I thought would potentially be on the chopping lock were from the USFL sides
obviously, the teams that were not on home stadiums. That would be Houston,
I'd be New Orleans, I'd be Philadelphia. That would be the New
Jersey Generals, and quite frankly, that also include the Cannon team, because
there is no Cannon team. You know, the Maulers are included in that.
But if they want to convert one of those teams into an Ohio property,
then fine, then you convert that into one of those teams, and
then basically that leaves four out. And then on the XFL side, I
thought the only one that was really in danger, obviously is the Vegas Pipers.
They were obviously in their own tumultuous relationship with their venue and basically whether
or not they were even going to exist next month. Meanwhile, their team
account just keeps tweeting away like nothing's going on, and I didn't think they
were going to survive either way. But I thought they were going to be
relocated. I know, people thrown out the Orlando Guardians because of the attendance
issue. I'm glad that you mentioned Corey last night, the guy who does
all of the great social media for them, I'm glad that you mentioned him.
He was very thankful about that on Twitter as well. And look,
they put in their effort. And also that's Danny's I thought that was Danny's
team too. I mean, I know, maybe Danny is willing to make
that Danny Garcia is willing to make that concession, but to chop it down
to ten teams, that's just such a loss of not only fans, but
just capital in terms of what you have to go from sixteen down to ten
in a basically merger league. I mean, that just feels like a huge
net loss. I don't really even know if it feels like a merger anymore.
It just feels like one league bought two teams and then kicked everyone else
out like that. That's what And that's we've gotten a lot of negative feedback.
I mean, that's the thing is, you know, there's always casualty
when it comes to you know, any sort of merger and acquisition. You
know, you're between talent, between staff. I mean, it's it's hard,
and I understand people's frustrations. Sorry to catch up, No, but
that's the thing. People can be frustrated. I understand it. To me,
it's baffling too, I don't understand it. But I'm not directing any
of that towards Mike or anyone on the stream, because basically, Mike was
just doing his job and he was reporting what he was hearing. If anybody
wants to get upset with Mike, you come at him, you come out
of the entire group. Like I'm just gonna say that right now, I
will defend Mike Mitchell to the end, like he is an incredible man and
he has done a great, just fantastic work, more than anyone will ever
do in this space or ever has done in this space. I will defend
him to the end. I don't care. And I don't know if that
comes from some echo chamber somewhere and some concock finest part of the Internet.
I don't care. Mike has done his job, and so any frustration that's
me needs to be directed here. It needs to be directed at whoever's making
the decisions. Okay, look, this is this needs to be thought out
logistically correctly. I know the big wigs of the top ends of both leagues
are discussing this, and apparently a lot of other people are in the dark.
They've I don't know what they're doing, because you do not want to
alienate people and you do not want to pull out the wrong pin because if
you do, this could go really badly. I'm just gonna say that right
now. You have to be careful with what steps you make. If you're
going to completely rebrand both leagues and has have one entity, you better be
damn sure it's going to work, which again is almost again wild to me
that that could even be a possibility because both of these brands by themselves were
so strong and we're still renowned in the public space. You're basically starting from
ground zero. Again. You might as well just start in a whole new
league period. Like why I even combine the teams, That's the thing.
I don't get why there was. It just feels like so fly by night
methodology, because nobody really seems to be going about this way of maybe planning
out I don't know, five or ten years in the future, and I
know the USFL and the XBL talked about having their plans, but they've basically
abandoned them after year one and two and just are throwing them casting them.
The su for this measure, which I'm just gonna say it right now,
just feels like desperation because it feels like it's desperate based on how it's how
it's coming together, how the logistics are working out. I mean, again,
all these brands, all these ips, what do you do with all
the you know, the merchandise, so you're gonna sell it off all of
a sudden, what are you going to do in terms of like, you
know, all the TV deals interlocking the TV deals, the Disney deal that
might brought up, but you know they're interlocked with Disney until twenty twenty seven.
What's Disney's you know, thoughts about this in their relationship with ESPN.
I mean, and then of course, the thing that gets me and this
whole thing, and not to go on too long, but the thing that
really on my craw about this is the players and the coaches and the people
that whose jobs are at stakes suddenly because of this. And look, this
is a capitalistic venture. This country is built on capitalistic ventures, and part
of that includes takeovers and mergers that happens with companies. I've been part of
a company that had a takeover. Things changed, I didn't like it.
I left, people followed me after towards I've been reading about different kinds of
mergers that have happened in the past. Obviously, the most in famous one
I can think of is like Sears and Kmart. I know it's not a
football league, but like that obviously blew up in both of their faces when
that happened. I mean, you have to be really careful with when you
when you decide to pull the trigger on this kind of decision you're going to
put You're going to upset a lot of people, and you have to be
careful with where you go forward. But you need to have a plan,
and I just I hope that they have a clear plan of what they're going
to do and how they're going to accomplish it, and not just say let's
throw everything together and see if it works, because that's not going to work.
It's not gonna it's not gonna last, and we're going to be back
to square one again. It's interesting, and so it's just kind of to
I guess add further context. And Mike's been reporting this and the word is
football opts on both the USFL and XFL side. And if you know the
history and the crossover, I'm not going to like throw people under the bus
here. But if you know the history and the crossover of the USFL and
the x L and who's been in both, like to me, I can
connect the dots very much of like who from the XFL was talking to who
of the x of the USFL, And I actually message no soul that this
person no soul that I you know, I didn't want to. I didn't
want to dig too deep, you know, like throw any one under the
bus. But apparently, you know, year one concludes football ops on both
sides. They talk and they go, okay, let's let's ship this upstairs
and see and and Mike has said in our chat, you know, the
the room in which kind of the sphere of who in the XVl and the
USL who actually know what's going on is very very slim, you know,
I mean we're talking Russ Brandon, Danny, Dwayne Moose. You know,
they're like who else would be on that? You know, who else would
be on that? Because like Ed Hartman's whoever is on Like Eric Shanks or
whatever on the US and L side, and so you know, because that's
my question to you is and I'm trying to figure out timeline here because I
was. I had a conversation today with someone who was talking within the executive
at Fox, and they're saying, yes, the axial report said the merger
is going to be complete here ahead of the twenty twenty four seasons. But
that doesn't necessarily mean that the twenty twenty four season is going to be a
combined like US XFL, Spring League whatever amalgamation, like they potentially could merge,
continue to act as two separate entities very much like you know, the
AFL whatever back in the day run co currently, maybe you have a little
bit of crossover play and then move towards that down the line, which I
would like because as you know that, you know, like Vipers and ballot
Hawks, like we're all kind of tweeting on And what I don't know,
truthfully, is is this like blissful ignorance, like, Hey, we're just
going to bout our business. This is what we're doing. Do they not
know? Is this a directive? You know? Does it not matter?
Because yeah, we are still doing the showcase next month. We are still
doing the draft. XFL is going to operate on its own. USBL has
its timeline, and then we're gonna, you know, we can be merged.
But it's kind of a slow zipper effect versus I think a lot of
people right now, and especially on the stream last night, it's like,
no, this is all happening before April, which in my sense is not
maybe necessarily the case. As I knocked my microphone number, I mean it's
a panic button if that's the case. But yeah, to me, I
think it's a little more thought out. Hopefully to that, I'll say,
I mean, we only know what we know. We don't know everything.
And I've learned just from my reading and going through a lot of people and
comments. No, a lot of people don't know anything about the situation,
and a lot of people are pretending to know that they know a lot of
things. Look, a lot of us are in the dark here. Okay,
this is a transitioning This is a transitioning phase right now for a lot
of us. And look, these leagues, I don't know logistically again how
they would be able to accomplish this. I mean, we're getting to the
end of September. Here, we're coming up. Twenty twenty four is not
that far away. And I don't know how in the world you would be
able to conduct this merger and be able to get everyone on the same page
that quickly and then drop if it means dropping teams. I would not advise
that. If it's going to be down the road, if it's going to
be a year after twenty twenty four, and they somehow logistically are able to
keep as many teams as possible and are able to sort of brief people on
what could potentially happen down the road, that's a little bit more amicable,
and that I understand a little bit more. Again, I don't want teams
to drop, but obviously it seems to be a fantasy land proposition that all
the teams would stay. And I think that's what maybe is such a disconnect
here. Is basically, any time that the idea of a merger was brought
up amongst anyone in our group or people in the know, the fan bases,
or anybody peripheral, you know, people on the outside, maybe casuals,
everybody talked about it like, oh yeah, well you just get all
sixteen teams in there. And how do you do what you play same rules
and that's it. And clearly there seems to be a disconnect between what people
wants and what the league's wants, or at least they think they can use
in order to be viable and be able to survive. So to me,
I mean, it just would seem so hasty if they just kind of dropped
teams and they were just rushing into this next year, if indeed that was
the case, because I mean, look, the end of the XFL was
talking to the CFL for four months between March and July twenty twenty one,
and in between that time, they realized, we're not gonna be ready for
twenty twenty two. Let's you know, cut our losses and move back and
get ready for that season, which in hindsight was a good move, and
some would argue they still weren't ready for in some ways they still work.
But I think that was again, I think that was an ego more than
it was preparation. Like they I know, Cashman Field was a disaster,
but that's because they really thought it was going to work and it didn't.
You know, I think they tried their damnest. They gave themselves enough time,
and whatever they tried, it didn't work, so that didn't come to
fruition. As far as this goes, though, I mean, this would
be even hate year. I mean, this is even closer to that timeline.
If even if it's like I know, it's pushing back, I would
be pushing back to April, so it would still be two plus months.
But even then, it still just feels very rapid. And again, it's
so much bigger in terms of not only just starting an eighteen league, but
to just get everyone on the same page. I I just I question whether
or not they seem to know what the timeline is here, and this is
just so fluid, and I think that's the thing about it. It's very
fluid. And I don't know when we're going to get that official announcement.
I mean we know, I mean I get it for months, you know,
that's the thing. We're getting all this reporting, but clearly it may
not even transpire in this month or next month or the month after or who
knows when I think, like I said, the more I found about this
and ruminated, because you know, obviously, and I believe Mike when he
says like this is very close to finalization you know, whatever this is.
And you know, the Axios report is obviously saying the head of the twenty
twenty four. It leads me very much more like we're gonna we're gonna shift
XFL back, we're both kicking off in April. We're we're gonna try to
maybe align our programming schedules so it's more complimentary. Because what I think has
happened going into this stuff is they you know, we talked about this last
night. This is a very niche market we're in, you know, even
niche, more niche than I maybe imagine kind of getting into all of this
world and who who, you know, who cares to listen to about it.
But you know, when you're trying to segment that viewership, especially you
know, dealing with football fatigue, dealing with you know, the overlapping we
got March matters, like all these things, I think they realize like,
okay, this whole like real football, Hollywood whatever versus the XFL, and
like we know we're competing with USFL where we're not going to talk like you
know, they're kind of waging the Cold War in different ways back and forth.
Like to me, this feels way more amicable of like, at a
minimum, how can we not hurt each other, and then how can we
then forward with working together in the future. I think it's kind of a
multi step process here, for like, hey, number one, let's not
be firing bullets at each other. And then step number two, like let's
figure out because if you are basing a large identity of your league around supporting
players, getting players to the NFL, like it be you know, Dwayne
and Danny all the time, you know, and I believe that, you
know, I've talked with players and hey, you know, Danny was there.
We feel this connection with ownership and we feel like they want to be
a part of that. You can't do that and then also operate the business
in the way that like knowingly is self sabotaging. And so to me,
that's where I'm kind of reading into it of like let's you know, let's
not turn the guns at each other. Let's turn you know, let's let's
be firing together here and kind of try to build a platform that these players
can thrive off of. And that's fine, but again, just be careful
about which platforms you use and if you're going to take things away again,
I think that's the other thing. It's hard to take away when people would
you give something to people, especially in this country, will did not expect
to give it back. You know, that's like no, this it's not
just you know, it doesn't just become your property. Becomes everyone's property,
and basically if you allow that to happen, then it becomes a problem for
many people, and so for me I and you know, look the timeline
for the calendar. I've never been a fan of the April of the July
timeline, just personally it's getting towards summer. I just think about the players
and having to play on turf in the Midwest and the South and when it's
hot and it's humid, I just do not prefer that for them. And
quite frankly, it's not a very enviable destination for me as a West Coast
person to go into that kind of territory. Now, if you're gonna have
West Coast teams, great, then I can just stick stick around with those.
But as far as that's why for me, for the us L it
was just harder to convince myself to go travel to a game, among other
things, but that was really a big thing for me, and I think
it's a big thing for the players. And as far as the calendar thing
goes, though, it's interesting to me because there was one of the biggest
reasons the XFL thought their calendar was better lined up is that it would allow
players to get into mini camps and be able to train and get ready for
the NFL and be able to have better opportunities ahead of all the USFL players.
Well, as we have seen, while a lot of players did get
signed, not a lot of players made the fifty three man roster to the
one man I mean and exactly, you know, people want to call me
home or whatever. I mean, USFL got more players on the rosters at
least right now, and everything's shifting whatever. Like they did not play.
You're saying it didn't play as big a part as we thought it would.
It didn't ultimately. I mean, now, I know it's their first year,
but like that was the whole idea was Okay, well, they have
more preparation, they have more time, and it was just a wash really,
I mean, both of them had pretty much equal amount of players.
I think it does stay to me at least that both of them have talented
players, and they both have players that are sticking around. But as far
as the calendar goes, I mean, it clearly didn't seem to make much
of a difference, which maybe that's a concession that the XFL brass is willing
to make now just saying okay, well this didn't prove that point, I
guess then we're okay with moving along with the April to July calendar. So
maybe it ultimately didn't didn't matter in that regard. So I just again,
if you're gonna be playing at the same time next year, fine, Just
I hope that if both leads are allowed to exist and coexist with one another,
that they're able to have all of the teams at least for next year,
and I would hope in some way, shape or form going forward.
But again that's not my call, that's logistically, but I just I hesitate
and I worry, and I get nervous about that losing not only just losing
ips, but just losing fans and losing people who are saying, really,
you just gave this to us, and now you're taking you away again.
And I think it's it's hard to just dangle the promise of well, well,
you know the team will come back eventually. That's I think that's a
hard stance to take. I'm just gonna say that right now. I think
that's a really hard thing to promise. If nothing else, I do,
you know, I the April is hard, you know, to me,
I would I would kick it off, you know. And maybe I'm not
the biggest college fan, you know with the basketball, I no, I
went to Gonsega. That's terrible to say, but like, uh, you
know, the second March madness is that I would kick this league off right
because I would want to get out as close to summer. I think going
into July is too late. I think end of June and kids are gone
and you're going on vacation and all that stuff. But I will say,
and this is does not matter in the long term, but at least next
year, I think the Rock is very much rumored to be headline in WrestleMania
forty against Roman Rains, which would be early April. And that really would
be if you wanted to whatever you call this, if it's the Double League
or have a new name by this point or whatever, like that's that's a
great runway of like, hey, let's he's gonna be on TV every week.
It's gonna be you know, WrestleMania forty. It's hugely. That does
play into at least that part of it. But you know, otherwise,
I don't. I've never liked the April. You know, Originally I said
like, oh, I think this is the best, and that once we
kind of lived through it with the US of Valley very much firmly, Uh,
February very might be too early to come back right after the super Bowl,
and I think April's too late to start. I'm glad you brought up
the Rock because that's the other thing. And this factorating in this whole thing
is the whole build up with the XFL is that the casual person no disrespected
Danny Garcia. I understand what she does, and I know what her job
is, and I understand what she does and what she represents. People know
who The Rock is, you know, like they know his brand, his
identity and everything. If you're talking to the person on the street, you're
like and you tell him like, oh, the Rock has a football league,
They're like, the Rock has a football league. That's that's that has
cachet. If you're going to merge these two entities. Are you going to
have the rock just saying you know, basically it's his league of the nwslor
whatever it's going to be called, and the or the I guess the the
National Spring Football League sorry, and as f w L. It's like,
if you're gonna have that, then are they gonna be okay with the fact
that people are just going to probably automatically assume, Oh, it's his league.
You know, he owns all these teams and he has all these things
with them, Like are you okay with that branding and that messaging? You
have to be careful about that because I don't know how does he readjust this,
how does he juxtaposed this now? Because and I know he's talked about
Danny and he's shared all the things with him and all that, But can
Fox share that Are they okay with that? I know they obviously have a
big stake in ww that's fine, but are they able to are they willing
to kind of play along with that gimmick because that's part of it, right,
that's part of that's part of the notoriety, that's part of the show.
And I just wonder how again, that's why philosophically, I thought these
two would never be able to get on the same page because I thought they
were just so disparate and how they ran their not only ran their leagues,
but just in terms of like the fan bases, everybody just felt so different
in terms of how they approached football and they approached the products, and they
approached the idea. I don't know, it's gonna be really interesting to see
these two ideas potentially melving the other thing. INSI about kind of playing nice
together. You're talking about that as well. And curious about this because I
was having a conversation today just even just the very idea that ESPN, you
know, ESPN, ABC, Fox and then whatever NBC is involved in this
where they're at least in through the next year. I think NBC has got
a three year deal they're paying to air right USFL owned by Fox, NBC
paying for part of that to air. It's just weird to think that they
would play nice on that. I mean, a very weird, surreal kind
of moment of that, you know, even to to add on to why
we never thought that this was going to happen, right, egos and business
plans and the way they operate and Danny always wanted to own the thing,
and Fox, okay, how can we get cheap programming? And especially now
like uh, we're losing WW next year, We're going to need even more
stuff just even this ESPN and Fox kind of playing. Well, you don't
see that often, right and it maybe Fox makes the concession because they own
it and and you know, you can pay out to license whatever the extra
Belt can pay for some of that at you know, airtime or whatever.
Like, I don't know how you negotiate that, because in this day and
age, that to me feels very odd. They have two competing networks kind
of sharing similar properties like that. It does again the synergy of it is
very strange, and I don't know if that is going to come together cohesively.
I am surprised that Disney or ESPN or whoever is involved in this decision
making as well, was presumably okay with the melding of those things. And
again, you've had bullets flying from both sides as far as who does one,
what does better and all that. Here's one thing I think that does
need to change as far as if they're going to be able to run this
thing, if we're going to have this merged property. As far as as
far as visuals go, you need to be able to get out of the
hub concept. Look, you can't have both of these sides doing two different
things if they're going to merge together in ideals, you can't have like one
not playing hubs and the other one doing that. Now I guess they're gonna
do it still next season, the USFL is still going to have the four
hubs because I haven't heard anything about venues being selected for any of the teams
that don't have it. Are they going to be able to continue that.
I don't know. We'll see again as far as like I think it.
You know, at this time last year, I mean, we didn't even
hear about the Memphis show Boats coming along. If I'm not mistaken, there
was like no no word on it yet. I have I have to double
check the date. But it seemed to me like they were still in the
process of just moving the IP from the bandits, you know, and so
could they do that again, Like could the USFL just decide like, oh,
you know, we're actually we're gonna drop this team and we're gonna go
pick another one, you know, because they have all those those brands and
they're just gonna throw them in one of the hubs. Again. It's so
it's it's much different than the XFL, who put all the teams in the
markets and had to make a very tough conscious decision of that. We've that
has been reported about them potentially taking Vegas out. You know, that's that
requires a lot of movement. So again, if you're going to have these
two teams operating it in tandem, I don't think you can have them showing
those philosophical differences. I mean, the fans might want that, but I
don't think they really can afford to do that because one of the things that
I think we talked about last season is, you know, does the average
person know what what the difference is between and I don't think they do.
Like they're they're they're not. They're sitting there and being like, oh,
you know they do this point conversion of this league and they run this and
now all the kickoff is like that, No no one knows that you have
I'm sorry. People are talking like sorry, Like people were talking like,
oh, like what rule book are they going to use? Like save for
the kickoff? I don't think anybody could tell you the difference between the USFL
and the XFL. Yeah, Like I remember, was it last week with
the with the with the Vikings game where what's his video? What's his face?
The Justin Jefferson like when he fumbled the ball into the ends own and
I tweeted out like hey, and the USFL, this isn't an issue,
and whoever texts me be like you know, the XFL does has the same
rule like see like I saved for the kickoff. I don't think the rules
is a place to handle that. I mean, like, the rules are
the rules, and they're gonna have to be consistent in some way, shape
or form. But again, are you gonna have these entities just become like
conferences? And can you can you convince people that they can be conferences?
I mean, look, the AFL and the NFL was a very different time
obviously in terms of merging. First of all, they didn't really lose teams,
you just you ended up gaining teams of anything else out of it.
But also, you know the only thing that really changed namingwise was the AFL
became the AFC, and then you had the NFL brand being the overall arguing
piece of it, and then you had the AFC and the NFC conferences,
but it wasn't that much of a change. So here it's like, if
you're gonna have a new name, are you going to change one of them
to like the x F or like the USFC or something like that, like
the United States Football Conference and the Extreme Football Conference, whatever that X stands
for. I'm still I'm still trying to figure out what the X stands for.
Sorry Danny and sorry Dwayne Johnson. I'm still trying to stand for the
other section of the dreams and opportunities. Yeah, by the way, when
they said that, did they say that in terms of two leagues coming together?
Is that what that was? That was together? It's like, yeah,
here's this side, here's this side. Is that? And maybe maybe
maybe it was foreshadowing, Maybe we were really just being done the entire time.
It was just massive foreshadowing to the two sides coming together at the intersection
of the X. You know. I mean, it's just Matt. Look,
that's the thing. It's all just madness right now. And I'm trying
to every every hour I'm thinking about what about this? What about this thing?
And what about what happens to this. My head's still spinning. It's
been two days and it's and it's still been spinning and it hasn't stopped spinning.
So I want to make sure we tell you know, I don't want
to go for everyone that, so I want to make sure we talked through
everything. You know, teams shifting, you know, I don't think Vipers
is the biggest no offense to the six thousand cashman field, you know,
fan, I don't know if that's the biggest loss, like I said,
but I do want respect to be given to respect to be given to that
fan base, though, because it is really easy to write that, you
know, to write that off I okay, this is you know, we're
moving like you know, these are people that spend a lot, spent money
about merch kind of the bought the XFL the eighty dollars jerseys or where they
were having shifts and all that stuff. To not write that up Roughnecks is
a big I know, Mike Mitchell incredulous about an Evan and ever I mean
not just Mike, We're all kind of incredulous about the gamblers on that.
Any other notes on that about the gamblers taking over the Roughnecks on that because
I do think that that to me, Roughnecks are safe for you know,
Saint Louis. You talk defenders like Roughnecks and the PJ. Walker and the
undefeated of it all, like of any legacy, and this is like so
long ago we're talking now XFL twenty. But to me, that has one
of the stronger ones that you would kind of want to keep in the regard.
Again, it's a strong brand, it's a strong I P. And
again you have Wade Phillips as the head coach, a Houston legend basically you
know, parking his services for that team, and they've been able to have
an established identity and they've won a lot. I mean that's a big part
of it too. You know, they're a winner. I mean in the
regular season, you're talking about a combined record between both seasons of twelve and
three. And now I know they've bowed out in the playoffs early, but
I mean they've had success, and they've had players who have moved on and
done things in the NFL. I just think it's hard for me to be
convinced that they are the ones they're going to go by the wayside. And
I wonder is it just because of the venue change if there's no change in
the venue for moving out of the yeah, moving the right stadium, If
that doesn't happen, does this become part of the conversation. I wonder,
because like at that point, maybe it's just the venue insecurity that is part
of this whole transition for them, and saying well, they're not established a
right, so the gamblers could be. I just wonder because if they weren't
moving out of that stadium already, if they weren't moving out of the University
of Houston, maybe this wasn't a conversation. I have to wonder if like
that part of it maybe caused concern from both sides and saying, well,
maybe there's not really much of a difference here, but again, which team
has been there much Tream has already been there, Which dream Alray has a
fan base? And again I'm gonna I'm gonna say something that's going to be
super homary here, And that's fine if you're looking at this right besides Birmingham,
besides Detroit, right besides Memphis. If you're the XFL, you're like,
what what are we selling the breakers at? Right? What are we
selling the you know, the gambler. Maybe he just made that concession and
you go, yeah, you can take that. It's all you know,
it's negoti it's negotiating, right, You're like okay, like you know,
we're training back. You know, it's like monopoly, like, hey,
i'll give you I'll give you a two parts, you know, park place
in Saint James, Like, okay, take it, take like take Houston.
Like I just think maybe maybe it's that simple, right, maybe it's
that simple, like, well, we can have seven teams and you know,
three three us L teams, like we got to have it be a
little bit more. I mean, I think that that could be it.
And I don't want to be the homer, but like you look at some
of the established fan bases, Houston is more established than a lot of the
US mel ones. But that's the thing. You can't treat it like monopoly
pieces. Not when I know, I know, but I'm just gonna say
this, and it's probably gonna make a lot of people upset. I think
the USFL has treated a lot of their ips like monopoly pieces. They've just
said, well, we'll trade this ip for this one. You know,
we'll move around and we'll just go to this stilitate city and know what,
you know, wherever we can play. Look, and that's their strategy.
Okay, that's what they've said. The XFL is not doing things that way.
And I think that's why I would be alienating to just go ahead and
put the gamblers in place of the roughnecks. I mean, it's like,
just you know, this isn't. This isn't the girl I went to the
ball with, Like, who is this? You know? You just walk
my date Like that's that's how it feels, trying to get somebody else in
there. I don't think this is this is They have to be really careful
about how they go about this. Again, now, I know there's like
the untouchable brands right like the Battle Hawks. Do not touch them at all,
DC, do not touch them. You can't. They're they're you know,
God's gift the Earth and Spring Football Leagues. You know, like you
can't do that. But all these other ips. You got to stop treating
them like their puzzle pieces. I mean, it's it's it's alienating again.
It's not only alienating, it's disrespectful to people who put their time, money,
and effort into these teams and been able to put their energy into it.
And I'm just saying from my perspective with the USFL teams, they haven't
been in a home market. And you can, I understand there's fans,
there's people online, but like reasonably speaking, how much has really been put
in to them as teams, you know, like in terms of capital gains.
And that's what I'm talking about here. It's capital gains as far as
what has actually made any sort of momentum forward and getting people involved in the
markets. So I just that and that's part of the game. If this
is a capitalistic venture, what did you go with somebody that's already familiar,
You go with a brand that's familiar, You go with a team that people
already recognized. Again, that's why it just doesn't make sense to me anything
else. You wanted to make sure we hit on the team thing that we
talked to broadcast, we talked the timeline conferences. I don't know. I
just to me, I was surprised today because you know, we didn't know
what Mike was going to say last night coming on and you know, obviously
and he was recorded with Mark as well, and I'm glad that we could
kind of get a like up on that, But like I didn't, you
know, expecting the team slim down, expecting you know, losing staff and
kind of things like that. I just I wasn't expecting. I don't think.
I don't think a lot of people were, Like it's been in a
little bit of a negative reaction today, and even some of the kids that
I know that like, you know, when I post on Facebook and like,
Okay, they're liking everything, and they're liking everything, like there's a
lot of like angry em like they're you know, angry, and I know
it's not to me, Like I know, it's kind of the news because
I just you know, I know these people are very passionate about that.
And I was talking with listeners Seth today on the phone about like just how
passionate kind of the spring football fan bases. Were you surprised, like just
I mean, this was not wildly accepted, well I think by anybody USFL
or XFL fans. I mean, it's something that I again did not see
coming at all. It's a curveball. But again maybe it's just speculation.
But if that's stuff that Mike is hearing. Clearly, it's being part of
the discussion, you know. And look, here's the thing that people need
to understand is when Mike is hearing things, it means it's part of a
legitimate part of the discussion. The XFL thought about being in hubs last year,
Okay, they thought about being in the Arlington hub and doing the same
thing as USFL. Clearly there was backlash to that idea. They backed away
from it, and you know why. Big part of it was because of
Mike's reporting, because he said that and everyone said, you can't do that.
That's the same thing that the USFL is doing. I thought we were
supposed to play in our own markets. That's the whole point of having all
of these brands. You can't take away the BattleHawks fan base, you can't
take away the DC fan base, you can't take away the Houston fan base.
What are you doing? Don't do this? And you know that's part
of it, you know. So now you have this, I guess you
call it backlash. I'm not sure. I think it's just general mask confusion
about what's going on. But at some point it's gonna it's going to come
to a head, and maybe some of the execs or some of the people
in the higher ups of these organizations are going to realize, oh, maybe
we shouldn't. You know, this is the wrong Jenga piece to pull out,
you know, otherwise the tower might fall, like we can't do this.
And that's part of reporting, that's part of getting information out there.
That's part of getting people informed and getting them in the know about what is
happening. So, no, Mike Mitchell did nothing wrong, and he did
he's doing his job. And again, maybe that doesn't come to fruition.
Maybe they changed course and they say, never mind, we're only gonna drop
two teams, or we're just going to figure this out along the way and
we'll get back to this later. We'll come back to the table. So
but it again, yes, the initial reaction it should be negative because it's
it's it's just taking away. It just feels like more subtraction than it does
addition, even though it's supposed to be a merger, which is kind of
the wrong feeling to have, you know, it's not supposed to it's not
supposed to be. It's maybe it is supposed to be additioned by subtraction,
but it certainly doesn't feel that way. It's like that old show was it
Sister Wives with the Mormon guy and the wives. It's like love should be
multiplied, not divided. But I will say this and just to make it
like as a serious just thing here because you know, we've talked about this
a lot, and like, you know, I have nothing but love to
the people of the XFL and the people that run and do and you know,
I was so glad that like Corey shared that today because I do mean
that, like, you know, how do you get ready? You know,
you have these people that are working every day and then it's like whoop,
like we're not doing that, Like all respect for everybody. Everyone knows
I only do this. I certainly not do this for the fame of the
money, and certainly doing this for the love of all this. But like
when you have you know, Danny and the Rock, like having just gone
through like the DC and the Black Adam and like knowing how like for a
lack about the world, like toxic kind of the fan base can be if
like you're messing with things that they are like well that's not the cannon or
that like he didn't have that in that comic book and then you know his
socks were yellow and why are like all you know, all that kind of
stuff. Like I always go back to the initial XFL logo and like we're
doing the rebrand and the website's going down, and like we've been tinkering here
in the lab and like this is the first thing we're going to show you
guys, because we took over we did like that Black Friday hap Like this
is the first thing we're gonna do. And they come out with it and
nobody liked it. Nobody liked it at all, and you're like like this
is you are in spring football, man, Like this is community. And
I say the same thing with the CFL. It kills me a league that
is like so community driven. I've never had an interaction with a single account
on Twitter ever in three years of like hey really appreciate like I don't know
what liking it, Like, hey, watching the CFL get like XFL does
that they enter be a part of this community. And it's the same kind
of with this as well, Like well, we went up to our Ivory
tower, you know, you know at Fox Sports or if you did it,
Rebro, like we kind of went up and we concocted this plan and
like here you go. We came up and you're like, I get that
you can't run the business by committee, but I just I've always felt like
spring football is is it different? It's just wait, does that make sense?
Like you can't run it by committee, but I just feel like you
have such this that hard fan base that has gone through so many different twists
and turns and had the rug pulled out from them eighteen hundred times, Like
it's really hard to like buy in and like here we you know, I
get these people like here we go again. Like in the in the beginning
of this podcast, I have CJ from San Antonio era GTA San Andrea's like,
ah, here we go again, like if you've ever played that video
game, but he just feels like, all right, strap back into the
roller coaster. And I think that disconnect is part of it that seems to
upset a lot of people. And I get it, because yeah, it
is like a community. It is. It's a very niche thing. I've
never thought that it's bigger than it actually is. I wish it was bigger.
I think all of our efforts are and trying to get it out there
because we wanted to succeed. We wanted to be a great thing for players,
coaches, people involved in the league because it is. It's fun.
It's something that's supposed to be fun, and it's supposed to be engaging,
and it's supposed to be able to continue the lives and dreams of people who
otherwise don't think they have any left in the space and for them, for
the people who are making the decisions, Sometimes it just feels like it's completely
disconnected from that idea. And I know CFL people would say something similar to
their league in some ways, like it feels like there's a lot of disconnect
from what's going on the league office versus what's actually going on amongst the fans
and the teams. And so I think that's why this is also frustrating.
We don't want this to go wrong, you know, because it can go
very wrong if things are not handled properly, egos get involved, or if
the wrong again, if the wrong pin is pulled and it blows up in
their face. If we lose all of this, if all of these teams
go away, like that's devastating. It's huge, and I'd hate to be
doing clue but I don't mean to be like that, you know, I
don't want to be so morbid on this show. Like it's just you know,
we haven't even gotten the official announcement yet, but I just worry about
what's the plan going here and is it going to be executed properly going forward?
And you know, I have to have my doubts so far, just
because it's it's new and well, part of it is exciting. I'm also
very anxious to see if what's going to happen and what's going to transpire from
it. Yeah, we'll wind this down here. I think this will be
good. I will say, like if all you know, if all this
goes away, I'll feel really bad for the players and the staff. I
think my mental sanity would probably be better off. But certainly, you know,
a lot of these stands and the people to listen to the shows.
And I appreciate everyone we've added, even just subscribers on the channel here since
we've been recording here, which is just you know, really incredible, and
I really appreciate all that support. But uh, you know, the staff
and the players, that's who I care about, and I know that is
who you and you know Evan and Anthony and Mike and everyone like that's who
we you know, that's why you do this, and it's to give these
players opportunities and whether they're going to go into the you know, go to
the NFL. I had my interview that will be on here later on this
episode with Cam Phillips and talking with him about you know, he was someone
cut bounced around, went the XFL, and now he's a Great Cup champion
and he's on the Toronto Argonauts for you know, it will be his third
season now, like they're probably gonna win the Great Cup again, you know,
or at least make you know, having a historic rually this like here's
someone that that you know, it wasn't just because of the XFL. I
mean that Cam Phillips works its ass off and you know, played like that
was part of his journey. And so even if it's not the NFL for
everybody, which it certainly can't be. I mean, it's just you can
never be a but like to have to see that as a stepping stone for
a lot of these guys. I think it's cool and obviously that's why we
do that. So anything else from you, Andy, I appreciate it late
here, at least for West Coast. It's not like sometimes I feel bad.
I like Mike gone till like eleven o'clock and I'm like, oh god,
but anything else for me, I appreciate you working late tonight. Yeah,
absolutely, no, thank you for having me on. I was chomping
up the bit to say something. I was really really excited about this.
But again, I appreciate you in putting out this platform and giving everybody a
platform to talk. I mean, you've been doing double duty. I mean
you did a CFL and XFL back to back. That's a that's almost as
good as your draft marathon that you had nothing nothing will talk the eight hour
because a true marathon. So I appreciate you in all the hard work you
put in. Thanks everyone, Like I said, checked that. You know,
we've got CFL coming up Derek Taylor if you're interested in the CFL staff,
and then even if you're not, it's CFL Camp Phillips and his journey
is part of the XFL as well. Really excited to see him. So
yeah, well it's checked back in after the break here. Well, this
guest was going to bail me out last week when Jeff Hamilton. We hadn't
we talked about that on the podcast, had a delay, got him on
here, but we have Derek Taylor very excited. Weird weekend with the Blue
Bombers. I want to get your thoughts on that and everything else. But
Voice of the Blue Bombers, how are you doing, sir? I'm good,
I'm good. I didn't re end any other drivers. Is that what
the Hammers problem was? I don't know. I have with That's such a
good dude. I hope everything's okay. I hope I see him back in
practice next week. Yeah, no, this is good. So you know,
first off, we'll talk Bombers and it's bye week and I want to
kind of get your thoughts where we stand here Week sixteen. But really weird
game last week. I was filming, actually an old folks like event to
out filming. I do a lot of event filming, and I'm like tracking
the score during the first quarter. I'm like, you know, what the
heck's going on here? So I ended up pulling the game out, putting
it on my camera so I could walk around and watch it kind of a
I mean, I didn't expect the Mombers to lose that game. If that
makes sense, Like, what do you attribute that too? I wish I
could give you a real solution for it, because all week long we talked
about last year's game at this time of the year against Hamilton. It was,
oh, hey, you guys had just won a big game and then
you went to Hamilton and got whacked. What was the deal with that?
And they said, you know, wasn't that complacency. It wasn't that we
took them easy. It wasn't that we were looking ahead to the bye week,
so they were aware of all these things. And then the exact same
game happens, you know, a year minus a day later, and they
go into Hamilton with the bye week looming, coming off a big win,
and they get whacked and three turnovers on offense and the defense looked vulnerable in
ways we haven't seen in a little bit. And you know, how did
the same thing happen again? How is it that you've lost going into the
bye week four of the last five times you've had the bye when over that
span and you've only lost seven games. I honestly, I've just come to
start thinking, are they as human as kind of you know, we are,
those of us with Monday to Friday jobs where you go, it's a
long weekend coming up. Maybe I don't take Friday as seriously as I do
on a regular Friday. I honestly, I don't know, but I'm starting
to think that maybe football players are human beings after all, which is kind
of a dumb, slightly sarcastic revelation to come to. But maybe they have
some of the things that folks like us in office jobs have two I there's
there's gotta be at this point, I'm like, there's probably something in there
because it doesn't seem and we'll talk, you know, in terms of like
the Lions and stuff and other teams like to me, I feel like the
Lions are a little undisciplined and it feels like they're I don't know if that's
a locker room thing or whatever, Like yeah, Winnipeg, you know O'Shea's
got them and we're marching forth. But you're right, that was like the
game last year where Dane Evans went off right and had wasn't that like the
game of the year last year for him? And that it was that Winnipeg
game against Hamilton, Right, Yeah, that's probably the best game Dane Hamons
will play in his life, right, It's the best game a lot of
quarterbacks whatever play in their like five touchdowns and no picks and just raining fire
on a team that's on its way to a fifteen and three record. That
is that is a game that I feel like Dane at the very least Dade's
family will remember forever, remember how unbelievable our kid was that night. Like
it was it was remarkable. So in terms of I don't know, is
this cause for concern? I mean, obviously, you know, you're,
you know, with the team and everything, but like they at the time
that we've lived in the CFL, here it feels like they're a little bit,
like you said, more human right now, Like is this cause for
concern? It might be. Here's here's the thing. The Bombers have this
going for them that no other team does. They are incredibly healthy, like
incredibly healthy before this Hamilton game, the the Banjo Bowl against the Skatchewan if
you looked at the twenty four guys they started, those are probably the twenty
four guys they want would have wanted started coming out of training camp. Right
Nobody among their starters on the injured list, which who does that happen to
other teams are getting decimated by injury. The other teams are on their fourth
quarterback. Hamilton was on its third quarterback, didn't have Dylan Wynn, didn't
have its all star, you know, defensive back, tun day A Delecate.
There are a ton of guys Hamilton did not have access to. But
the Bombers do you go, oh, okay, well that's that's really good.
So however, for this Hamilton game, they lose. They lost Jackson.
Jeff Coote, right, a guy Kojo Sha kind of says was born
to pass rush, and you really saw the impacts of it. I do
the games with Doug Brown, who's a Hall of Fame defensive tackle. So
whenever he starts talking about defensive line, anything defense and anything football obviously,
but when he gets down to defensive line, my ear, my ears really
perk up, and he goes, oh, they're really taking advantage of Celestin
Habba, the rookie who was in for Jeff Coat on this one, and
they would, you know, crash. You have to make sure that Powell
could get to the edge, and it seemed like Powell could get to that
edge on the roll out whenever he wanted. I went, oh, okay,
well that's something that Jeff Cote would would change, right, And we've
seen it in Bomber games this season. If Jeff Coat's not there, the
back end is under more stress and the back end has some cracks in it.
Man, I hope that the reason they left Jeff Code out, they
said it was just kind of give him an extra week's rest and not that
he's going to be injured long term. You hope that's absolutely the case,
because I mean they've lost four games already this year. They lost three all
of last year, and you thought they might lose a couple more because of
wacky bounces and stuff. But Jackson, Jeffcoat is incredibly important going down the
stretch in this one for this team because not that it doesn't work without him,
but man, it certainly does work with him. In terms of the
Hamilton's side of it, you know they're you know, quietly here and I
know it's the East, but you know, alive lets a kind of it
feels like plumbing in a little bit, you know Hamilton a little bit on
upswinging. Did they do a lot well or is it more just kind of
Winnipeg gave it away. Oh I really think they did. Yeah, they
did. They did a lot well, I mean offensively. We talked about
getting Pale out of the pocket and it was the first time i'd i'd seen
him, you know, in person and extended action. I'm like, whoa,
Okay, this guy's very calm. Oh it's breaking down. Okay,
well now he's sliding up into the pocket or he's on a roll. This
this. I was super impressed with Pal. His interception. Yeah, I
get why you threw that. It's in the end zone. It takes away
a score. But okay, I get that one the fumble you get smashed
by a large human. Okay, that that stuff's going to happen. I
was. I came away super impressed with Pal. They didn't have much in
the run game with Butler in that one, yet they were still able to
just put up twenty nine points. Uh. Their their defense. I mean,
I still I still can't go to get over this. And it's it's
a play that I don't see every defensive end do, but when I saw
it in this game, I went this, this I don't know if it's
a special play, but it's it's on the road towards special where Malik Carney's
lined up at left defensive end. He does a zone drop to replace the
linebacker who's gonna pass rush, and then he runs all the way over to
the right side of the field to step in the lane where Zach Calars is
throwing the football. I forget if he's throwing a stick rout or what it
was like, how does Malik Carney kid? I was just taking a back
during the broadcast, and I'm not getting any less. It's not any less
incredible to me as you and I are talking here and wow, that's a
real play. And then there's a couple of Zach Calars had one where you
can should you throw that ball? And we've had we had a few plays
this season where he went, should Zach have thrown that ball to Kenny Lawler
and double coverage in previous examples, and you go, yeah, well,
he has a ton of confidence in the best receiving corps in the league,
so yeah, maybe maybe he should. Maybe he's taking some some shots and
hoping they come right, and sometimes if they don't come right, they're they're
going to go bad. So that was kind of my read. And then
I mean, basically, the kicking game, which has been rock solid with
Sergio Castillo this season, gives up six points, missed a field goal,
missed a convert which went back for a two point defensive con writ and hego,
well, there's the six points between twenty nine and twenty three that you
know score wise made a difference. But we're a part of the story of
that game. Yeah, and it really surprising. I mean, I you
know, Sergio has been on I think back when he was with Edmonton and
obviously going around, but yeah, it's not. Hodge had a bunch of
tweets out, you know, the Mark Leggio of it all kind of looms
large. Well. Someone voting the Coaches Show on Monday and said that Mark
Leggio is better than Sergio Castillo, and coach wasn't in studio, but we
both kind of went it's not. I mean, for the game, sure,
but it's not overall the case. Castillo, I think in my adjusted
rankings, was fourth in the league and Leggio was tenth. By it with
a bullet like, it's Legio hit all his kicks. Castillo didn't. But
if you're if you're doing it over a season, I think Bomber fans and
Bomber coaches are more secure in Sergio Castillo despite the one head to head matchup
that goes a ride. Wanting to focus a lot here on weeks sixteen,
but looking forward with Winnipeg coming off to buy, Toronto's kind of in this
weird spot where they don't necessarily right have a lot to play for moving down
the line, kind of clinching and they're clinched number one with the bullet ride
in the East six weeks to go, with six weeks to go, they
have the home playoff game and they know it. So I'm really I'm interested
to see We've had teams clinched with a couple of weeks to go and see
how they handled their roster. But six weeks to go, you know,
well, where you have the West, we have the East final at home.
We want to be one hundred percent healthy, We've had guys injured.
I'm really, I'm really interested to see how Ryan Dinwood and company approach it.
Yeah, because like on paper, I'm looking them like, oh,
this is you know Toronto at Winnipeg, like this is a huge matchup,
but then you don't necessarily know what that roster is going to look like Yeah,
and I mean Toronto has the advantage of what do you want to show
when the next time you two would play would be in the Gray Cup.
Hey, we can show them every thing, or we can just kind of
go, yeah, we're gonna keep some We're gonna keep the powder dry for
the playoffs in case we happen to meet you guys in the playoffs. Winnipeg's
no guarantee to be there, right because BC is for real. But yeah,
that's one of the one of the angles of what do we give them,
what do we what do we not give them? Who do we show?
Who do we not show? As I will not be able to diagnose
the smarter football man. We'll have to diagnose. Oh Toronto didn't did this,
but hadn't done this before? Interesting, if they bust out anything new,
I'd be shocked, because why not just keep that quiet until you know
November. Yeah, there was a weird in XFL last year. It was
like the week you know ten game or whatever was also the first playoff game,
and so like the Week ten game was atrocious because neither team did anything
and then yeah, then then the playoff game obviously ended up having huge ramifications.
I want to get your thoughts here. BC going into Edmonton and we
talked about this obviously, you know BC getting there, like why they would
have to have a comeback from behind win against Ottawa? But my trust Like
if my trust level in Winnipeg was at ten, I'm like a negative point
five with BC, Like I wouldn't want them to watch my children, or
watch my house or take care of Like I just don't why. I mean,
I can see why is that? Why? Why? Why? BC?
Why do you doubt them so much? Because I just think that they're
like built on the hype this year. I think they've really bought into everything.
I think that they had a couple of big wins early in the season,
and I don't think they show up ready to go. I mean it
just feels like that, you know, that was the away thing. Okay,
we always went at home and then what was it Hamilton came in and
beat him at home? Was it that Ottawa? Like I'm sitting there watching
the game last week and I'm like, how are you losing the dust and
crumb here? Like you're supposedly this elite defense and I'm frustrated, but I
see them going into Edmonton. I mean I wouldn't. I would put money
on the Edmonton here. I mean I see that them playing with a lot
of kind of momentum right now with tree forward. What do you make of
that? BC needing a missed field goal return for a touchdown to get back
in that game is remarkable, right, because I fifty yard field goals on
missus a return for a touchdown literally two percent of the time, Like that
is as thin a margin as it could possibly be. And to need that
against the team with the worst record in the league. Yeah, and Vernon
through three picks in that game, right, both both the quarterbacks and the
top teams in the West through three picks on Week fifteen. Everton's man Edmonton
is just entirely different, right. The Bombers saw them in the first start
for trey Ford, so nothing was kind of you know, it wasn't gamed
out right, it hasn't progressed as far as it has now. Everton's just
a different deal. And if Everton, if they could find a way to
catch Saskatchewan, that's a long you know, two wins is a lot to
make up. They'd be really intriguing in the playoffs. Pretend it's Stephen Dunbar
is back off the six game injured list alongside Gino Lewis, who's now healthy.
Manny Arsenal underneath Gavin cogg can do some stuff down the field speedwise.
Kevin Brown is back to Kevin Brown of twenty twenty two, right, And
the defense with Chris Jones. You know they're settling in on personnel, be
that because of injuries, this is who they've got, or these are the
guys that they want. Chris Jones on defense can can make some stuff happen.
Oh, I don't know that. I want to really want. I
don't want to. I don't want to have to get through Edmonton to get
to a West Final on the road. So yeah, I really think I'm
part of me is still stuck on BC in week number three when they came
to Winnipeg and thrashed the Bombers. Part of that is still stuck in my
mind, even so that I forget that the Bombers then rethrashed the Dane Evans
at the time led BC Lions by putting up fifty So BC that offense has
man that offense can be real good. This week. Still no dominic rhymes.
But at some point, you know, they ever figured out how to
run the ball in addition to all the other stuff they do, they could
really have some things going. But yeah, it's they just go on a
way. I didn't get to see I didn't get to see the game against
Ottawa, but watching it my phone, going, really, this is to
Ottawa a couple of weeks, like you said after Hamilton. Really really,
so it's they are a puzzler and so I'm I'm with you. At the
right price, I'd be on Edmonton for sure. And I mean we talked
about this in our recap and I know that they were you know, when
you're behind and you're okay, we got the pouts fall whatever. I mean,
Mizella had thirteen yards rushing, like I just it's insane to me,
you know. And that was the problem is that you know before okay,
because like two three years ago, and then we get Butler and we build
him up and then obviously you kind of let him go. But it just
I don't know, it feels like I don't know, it feels like the
defense just lets too many big plays go in my opinion, and then you
get burned in freak now there if it's Dame when he was down, Okay,
I gotta throw for five thousand yards here. And it just doesn't feel
like Winnipeg, like you were saying when Edmonton goes in and you know it
was twenty two zero whatever, twenty two three a half, like Winnipeg came
and can build back and not panic and do that. It just doesn't feel
like BC's built the same way to play patient football. I could buy that
like Winnipeg. There's there's zero panic in Winnipeg, like none whatsoever. They
need a touchdown to get back. Within six of Hamilton, they went beat
poop poo. Oh, you're denying everything up top beat poopoopooo, boo boop,
and they went super fast, you know, getting snaps off at eighteen
with the clock live to go. Okay, yeah, this team is Yeah,
this team is conditioned. They couldn't make the one that they needed,
But yeah, I don't I don't feel I wouldn't feel the same confidence in
BC. And yeah, I just I just had to pull up my Zell's
rushing game log for the season and it's not I'm not the biggest proponent of
the run game, but we've We've seen it with the Bombers this season that
if the past game isn't going, they can rely on Brady olive Ara to
absolutely crushed dude souls. Right, So, and that's incredibly valuable to have
both those ways to attack it. You win throwing the ball in the CFL,
but if you have to win, if you have to win running the
ball, I it's Winnipeg Toronto and then kind of everybody else. Yeah.
My thing is is if you have someone Mike Vernon and he's having an offer,
you throws the pick and then he you know, you just see it.
He just gets in his head there and like, you know, it's
just would feel nice to have another arm here where we can move the ball
down the field, another another means to do that. Yeah, And I
mean if I don't know where Dominic Rhymes is at, but that guy's the
leader of that receiving corps, right And if you had Rhymes Hatcher Hollins,
if mckinnis is your Canadian, you threw a fourth one American boy. Okay,
well, well this is back to being BC one of the top three
receiving cards in the entire CFL, which would give Vernon more options. You
can't. You can't underestimate how big a deal dominic rhymes injury is because that
guy is I mean not only the contested catches, but the thing will notice,
man, that guy makes contested catches like few others do in this league.
Saskatchewan here, I mean, I know, we talked to Ottawa and
they're kind of a dumpster fire. But you know, it's just catch one
is you know, they're they're alive in the west here. What do you
make of them? And I don't know, it feels like it's people.
One week we're high in d al Gal. The next week. It feels
kind of like a roller coaster. I don't really know how to feel about
it. He had a real good in the Labor Day game, as we
call it the Banjo Bowl warm up game. He had a real good,
real good performance in that one. In certain areas right, he seemed very
composed in the pocket. His deep ball was off by enormous margins ten yards
here, five yards there, but he was composed. He hammered those out
routes, intermediate and deep outs went oh okay, here's something oh under pressure,
Okay, this is this is good too. And then he had nothing
in the Banjo Bowl in the big game, so that was that that gives
me pause. I mean, you look at a completion percentage for the season
of under sixty one in a league that's I'm just gonna check to make sure,
oh, sixty six percent this year, so it's down a bit.
You have to complete more passes than that, you have to be more accurate
than that. So that would be my primary concern that to me, Saskatchewan
season will end up being does Trevor Harris come back from injury? Because I
don't I didn't believe Mason five. I don't particularly believe Dola Gallant though he
was really good in the Banjo Bowl warm up game. I just I don't
know, and I don't know what you do with that. And then again
injuries, like we talked about how Winnipeg has none sas this week, doesn't
have Jamal Morrow, doesn't have Anthony Lanier. Like, just start naming guys
and they're probably on the injured list because you know, fortune smiles on some
teams and it's not currently on the Saskatchewan rough Riders. It's pretty it's a
pretty rough spell right now. What was that like being at id Field having
win the pay go at fifty one six in Saskatchewan because that you know,
because I listened, I was I was filming another event. I listened to
the entire Labor Day game and you know, go into overtime and the headbut
kind of all that stuff. Crazy. What was it like bouncing back there
that next week? So in in what was it Week seven, when the
Bombers just absolutely mauled the BC Lions, I kept saying, the score is
fifty, right, I just put a little episode and fifty and for the
whole game. You know, when it got to forty two by halftime,
Doug Brown, my partner, was like, what are you gonna do at
sixty now? Because you know they're getting towards sixty. How are you going
to say sixty? And that's the kind of things you got to think about
in thirty minutes of football that really didn't mean anything, right, you had
time to contemplate a lot of stuff. It was. It was unbelievable,
Like six drives in the first halfs all, six ended touchdowns, huge plays
all and everybody's getting getting a piece of this. The big bomb to Kenny
Lawler at halftime when they're already up thirty five to six. I think it
was at that time, Oh man, this is this is as good as
it gets, and everybody's just the second half it was just almost anticlimactic,
right, because the Bombers just wanted to let's keep the clock going. Boop
field goal, boop field goal. Fourth quarter, boop field goal. It
was almost it was almost thirty minute, thirty minutes of clock time to celebrate.
Man, what an incredible first half. And look at this offense.
This is what we all kind of knew this offense would be. So it
was loud and then, uh, it's just it's just better for Bomber fans
when they do it to the Saskatchewan Rough Fighters, it makes everything better.
And this year there was no The entire team was throwing up and taking ivs
right. Last year. Last year was an awful experience for the Riders,
what with what it was, was it norovirus or food poison that was going
through there. They were not who they could have been. Uh, this
time they were there it could have been and there were no excuses for Bomber
fans like nope, we're fifty fifty points better in this one. Like it
was just it was I highly recommend it to every broadcaster to call a bloat
in favor of his own team. Yeah, I don't. My fan base
is like Seahawks, Commanders, Mariners. I don't get a lot of like,
you know, blowout. I think Mariners this year had like I think
they won like fourteen to two at one point. That was exactly. I've
never lived through that being up fifty points on another franchise. What was the
Yeah, what was the Super Bowl against Peyton? Was it like forty one
to something? Yeah, oh yeah we did have Yeah, yeah, that
was a good one. Yeah that was a while ago, right, but
yeah, it's uh yeah, to do it to your biggest rival would be
is Yeah. The text line was was pretty happy with how that was going.
Yeah, that was probably the last I was. Yeah. I was
working at the Fox station here and we were filming it at casino and they
were showing the game on the big screen because they didn't want to send me.
I didn't get to get sent to the Super Bowl like everyone else didn't.
So yeah, I was filming the auditorium of people watching that game.
They were having a lot of fun. Yeah, it's uh, those are
the days, and I mean that's that's the Bombers at their peak, right,
Like the defense allowed absolutely nothing, uh six points and a third field
goal attempt, and you know, six touchdowns on six drives and scored on
the first nine drives of the game. Yeah, this is the Lawler shown
Demski, Walatarski, Bailey, OLIVERA Calaris and company offense. This is what
it could be. And we kind of said out of that game. If
the Bombers play their one hundred percent game with their one hundred percent roster,
they're gonna beat anybody in the league. It'll be a matter of how close
to one hundred percent are they in the playoffs and how how close are they
to one hundred percent and their opponents are to one hundred percent in the Great
Cup Game? Because man, there's there is no shortage of talent here.
Before you get out of here, I'll let you go soon. I promise
welfare check Calgary, How are we feeling here? Ye? Injuries were I
mean, injuries are or everybody's deal? Right? They were the one team
they haven't lost Mayor for any games to injury, but they've lost so many
other spots around him that you go, wow, James Voters was a force
early on, and then he I believe he did his achilles and he's definitely
out for the year, and you go, okay, well, that that
guy was a dominant pass rusher and gone for the year, and just it
keeps adding up injury here there that they I kind of looked at to him
as a team and went, they lost talent in the off season for reasons
they don't normally lose talent in the offseason. I don't have any concerns if
I'm an opposing team with this receiving corps, Sure they might be able to
run the ball. Well. Kadiam Carey had a fantastic year with that offensive
line last year, but they're not overwhelmed with talent. Was kind of my
thought of them this year, and I didn't know that I'd think. I
kind of wondered, you kind of keep quiet if you think Calgary isn't going
to win ten games, because they'd won ten games in every eighteen game season
from two thousand and eight to last year, So you kind of keep that
hushed up so you don't look dumb upon reflection. But I kind of wondered,
are they the fourth best team in the league in the West this year,
and it's it's unfortunately for them played out that way. Injuries did not
break in their favor as they have for some other teams. And yeah,
I is Jake Mayer redeeming himself to keep his job for next year. I
guess we'll see. But he had a real rough stretch. I think it
was four straight games of you know, like one fifty or under or one
seventy five or under. It's been it's been real rough for Calgary this year.
And yeah, some of it is on them and some of it is
just on the injury gods biting them in the butt. Yeah, I just
don't know, like, you know, whatever happens this year, do we
roll up mayor again next year? Like here we go? I mean,
we just you know, he looked so promising then, you know, there
was a lot of build up and they kind of been paying passing on the
baton. I just don't know if you roll that out next year, if
Calgary fans are excited about it. Guaranteed money though, right, That's that's
gonna be the thing. The NFL and the NFL show. You watch you
hear conversations, they'll evolve dead cat money. Oh they traded Matt Ryan and
it's a forty two million dollar dead cap hit. We're approaching that in the
CFL, right, Taylor Cornelius and Jake Mayer. Like Taylor, Corney is
now the third string quarterback in Edmonton. He's guaranteed money for twenty twenty four,
according to reports, Mayor's guaranteed money. I think we've may be seen
some from Mayor. But there's again, this is this is something that you
know, people inside Calgary would know way better. But there's this something with
the offense they let Mayor run or and how it's not servicing him to his
full potential. Or Mayor's talent doesn't allow them to have the offense that it's
full potential because it's just underneath stuff and I'm not it's it can be real
hard to watch, and it doesn't move the ball consistently and effectively. And
sure I'll put up four fifty in a game, but you go, okay,
but do this every week. So there's Calgary kind of needs, kind
of needed this one too, and then just kind of flush this. We'll
have our bad luck season, we'll have our bad injury season, and hopefully
we're back next year. But if you if you continually let talent walk out
the door, you're you're gonna reap the You're gonna reap what you sew.
In that case, well, Derek, I appreciate it. By week no
doing some work here that means a lot. And they're good to catch up
with you. And you know, I'm sure at one way or another at
Winnipeg in Hambleton and we'll be around, so I hope to see you there.
Man, these next two weeks are the best two weeks of my I've
been waiting for these two weeks for six weeks now. I've been talking about
it. Can you imagine what it's gonna be like when they play Toronto and
BC back to back like this is going to be. It's gonna tell us,
okay, well, best of the East, best of the West,
and then the battle for first place in the West like a playoff spots on
the line one two, three weeks from now in Vancouver, the first place
you want to finish first because more than sixty percent of the teams that finish
first go to the Great Cup. I'm so excited for the two weeks that
are ahead. Oh man, I'm thinking I'm looking here I'm like, what
am I doing on Friday the sixth? I might have to talk to the
wife about that. Maybe we'll come up the corridor there. I love it.
Yeah, absolutely, yeah, let me know, let me know we
need guests in the two hour pregame show live on six eighty cg Ob just
me screaming about the donut blace, Derek. I really appreciate it. Like
I said, coming on the bunch, it means a lot to thank you.
Yeah, thanks for having me. Well, here we are talking with
a great Cup champion here with the Tronto Argonauts back again this year. Kim
Phillips. How are you doing, sir? I'm all right man, Thank
you for having me. Man. I know people are excited. Like I
said, we cover you know, XFL's CFL, all this kind of stuff.
How's your year going, Argos kind of killing it right now. Yeah,
man, we're rolling. Man. We got a good thing going right
now. We were able to you know, get it done last year and
really retain you know, a big part of that team. So I think
we just got the right guys and we're professional. We're making all the right
plays standing together. So yeah, like I said, it's just good to
be a part of what's the vibe right now? Obviously the team's rolling.
What do you guys, what's kind of the locker room vibe though you're sitting
there right now kind of after practicing that, meetings and everything. Yeah,
yeah, I mean, believe it or not, I'm not the only one
in the locker room, which is the way you should want it. You
know, we finished practice what around one something, and guys are still here.
We have meetings, getting treatment, uh, you know, just working
together, just continue to build, you know, that camaraderie, you know,
because it is a team and we need everyone to do their part.
And you know, it is a real family atmosphere that we have here.
And I think that is the biggest thing, when you can kind of play
for one another because you're you know, sort of don't want to let down
your teammate or your brother in this sense, you know. So I think
we have a lot of that going on. So guys just being themselves and
you know, just able to be free and whenever you can be free,
you know, you're not really worried about anything. And I think we're really
just playing free right now. I was talking with Mike Mitchell Covers to argos
telling you were coming on. I think you were out last week? Are
you How are you feeling now getting back up to speed? Yeah? Man,
just dealing with some soft tissue stuff. But it's it's nothing crazy to
worry about, you know, just seasonal stuff, you know, just the
grind of a long season, especially you know, being in the CFL,
the amount of running that the receivers do, you know, So it's nothing
crazy. I'll be all right. It's more like a precautionary thing the last
game. But uh yeah, I'm okay in terms of yeah, you know,
rest and where the teams that you guys are in the weird position kind
of locked up everything here, you know, six weeks to go in the
season. How does that feel? How how does the team approach that?
Where are they thinking? Really the same way that we've been approaching every week,
man, And that's just going want to know this week, you know,
just the most important game is on the next one. You know,
it doesn't matter, you know, because you can't even at the beginning,
like you can't win fifteen games at once. You can't go win a championship
the first week, you know. So it's a process. So I think
you know, the coaching staff and even the players you know, which we've
bought in. I mean that's really the culture now. You know, we
come to work. You know, we are who we are. But when
it's time to work, it's time to work. And you know, I
think we make the workplace environment fun too, Like it's fun to come to
work. You know, winning of course helps nobody, you know, SA
lose, but you know that that's really it. Man. We just come
in and we know our job is to win a football game. Just win
one game and then you know, you try to stack bricks that way and
then you end up with the house, you know, something, something nice
and and stable. But like I said, man, I think we got
a really good thing going and just this a good problem to have to have
all this risk. You know, it would be different if you know,
you need guys and it's like we kind of need you to rush back or
whatever because we need to win these games. But it's like, no,
we're in a you know, a great situation and we just, like I
said, just come to work and then everything else will take care of itself.
I've had on people from the Argos, especially like Mike Hogan was on
a couple of weeks ago, you know, voiced the team there and you
know, historically speaking, and a lot of this stuff is before you or
I were even a thought in anyone's world. But you know, the Argos
are doing things right now historic you guys cared, you know. I mean,
I know it's one win at the time, you know, one week
at the time and one way at the time, but it is Yeah,
I get what you're saying, though. I mean, everybody is, you
know, telling you how great you are when you know, just last year
it was a different story, and even this year could have been a different
story. But that's just you know, that comes with the pro game.
Man. Whenever you hire or you're doing good, they want to tell you
how great you are and you're not and they want to tear you down.
So it's been cool though, because I had no idea. I think somebody
told me, like, we have the best start I got any r GOO
team in history. I had no idea. But it's like when you hear
stuff like that, it's cool, man, It's like you want to hear
it, but you got to just take it with a grain of salt.
It's like that didn't just happen. You know, like a lot of work
went into that. So I just think, like I said, everybody is
on board with what we're doing and we just got a great atmosphere here man,
and I think we'll keep it going. Curious kind of your thoughts on
where you're at. Either here you're someone and we followed you back with the
XFL and going up to the CFL and kind of working your way onto the
rock year. Here we were in Regina last year when Toronto won the Great
Cup that we were there covering it and to feel like the journey you've been
on, Like where does it feel like now sitting you know where you're at,
and just how do you feel? Yeah, man, I'm just really
appreciative of, you know, the career that I've had. I've seen different
types of football, met a lot of great people in different places, learned
a lot over the game, and learned a lot about myself as well.
You know, I think last year, you know, with the XFL being
cut short, last season was my first season playing like a full football season
since that. So for me, like getting through that and going through that,
you know, I was really excited, man. I just I was
on a hide even after the Great Cup, I was on a hide for
maybe being a couple of months. It was just a great feeling, man
to be a backup part of something. And actually, you know, contributing
football is a team sport. You know, one person can't win at all.
So for me, I just try to be the best that I can
be, you know, make the different types of plays that present themselves for
me, whether it be a block for somebody else, a first down catch,
or even a route that's to get somebody else open. I understand I
at this point in my career and being one of the leaders, you know,
on the team of the receiver group, Like how important everyone's job is,
you know, So I guess it is more team success. Like I
just I really just want to win. Like winning is fun. When you
win, coming to work is feign. You know, when you lose,
it's stressful. So you know, I just try to be the best example
that I can make, you know, I think that's where I am right
now. Of course, there are things that I still love to do.
I still think, you know, physical physical shape. I'm fine, I'm
great, you know, And it's just controlling what I can control, really,
you know, I think it's a it's a great situation here and I
feel really wanted because this was really the first team for Hamilton, but I
didn't work. Yeah, but you are gons hate the Tide camps anyway.
It's so crazy, man, I don't know what it is. It's just
it's just something, man, It's it's just something. But I feel like,
you know, I'm in the right place for me, and I feel
like just where I am, like in my career, you know, I'm
in a really good position, you know, Like I just try to take
your day to day and control what I can control. Like I can't throw
a ball to myself, I can't call the play, so it's like,
just control what you can control, man. And that's really what I try
to let everybody else know around me, like, you know, because it
can get frustrated, you know, going through a long season, maybe things
not going how you wanted to go. But I think if you can have
that mindset because it applies to more than just football, it's like a life,
it's life, you know, and just taking that that I hate to
say day to day, but that's really like we harp on that, like
that language is being spoken every day here. Man, just wanting. Oh
man, it's a new day, it's a new play, Like you make
this play work as good as it can, then the next play it's a
new play, you know. So that's that's that's really how I take it.
How much do you attribute where you're at now to, you know,
your time in the ex fell and just kind of alternative leagues in general,
kind of having that opportunity for guys. Yeah, I think it's great for
guys, you know that may not have gotten a shot or the chance that
they wanted or thought they were gonna get. It's a great way to just
I wish more guys understood that it is professional though, you know, like
you're a pro, so you should handle yourself professionally, you know, work
on your craft still the same as if you were getting ready to get drafted.
But I've I've been able to I think, let's say the mental fortitude
of it all, you know, just going back and forth and kind of
that COVID thing. Man, it was so much uncertainty, but it was
just like, I'm just grateful that when I got the chance to play again,
you know, I really appreciated it. So I think that helped me
a different experience. And it's funny because I'm only twenty seven, bro,
But then the locker room and in football terms, I'm like an old guy,
so it's it's weird. Yeah, man, it's I'm one of the
old oldest receivers we have. And then the experience that I have, and
I guess mate, you know my level of play, I'm you know,
I can be counted on. I'm being considered as, you know, an
older, more veteran guy, and this is my second year playing CFL football.
It's like you're a veteran though, so you know, I appreciate all
that it comes with. Last question for me, what would be as someone
that has just had to, you know, fight your whole way upright and
even get into the CFL, you know, get into the argos working you
have, what would be your advice to guys because we have a lot of
players and all these leagues and you know here, you're someone that never gave
up work through you know, hoisting the Gray Cup last year, Like,
what would be your advice to those other players? Yeah? Man, I
think when you go through you know, every high school college player thinks they're
gonna go to the NFL and things that they're gonna play ten fifteen years,
signed two or three contracts, man, but it's like you don't. And
even though the numbers suggest that when you get there you realize the turnaround.
It's like every year it's it's new people on new teams, just new obstacles
you got to overcome. But just when when it doesn't go as playing,
like you can question yourself. You know, even though you could, in
my case, have the most yards and catches in Virginia Tech College history.
So it's like you can play ball, man, you you're like, you
know how to ball, but it's like when things don't happen that way,
you can just start to doubt and start to look externally when you should be
looking internally more. Just control what you can can troll, man, that's
how you show up. That's the efforts you put forth and really that's it.
And once you're okay with that, and it's like everything else can just
happen because I know I'm doing what I'm supposed to do to make it happen.
You know, people say you got to be at the right place at
the right time, or it's who you know, not what you know.
It's like you can't control none of that, bro, So the more you
think about the things you can't control, the more upset you're going to be.
It's like I'm better than him, or I should be put on this
team playing it. It's like none of that matters because at the end of
the day, that's not the situation. So the real situation is what you're
in, how you wake up, how you attack work. I need to
go to the gym today. I don't feel like and I'm still no go
to the gym and of your business, you know, And that's that's really
all I can That's that's the biggest thing I would let guys know. Well,
Kim, I appreciate that. It's been awesome kind of watching your journey.
I'm guy, we can finally get on here. I appreciate Chris setting
it up. We I have a feeling we'll be seeing you in Hamilton.
We have our flight's books, so I have a feeling we'll be seeing you
there. But good luck with everything. We'll be watching and keep killing it.
I appreciate it. Thank you so much man for the time and interest.
Man, thank you so much, and I hope the podcast and everything
conteuse to go for you man, awesome, Thank you really appreciate all of
our guests today. Andrew Murray making time after work. I'm watching I presume
a Thursday night football here with a side I doing everything to bring you guys
the latest XAVL and USFL mergering news. I never thought I would say that,
Still kind of getting used to that. And then of course Derek Taylor
making time on the bye week in cam Phillips after practice in the locker room
always means a lot in the argonauts for facilitating all of that. So thank
you guys so much, really appreciate that. That should do it for me
today. You know, we're gonna keep tracking this as news comes out.
I have a big CFL guest and one of the TSA members coming on next
week and talking CFL work on some more CFL player interviews, and then of
course we'll be covering all of the XFL and USL news merger talks here latest
news. Like I said, I can subscribe, doing the shorts, doing
the live streams, doing the episodes like this every Friday, So we'll see
you guys next time. Have a safe weekend and enjoy the CFL slate of
games. And take care