Shawne Merriman joins The Dan Patrick Show With Doug Gottlieb And Rob Parker To Discuss Aaron Rodgers MVP Season

Sean Merriman, Where are you Guadalahara? Why are you in Gladhara? Yeah? Yeah, you know, I thought i'd get out for a little bit. I got some friends in town just uh maybe glass with dinner. Didn't head out to uh cain't colan right after? So enjoining them? Enjoined this a little bit of free time I have. What what is it? What is it

like in Guadalajara right now? Uh? Shut down? It's just uh me, It's about you know, whenever I get free time, I have to have a change, change in scenity read because we've all been locked down and be in Los Angeles for moms and you know, it's the same routine. That's wake up, Jim, work home. You know, it's the same routine. So for me and noticed to keep any kind of sanity that I have left, I always go

for a change in scenity. I'm with you. I've been going to Vegas just even for one night, just to get a change of site from l A. And it's not too far, you know, and whatnot. But Sean, so, so you're a world traveler, where's the best place you've been? Just curious? Uh, you know what, My favorite place in the world is probably south of south of France. Um, I love you know, samtel Pay a whole lot. Man. I've been there probably about seven eight times, and uh,

I just really enjoyed going out there. I loved the weather, especially when they got big events and um you got the big Formula one racist it's out there and it's you know, the World Music Awards. I've been to, you know, three times, so it's it's always a good time. Best place you've ever been round Parker, you know what I've been, Well, an article trip was fascinating, But it's Australia. When you get off the plane in Australia, you feel like you're

in another world. It is a it's a you know, it's a fourteen hour NonStop flight from Los Angeles and you feel literally you know they you know, call it down Under, but you feel like you're in another world. You're so far away from everything and it's fourteen hours over nothing but water to get there. It's incredible and I'm gonna I'm planning a trip for next December to go again because the first time I went, which was back in the nineties, I didn't get to go to

the West Coast, Perth and that part of Australia. So I'm gonna go back and then go to the West Coast and check that out. But it was met Yeah, you gotta do it. I gotta do it at Australia. Is is okay? So but I guess here's a question and we will get to sports, but this is this is way more interesting to me. How much time do you take off work to do that? When when I go coming up, I'll take off. I'll only go for nine days. I'll just go, you know, with two weekends

wrapped around the week off. That's all I'll need to go. I'll just I'll rough it. Out. I don't need two or three weeks to go, um to make a trip like that. Even Antarctica was was only like a sixth day trip or something like that, that's what it was, or about a week. That's that's all. That's all I need. I'm not trying to go for three weeks and all that and experience everything. I just want to go and see as much as I can while I'm alive. So

that's that's the mode. I saw so many things in my my twenties playing basketball, and I literally haven't traveled much since, and I gotta like, I think, I think travel is going to explode the second people get the vaccine. Now, don't you guys like this the second then the second you get a chance to say go like I'm off, it'll be it'll it'll remind me of I UM one time in high school. Okay, I I my college basketball coach John mcclouds like, you should go run track, keep

that speed up. So I went to run track after my high school senior season and I ran the two twenty right, and I remember be get the curve of the two twenty and I was in first, and I was like, I'm out I've going, if going, and then all of a sudden I get I get to the home stretch and dudes boat raced me. But the point was that when that gun went off, I took off like a shot. And that's exactly I mean, Sean, that's what you're gonna do, right the first second ship the

first chance somebody says you can go to France. You're you're off, aren't you? Oh? Yeah, you know, And I think everybody should, right because you always take that that stuff for granted until they tell you have to stay at home. You know, you know, you know it's there. It's almost like you you know, I'm not a beach person, right, Um yeah, I look, I go to the beach once in a while. Uh, y'all stayed maybe twenty five or thirty minutes from there I live, and I'll probably go

to the beach a couple of times a year. But all of a sudden they tell you, hey, by the way, you gotta stay home, and you're like, damn, I wish I could go to the beach right now. Right, So I think that's where I think that's what's gonna happen with everybody. And I know, me for sure, every time I get a chance to go and travel, I'm out. But I think now more than ever, uh now that people were forced to stay home and they can't do certain things. You're right, man, I think they're gonna take

off and be gone. All right, let's let's let's get to the other reason we're having on is the NFL. Um, having played in the league and played at such a high level league, how much should we factor in wins and losses and put on the quarterback shoulders? Well, you know that's the thing. You know, it's such a quarterback driven league now. It wasn't always like that in the past, right, Um, even the times I played, you did have a great quarterbacks,

but they didn't run the whole entire team. Now and the way the game has changed over the last ten years, um, you really started to got to look at the wins and losses being only on the quarterback shoulders because they control everything and they have so much power within Like some of these great quarterbacks pastrick to take Pastrickly home, for example, he had so much power within the organization. Um that he controls it, right, I mean he's the

CEO of that organization. So the reason why I say, you take the wins and losses on the quarterback shoulders, because if the viver's he was not playing well, you dropped the balls. He's not running as route right, he's not doing certain things. You go upstairs, you say, hey, I don't want this guy here, or he shouldn't be starting,

and guess what, that guy's not gonna be starting. So you have to, you know, take everything with a brand of stalt now and put more more responsibility and more pressure on the quarterback because it really relies on how

he plays and what he does. Sean, how how surprised are you that, speaking of Patrick Mahomes, that it appears Aaron Rodgers or when the m v P and the year that he put together he still has one more game, forty four touchdowns, only five interceptions in the best quarterback rating. How surprised are you that that he looks like he beat out my homes for m v P. Not surprised at all, And I think the only people surprised, uh is the Green day package. You know, like you go

out and you draft the quarterback. Aaron Rodgers had all the motivation this year to play extremely well. And I love it when when a player has the ball in his court, right because you go out, you're drafting a guy. You're basically telling Aaron Lodgers like, hey, we're planning on moving on from you at some point, and now you go out and have the one of the best years of his career. And I love that because now he'd go to organization and say, you know what, I'm out

or ELM. So now he calls all the shots. He dictates his own future, if he wants to stay there, if he wants to go however he wants to happen, because that's the message you send when you go out and you draft the quarterback as high as they did. Um To eventually replays Aaron Rodgers well before he's his time is even up. Yeah, I want to I want to just follow up real quick. How crazy is it to both of you guys that they never drafted a skilled player in the first round during Aaron rodgers entire

career in Green Bay? How how crazy is that? It's it's it's beyond crazy to me because look at it here, and don't get me wrong. To me, I think DeVante Gas is probably top two or three wide receiving in the National Football League so he you know, he came on as doing extraordinary things. But you didn't really give Aaron Rodgers a whole lot early on. I mean when I got um, you know, uh, you know, Mark, Mark, Mercedes Lewis. They put a couple other pieces, but you

didn't go out and get Antonio Brown. You didn't go out and get a big stud and say, hey, Aaron Rodgers, we're gonna help you out something. Uh. You're talking about a guy who continuously, uh does things himself, and he's been doing it in that organization for so long. And that's why and I want to bring it back to the poet, I said, that's why. I'm even more baffled that they go out and draft a guy that's behind him.

You've got all these other positions to feel, and you got to draft a guy and now he's had his best year and now they're gonna have a problem on their hands going forward, regardless of how Aaron Rodgers said, if publicly they don't have a problem balling for because they're gonna have to make some real decisions. I could not disagree with you guys more. I couldn't disagree with you guys. More Like, look, Aaron Rodgers is thirty seven

years old. Jordan's Love is everyone knows he's a he's a prospect, he's a project, he's a two years away. And in two years, I mean, it's reasonable to think that Aaron Rodgers is might not be the same quarterback. And you have to prepare for that day, especially if you're drafting in the twenty. When you have Aaron Rodgers, You're never gonna be drafting in the top fifteen. Okay, You're just not okay, so you're not gonna get You'd have to move heaven and Earth to move up to

get a quarterback in the draft. And like, look, Jordan Love is not what Aaron Rodgers was a prospect, but this is how it worked. Where they went from Brett Varve to Aaron Rodgers maybe to Jordan's Love. And if it doesn't work, if Jordan's Love isn't any good, as long as he never plays, nobody's ever gonna know, and he'll retain some of that value. And like we can sit here and go, we don't love their wide receivers

or they needed who they need to add. They won thirteen games last year, they win gonna win thirteen games this year. They're gonna have home field advantage throughout, and they believe in their evaluation, right, Like, look, there's but Doug the other the other. I hear that. The only thing is they got to the NFC Championship game last year and got annihilated. So my only point is they're taking a defense, taking a defensive player because they couldn't

stop the run. It's fair, absolutely could help. You don't think you don't think they had And they just picked up I know, it's very late. They just picked up Stotts Harrison, you know too, and all he's got it. It's just can he stop the run in that one which, by the way, against the Tennessee Titans. The teams that runs the football the show they can stop the run.

This past weekend, Derrick Henry under a hundred yards for the first time in nine road games, right, And I mean, and look, they drafted A. J. Dillon in the second round here, like, why are you drafting a running back in the second round? Well, it's because one look at how well he played this weekend. To Aaron Jones contract

is up. He signed with Drew Rosenhouse. He wants to get paid, and everyone who covers sport at the sport knows what you don't want to do is that big long term second running back contract or let somebody else pay that and if he doesn't want to play ball and take a reasonable salary. So I think the Packers are setting themselves up to be competitive for the next ten years, not just for one year. And yeah, by the way, during this one year, that's the best team

in the NFC. Yeah, but I think you're speaking from the organization standport. Ye, I'm I'll just standing that part. But I'm also telling you that as a player, yes, as they player, you know, you don't draft a guy that high. Man. They seeing a guy up the six and seventh round here and they got up from talent maybe on to go down. He can step in for

him and do something. That's fine, But you brought him in to say, you know what, we are going to be done with you, so right, I mean, if they want to sit the guy one or two years and they know he's gonna come in and be a start in one or two years because you had the talent to do so, and you know your starting quarterback can't

get it done. I understand completely from the organization standpoint, but to do what they did, and the expect Aaron Rodgers to go out there and play miraculously, miraculously every single time. He's going to have a lot of pool and a lot of uh power. He had come out up here shortly in the organizations are going to have to make a decision because that doesn't sit well with players.

And I'm not just playing for anybody if they want something in your position and your job and give him like, look, there's no there's no getting rid of him for the next two years, right like Aaron Rodgers is, he has two more years where financially it would cripple the franchise. They're not getting rid of him. He knows it, right, So I understand that on some level, you could sit there before who's who drafting years for three years. That's

exactly what the green Bay Packers did. That's exactly what the green Bay Packers did with Aaron Rodgers. Yeah, but they but they didn't they didn't move up like like Monty thing is. They didn't move up to go get a quarterback. At that point, Aaron Rodgers fell in their lap. And here's the other part. But you just went to pick but you just went to the NFC Championship game. My point is, it's great that you've had Aaron Rodgers.

It's great that he's gonna have three m vps, it's great that you won the NFC North all these times. But the Packers when Aaron Rodgers should have won more than one Super Bowl. Okay, but we can't listen, we can we can't go we can't go back to what they so so I don't care about three years from now. They should have been thinking about we have Aaron Rodgers, but we still have a chance. You do have a chance, and you look a lot of people in crazy you

draft a wide receiver. Okay. The first thing is all the good, All the first round wide receivers were gone at that point in time, and by the way, sixteen up until this year, and this year was a historically good wide receiver draft. Over the previous four years, the nineteen first round draft picks that were drafted in the first round, sixteen of them were busts. It's a really hard position because it's so different in the NFL than

the spread offenses. Okay. Secondly, if you want to tell me that they were close last year, I agree with you, and they had to get better. I agree with you. They have gotten better. And and people go, you should draft a wide receiver. If you draft a wide receiver, that hurts the development of Marcus Valdes, Scantling and of some of these other guys who have developed. And those guys have gotten better, and the team is they're the best team in the NFC. I don't know what people want, right,

the best team and they protected that they protected. Watched the Pittsburgh Steelers this year. Okay, look at Ben Roethlisberger. Look, I know he played really well Sunday, But what has everybody said? Man, Ben Roethlisberger looks shot? Looks shot? And you know what? The Green Bay Packers don't want to be.

They don't want to be the Pittsburgh Steelers where at some point in time Aaron Rodgers is gonna lose it and you want to have a guy there who's been studying, been preparing, who you can throw in and there won't be this massive drop off. That's what happened in New England when they drafted Garoppolo and at something and this is too seawan to your point where Brady went in and goes, hey, man him or me and they said Garoppolo packing, which could very well happen with Jordan's love.

But again, the plan was smart and that's what the packers are executing. But but what whate thing one thing about this who can't get better? What Aaron Rodgers did your quarterback? I just you're talking about bust and these other which one of these busts while there was drafted,

had Aaron Rods a quarterback. I just feel like over the last decades or so, you know, they they've been relying on Aaron while there's so much to be Aaron Rodgers to guad and do things in his own uh, that they're willing to risk and sacrifice do anything bigger for the organization because everything is on him. Like I said, if they wanted to draft the guy in the fifty sixth round or third you know later on and like like Rob just said, felling his laps no problem. I'm

just saying, but you do the things you're doing. You're saying that, hey, you fix this planing and and mind you to read one of the name reason why they drafted because you kept getting hurt. He kept having these injuries that they're backed back and you never really send us your season healthy. That's one of the main fact that they did it. So they basically said, hey, these injuries keep power up or whatever it is going on, we're gonna have a guy here to replace you. And

backfired on them. And and I'm not saying to backfire on them in a way of them wing obviously they are a great team, but it's gonna backfire on them at the end of their day. Sean enjoyed Guadalajara. Happy New Year, by the way, everybody happy. Got happy to year. To everybody, I'll stare, stay safe, Uh, don't drink and drive man, be responsible. Yeah, and download The Lights Out podcasting