Fan Grab Bag Vol. 3

is the Super Bowl champ. Michael Robinson, Mike cam with you. This is the episode all about facts. You realize that, right, absolutely, Like we that's the reality that we live in. Facts. We are bringing the heat. And I've been talking about this all season long. Yo, d m us send your questions mail bag episode as promised, we are delivering this.

I've often said this, I get excited. In fact, there's one question and coming up in a little bit where I said, man, that's a good question because that affects me on Sundays. So I was like, we're gonna be talking about it, so you ready to all right, I'm gonna start off with this one for this male bag episode,

What do you punters do during practice? When I was a kid, I thought they just punted it all practice, But now I realize, you're like, it's incapable of doing that all day every day, So what do they do all day? That's a really good question. Um, Honestly, I never really thought about what punters do, but they punt. Obviously. In most NFL practices, Wednesdays are the first days that

were on the field. That's your base personnel day, and and the teams that I was on Wednesdays was punt day, right, so special teams will go out there first, The punter will be out there first, then the punt team will go out, then the rest of the team will go out. Then we start practice, and in the middle of practice we have another punt period. So Wednesdays would be the

punt time where he would go punt. Fridays would also be a big time punt time, So Wednesdays would be kind of punting kick off, Thursdays would be punt return and kick off returning, and Fridays we would do kind of all of them. So he would punt on those two days, but during the rest of the days of the week, if I would always see like the quarterbacks, because the quarterbacks always just need bodies, right because they're

throwing the football to a lot of people. And during individual drills, oftentimes the quarterback coach will grab the punter or the kicker or somebody get those guys to stand out there and kind of be a placeholders, so the quarterbacks have targets. And then during a show team. Show team is when you have your practice squad guys and extra players practicing as if they were your opponent that week. Oftentimes you get a punter or or or a kicker who when we need extra bodies to come over and

help run the scout team. All right, So I know, totally different here, But as we're getting this question about punchers, I was on my phone because I'm like, oh, I gotta show you this video because it's a little different here, and it's a pregame deal justin Tucker, who by the way, was a guest on this podcast last season, and try to talk to through the science of field goal in a pre game kicked in eighty seven yard or are

you kidding me? So I know, once again a little different, but I started thinking about what kickers are doing German practice as well, like, and I'm wondering if like the cadence is the same. By the way, when Justin Tucker berries an eighty seven yard field goal, and it was it was in New Orleans, it was before their Monday night games in the Dome. But still nonetheless, man like, that's still pretty crazy. Can you imagine what a kickers practice routine. It's like, um, like keep going back back

back back back. Oh man, kickers practice within eddy. I'm assuming they kick a bunch of they kick a bunch of field goals. But again, but just like to the punter's question, those guys can't kick every single day. It's just like quarterbacks, Like they can't sit there and throw with the intensity every single day. So you do have to manage those guys. But at the end of the day, I used to get on my kickers all the time. When you only kick all day during the game, you

better make them all on Sunday. Okay, make them all on Sunday. Just get it done. And by the way, Justin Tucker goat. I don't know if there's another player. I was thinking about this the other day. Is there another player that's better than he is at his position? Like the answers. No, I mean maybe Josh think about that, like if you started throwing quarterbacks out there, like at least it's debatable, right, Like if you said, Josh Allen like I'll take Patrick, Like you know, you can have

those debates. Like on the kicker side, I say, Justin Tucker and it kind of ends there. There is nobody there. It's kind of wild. Um, got another question for you? And which one to me? This is what I was referring to where it was affecting me for a long period of time. Australian fan here, yes, here we go. I would love to understand the Sunday afternoon broadcast maps better. How do they decide which parts of Oregon get the Chargers and which parts get the forty niners. That is

a really good question. I'm assuming it would be on the geographical location of the city and the team, But that is a really good question. That's a technical question right there. Really as thank god we have technical people who can give us the answer to it, because I'm at home sometimes now before I got to NFL network, you know, like I'm not gonna a little cheap and like I don't have I don't have it. Like that.

So you know what I'm saying, like, you know the whole Like, you know, NFL Sunday ticket not my I'm just gonna go out, like I'll go hang out with my friends, you know, like that's where all go consume the games. Then I start working here and I'm like, yo, I need to be able to watch market. You have to. So I'm like, all right, I'm a pony up and get this done. So Red Zone obviously has changed my

life and many fans and the whole thing. But with sort of fascinating about this Australian fans, this is a real predicament because in a state of Oregon, You're like, well, why would they care about the Chargers, Well, justin Herbert is from Eugene, Oregon, and Plane in Oregon, and the last time I was up in Portland, all I saw was Chargers jerseys, which is and they're also just in Herbron And so I'm like, oh, like that's actually a really good response. So and Rob to your point, like

the map is actually really significant. So here's the official answer here. The NFL's national broadcast partners, so we've got Fox CBS. They assigned different NFL games two different markets, with some help obviously from the league. It is based on regional and national interest in games and teams, so local TV affiliates they don't get any say in the final decisions, but they can make some requests if they want. Each team has a primary market, right so that makes

sense to people. That's set by the NFL, and those primary markets are required to show all road games and all home games unless the home games are not sold out, which case they can be called blackout games. Locally, the use of the metropolitan areas basically which the team's actually are. So each team also has a secondary market that must air road games of a given team and would be blacked out of home games that don't sell out, but

they don't have to air all home games. A little kind of convoluted here, but essentially, broadcast maps are published on five or six Sports, which began tracking broadcast maps in two thousand five. Previously the maps were generally speaking,

a little unknown. The shortest way and most concise way of saying this is, if your team is in a given city, you know you're getting those games, and then the secondary side of things, there's obviously some a little bit of wiggle well, I know for me growing up, man, I grew up in Richmond, Virginia, so we don't have

a team. We we didn't have an NFL team. Our closest team to Washington Commanders, that were the Redskins when I was growing up, So obviously we got a lot of Washington Redskin games, but it was really the entire NFC East. I was so surprised when I got older and conscious enough to kind of understand what's going on. How many Dallas Cowboys fans are in the state of Virginia.

They're everywhere, Mike, there every I mean literally, bro, Like every bar you go to on Sunday there Cowboys fans everywhere. And again it's it's it's a tribute to to Jerry Jones is amazing at marketing and spreading the brand and those things. But the NFC East teams, especially the Dallas Cowboys, those are the teams most marketed to me, and those

are the teams that I saw most growing up. You know, We've talked about like we've what's the label America's team and a lot of that has to do with the Cowboys being on television in the early days, right, Like I'll make this as like a baseball analogy here t NT. The Turner family obviously had the Atlanta Braves, so they had a television network TNT you get on regular cable. They started Aaron Braves games all the time. So all of a sudden, the Braves started becoming a really popular team.

Sort of the same thing that you said for how it all worked out for the Dallas count It's kind of cool there, all right. A lot of talk of Lamar Jackson and his contract, which, by the way, come on, a lot has been made. Here's the question. A lot has been made about Lamar Jackson not having an agent. Is this smart? What does an NFL agent actually do? Sides note here m Rob and I actually have the

same broadcast agents, So be careful what you say. You're right, and we're talking about NFL football player a baby, But I mean, look to me, when I look at my you know, my playing days, and I'm not gonna say who my agent was. I look back and I can say I'm not gonna sit here and say I necessarily needed him all the way back then, because when I looked at it, the way the draft works, you're slated pretty much in a spot there's not much wiggle room.

I was a fourth round pick, right, I wasn't gonna make more than the last pick of the third round. I wasn't gonna make more than a quarterback who was picked close to me in the draft. And once I started to understand that, I started to say, well, what

could an agent really do in this particular situation. What the agent did do for me coming in to the National Football League was helped get me ready, right, paying for workouts, get me ready for the combine, understanding the wonder Lick test, having psychologists come in and understand the questions that you were gonna I was so prepared for the combine mic Like, I know I passed it with flying colors. I knew I passed it with flying colors. Right.

I was that much prepared for the combine. But again, just looking back on the business part of it, your play gets you paid. And when I look back at negotiations, and you know, after your rookie deal, I think the agent is important to save face, to keep people's personal feelings out of it, because, let's just be honest, a lot of the National Football League are people of color. A lot of people of color don't really trust business or understand business just based off of history and whatsoever.

So when a lot of players and a lot of guys that I know and I talked to, when they hear about contracts and whatever, they just said, you know what, my agent got it just put it to the age because they don't even want to think about it. But again, once I started reading contracts and understanding what was going on, you know, I understood that. I understand the language. I know what a good deal and what a bad deal

isn't um. But again, having that buffer when you're negotiating with a team and then got to go out to practice with them, and the same people that are coaching you are also in there trying to get you for a lower dollar that could get you emotional. And so yeah, I do think an agent is important for that aspect

of negotiating. Do you ever think it slows it down, like it's not to call like Lamar and obviously that was you know sort of what was it was in reference to like there's a part of me it says now like if maybe it had an agent, maybe this thing gets done. I have no idea, I don't have inside knowledge to it, but I'm just wondering how that

affects the timing of things. I don't know. We don't have any idea if that's the case either, but I will say this, Um, yes, there would have been if Lamar had an agent, there would be somebody in his ear saying, bro, we gotta get this done. You can't go out there the way that you play. Just more advice from a business standpoint. But at the end of the day, off, if Lamar understands who has the power and an agent and player relationship, the agent works for you.

If Lamar has a number in his head from a guaranteed standpoint that he wants, whether he has an agent or not, the deal won't get done until the Baltimore Ravens meet that number. So I'm gonna go into some detail here. And there's another question that I have for you about specific agents in general. But here's some quick facts for you. There's nine and thirteen certified agents aren'tly listed in the n f l p AS database. That's important because you can't. I thought it was more than that. Well,

I mean think about that, like not in thirteen. I don't know. I feel like you got to be proved. I think that's I thought it was more than that, quite frankly and honestly, in the NFL p A, they do a great job. I get letters when there's these bad agents out there, they put out alerts like, don't

mess with this guy. This is his number, this is his picture, this is where his office is, all of those things, because again, with a National Football league, there's so many guys that just want to get their hands on players, and they're trying to protect the players in the aging business, which is really good that you should be certified to do any deal with the league because and not to make this like a broadcast deal, but generally speaking, you don't need to be certified obviously if

you're going to represent on air people, and there needs to be some of those letters that on some of those i's nothing to do with the NFL, but not. Everyone's always on the up and up, and that's just sort of important to know. So the NFL and the nflp A specifically trying to do their best to police a lot of that. So you gotta be licensed by

the Players Association. All agents must pass an agent exam that ensures they know the ends and the outs of the collective bargaining agreement and the salary caps so they can properly negotiate contracts against the team's salary cap manager. Sort Of interesting because there's like a science to it. You always here about topologist. NFL teams have it, NBA teams the whole thing out of front offices deal in those terms. The maximum and here's what I'm talking about here.

The maximum commission for NFL agents from a player's on field earnings is three percent. That's set by the p A. The standard commission, though sitting out one and a half to two percent. Get that number lower. Come on, get it as low as you possibly can. I know again, for my agent at the time, I gave them three percent, but it was based off of where I got drafted. The higher I got drafted, the lower the number was. Because you make more money, the lower the number money.

It off sets each other. So again that's something you gotta look at, all right. So the maximum commission for those who signed franchise or transition tenders, that's set at two percent, and it drops to one and a half one percent in the second and third years that a player is signed to a franchise transition tender. So it kind of is what m Rob's talking about. You know, once there, you're not negotiating, you sign a franchise tag

like yo, the number set is what it is. It does make sense that that number gets slotted in from an agent's perspective. There's a ton of agents though, making money from a player's off field earnings. There's no commission limit on that side, standard commission rate for agents to charge for off field earnings. Now that number is actually coming from our research team. So who am I to say, like, man, I don't know about that twenty off of Like so if you're if you get like a Nike or apparelled

out the door. Seriously, I like that one and a half percent number we were talking about before exactly, kind of like when you're negotiating interest on a loan the banks, same type of deal. Look, I always wanted to separate my marketing people from my agent people. I wanted them to separate companies. I want them competing. I want them completely separate and actuality, And if my agent had a market and deal that came up, I would say, wouldn't

give it to my marketing people. That is not your job, it's not I don't want to convolute any buckets that you may be looking at to get money from. I don't want any gray area. It's black and white. You do this, you do that. And I just think some guys get in trouble by going with some agents who will say, oh yeah, one stop shop. I can do it all. I can do it all. I can do

it all. Well, unless you're going on a weekly basis, line by line about what your your bills and invoices and money is coming in, you don't know exactly where that money is going. So again, I always charge guys and tell them, look, man, take control of your own affairs. Well, I god, I wish I had the skill and talent that you did a plan in the league to have to have some of these conversations and thought process. But I always sat like this, like when I get my

taxes done, I go to a tax accountant. What only does taxes? Like, I don't want you telling me about some other products or some other investment, Like I don't play that game. If you got insurance, you did them with life insurance. Uh, just just just make sure Uncle Sam's not coming out exactly. It's the only thing I care about. Uh. And Rob touched on some of the duties of an agent. I just want to list a few because maybe not everyone is necessarily thinking in those terms.

You touched on the predraft workout, to combine the pro day training, all of those things really important. Also helping to facilitate pre draft workouts, supporting god insuring like college All Star games. So when you think about East West Shrine Ball, that one comes to mind. I was there last year nfl p A Bowl. Um going back to Vegas. You got to get on that, trying to get on and actually be a lot of fun, to be able to put you know what and just why you're going

through this. The agent, usually if it's a good agent, has a staff like setting you up for the combine, setting you up for these you know, visits the teams or whatever. You don't necessarily have the time to be talking to teams and setting up travel. There's a lot of logistics that go into this. The agent does a great job with their staffs kind of helping you out

in support you in that regard. Yeah, we mentioned the endorsements, brand management, assisting setting up charities and charity events, public relations, social media needs, interviews with media. I can't even tell you how many times, just some of the radio work that I've done where you get a guest before the draft and you're going through their agent, so you're right like, hey, I need to you need to coordinate my workouts slash my travel city to city from my interviews helped me

with the psychologists. You can get me prepped for that interview. When I go and talk to the team, Hey, some people that might know people in that front office. What are some of the questions that might be come in my way? And then oh, by the way, on my way to the airport or to the workout, Hey, I gotta go and do this radio hit. There's a lot of that stuff and people might oh, that's like how bad could that be? You know, you try juggling all

that stuff. It's a lot, man. I know. For me, when I was coming out, my agent had me get a private quarterback to come in and train me because again it was always that with position, he is going to play those types of things. He brought an a private quarterback for me. I ended up working out with a private running back, coach, receiver, coach, all those things. So again when I got in front of an NFL team, I knew exactly what I was prepared to do. All right,

So we've talked about the agents. We told you about kickers, specifically the punters. I just bring up Justin Tucker because that gives me an opportunity to promote something that we did last season, because you can go back and check that Outum when we come back here on the NFL Explained podcast, we're going to make the NFL and football a family affair. I'll explain that coming up next. All right, it's the episode that we talked about every single other episode,

and it is the mail bag edition of NFL Explained. Mike, M and m Rob with you fire off those questions, because, by the way, this is not the only time we're gonna do one of these mail bag additions. I know. So I think it was Anne who sent me a d M. It was asking about defense and all that stuff. Ya,

we just did a podcast about that. So if you miss any of our podcast, just remember that, like not like timely, so we're not talking about like, hey, what happened on Sunday, Like we're giving you some real stuff. All right, let's get back to some of these questions here. Did you ever by the way, have any teammates that were I don't know, cousins, brothers, not that I can

remember off the top of my head. Now, you know, I played with beasts, got a lot of cousins, you know, I don't know if they real cousins, a fake cousins, but a lot of cousins. So yeah, I do remember him saying that's my cousin a few times. But I look, I know, I'm gonna say nothing. So here's one of the questions that we got from the listener. T J. Watt and his brother j J. Both have a chance to be Hall of Famers. What other family legacies like

that have played in the NFL? Anything like, off the top of your head, I'm not gonna cheat, I'm not gonna look. Um, the Gronkowski, Oh yeah, that's a good one. The Watts obviously j J. T J. And then they got the full back that's out there with t J. Uh boom. The Sharps. Sterling used to work for us. He was actually my mentor in the broadcasting games. Sterling and Ushannon Sharp, who was also on television. Uh. The Matthews, Oh yeah, the Matthews. You see, I'm going with all

the blocking other positions. I'm not going to say the Mannings. Everybody knows the Manning Jam, I guess the Mannings. Who else is that it? Well, you got a bunch, man, I mean the Mannings are the obvious ones, just because of the legacy, the notoriety, the commercials. You know, Man, think about this, if Peyton and Eli are paying that to their agent on are you serious? Let's get back

to this agent conversation. Not that I want to dip into commission, right, but but again, when you gotta I mean, they got a franchise name, they got a manning name, So why even hire somebody like that? How are your dad keep the dollar in your family and just go and go with it that way? I think that's what they how they do it. Yeah, no, I'm with you there.

The bosses certainly come to my right, like John bossa first round pick seven, and then obviously Nick and Joey just tearing the muscles, own muscles, man muscles, own muscles. You mentioned the Matthews. I didn't know, like I knew, but I didn't know how deep it actually. They got layers and layers of them. Okay, they got a football trapped over there, right, The whole blood line of football players. Man,

and they can block, they can tackle. I mean they're big guys too, So I just think this one's kind of cool with this layer here. Uh, Clay Matthews senior, taken in the twenty five round of the nineteen forty nine NFL Draft. If you don't think that we're going to get a male bad question about the draft when it was in its twenty five rounds? Wow? Five rounds? Is that like actually a thing? I didn't even know that was. I knew, I knew they had a lot of rounds, but I five though, all right, So check

this out. So that's Clay Matthews senior, so he played defensive right. Hall of Famer. Who's Clay's senior son. That's Bruce Matthews, fourteen time ball bowler. What's the record for Pro Bowl? I mean, I don't know, four teens gotta be close, though. I think Peyton has the record or something like that. It's funny actually something to me. All right, So you got Bruce Bruce Matthews right, then Clay Senior's other son, that's Clay Matthews junior, four time pro bowler.

You got Clay Matthews the third who was Clay Junior Son, six time pro bowler. Which one was the one that went to sc Junior third? The last one? Yeah, okay, that's who played with me. That dude was an animal to block Brown. I hated going up against him, especially when he played for the Green Bay Packers. I hate it going up against Clay Matthews because, like I was a thumper, right, so I wanted a physical altercation with you. He didn't want that. He wanted to make the tackle

in the backfield a guy behind me. So it was just hard blocking that guy. Man. An, It's it's kind of crazy here. So by the way, it's not the only layer that's there, right. So Jake Matthews, who's Bruce's son, he was a pro bowler, Ksey Matthews, who was a linebacker fourth round draft pick also and then you got Kevin Matthews, Bruce's son. He started three games in the league.

Like the point is, like I remember when Stephanie Graff and Andrea I guess he got married here, Like yo, that that kid is going to be like the greatest tennis player in the history of the sport. Like think about the lineage and the Matthews family. Goodness, man, I mean again, it's a football tribe, it's a football bloodline. I mean we got the Hotwey Longs too, we got the Long family. I forgot about the Long Colin Chris. I played against both of those guys. Man. Chris was

a great div of the event in the National Football League. Man, and he has a great podcast too. I gotta check that out. Not that we should be promoting. No, we're not promoting it. Make sure they promote. NFL explained that we'll do some gift back. I gotta see them a text. Uh. Ed McCaffrey, Christian McCaffrey forgot about right, I mean think about you know Ed? And what was the story when Christian got traded to the Niners that Kyle Shanahan babysat

and then Kyle's favorite player growing up was Ed McCaffrey. Yes, yes, look at all the connections. Look at the university MS. Yeah, Bob and Brian greasy little father son duo as well. Only just because I mentioned this on a highlight the other day, Travis Kelsey was at Jason Kelsey's Eagles game. So the tight ends from Kansas City just drawing that out there. Who else the mccordy's look for us, So I was gonna say was good. So Devin mccordy and

then Jason mccordy and Slatter's too. I want to mention Jackie Slater Hall of Fame tackle, seven time Pro bowler, and Matthew Slater, who again one of the all time great special team players in our league history. He's still doing it, ten time Pro bowler strictly for special teams. It's pretty cool. You mentioned the Sharps. I'll throw out the barber's tick and Ron day v A. How about the pouncing name. Talk about some big boys. Yeah, man, they were actually on a podcast here recently and they

lost some weight to all big guys man. Uh and only because we work with him every Tuesday on Total Access. It's our guys, David Carr the car. Yeah, how about you pause their first second? I'm like, I didn't know where you were going somewhere, oh David and Derek. Yeah. And the amount of times have you caught yourself calling David Derek? I'll do it probably once a week. Yeah, I've done that before. I get He's like, Mike, there you go, I just mess you can always go d C.

And and you're always You're always going to Clare. You'll always be right on that one. But the point is so many of these family combinations and the only other thing that I'll throw out there the Harbaugh family from the coaching tree, John and Jim, obviously, the Ryan Fry, Buddy Robin Rex that's pretty cool man. And again Buddy Ryan one of my all time favorite personalities in the National Football they got. I never played for him, obviously, but I wanted to. I always wanted to. Do you.

Um you ever watch Amazing Race sometimes? Yeah, was actually on the show. I did not know that it was actually kind of funny. Yeah, he should check that out. That'll be like a little onto bad thing for you. All right, Welcome back to the NFL Explained podcasts. Mike, Yeah and Rob with you all right? Another question for your players play on different services. You've got natural grass, you got turf. How do the guys actually decide what cleats are going to use on the field? General rule

of thumb that I just learned. I actually haven't ever really heard anybody to say. This is something I learned just my own experience. The heavier you are, the less spike you need, so if you're I've seen big guys just put on like shoes with very little spikes at the bottom, and they're so heavy that they don't slip, you know what I mean, they can actually walk on grass.

Be fine. The lighter you are, Yeah, you want the modive cleats the guys that are doing a bunch of cutting your wide receivers, your defensive backs and things like that. And for me, it's playing in a place like Chicago and Chicago Bear Stadium, their grass is always longer. So I was playing a Michigan the grass is always longer. I always thought that they didn't cut the grass on purpose to make a slower but that's a whole other

podcast conversation, Yams. But in those longer grass situations or muddy situations, you want to wear the detached cleats where you pc people having to screw the cleats on because you can make them longer, you can make them shorter. So did you always wear the same ones and then just feel it at or change depending on what the conditions Like, if it was money and rainy, would you

just wear different cleats? Yeah, if it was muddy and rainy, I already knew I was gonna go with the detached if it was one of those games where it was just damp natural grass. Though damp natural grass, yeah, I would go out there in my usual molded ones to feel it, and then if I felt like I was slipping, I would go put on the detached. Now, if it was rainy and it was filed turf, I never used the detached because when it's field turf, I mean, it's almost like being on a It's on a flat surface.

It's not giving as much as the natural ground would, so wearing the longer spikes makes it more slippery. Did you prefer playing on turf for grass? That's a hard question because really you like the synthetic turf because it's versatile and you know, you always got your footing, so to speak. But natural grass gives and my limbs, my ligaments, so like the natural grass, the field turf didn't give as not as much as natural grass. So for me, the stadium I always like to play in was there's

a Cardinals stadium. It's a natural grass, but indoors, it's the best of both worlds. You see what I'm saying. You've got no rain, no weather, but the ground gave with you, you know what I'm saying. So it's pretty cool. I think some people might say, Mike, like, why would you think turf would give I don't think astro turf. No, what I'm saying like a field turf, like the fake grass, because it really is so I mean it's nice. Oh,

it's nice. And it has all these rubber pellets that kind of, you know, shield you from falling and things like that. And then think about the rubber pellets, Mike, if you don't have a shield, you get grand into the ground from a tackle or whatever. Dude, there's pellets everywhere. People don't realize how hard that is man like to see to get the stuff out of your head, to

get stuff out of your eyes. And what if you're sick, what if you got a cold that day, Like, dude, I can't call in and say I can't play today because I got a stuff. He knowes. That's good point the pellets, but which, by the way, we'll come up in a second. Here. The pellets get all over you, like if you walk on field turf, like it's it like sticks to you, which is just this might be a little much, but you know what, it's just me

and you here. It's just me and you here. Okay, Um, take a shower after the game and it's pellets everywhere, Pellets coming out everywhere in the shower, man everywhere. You're like, dude, I have my pants on the whole time. Pell Lets get right there. Pellets are everywhere, Mike. If you can imagine, I don't want to. By the way, you're gonna get some d M just about crevices and pellets. Okay, I'm just saying, you said the word crevits. That might be

that might come your way. Hey, one other note, by the way, on on, I heard this great story and it's related to what you're saying. One of our colleagues she married. She had said when he was coaching with the Packers, Barry Sanders just at the time playing for the Lions, and he's like, you know what we're gonna do with him, you know what we're gonna do. We're gonna slow him down. He said, we didn't cut the grass at Lambo and we just soaked the field. And

he actually he laughed. He's like, we kept him in check, like it was you know, I don't he didn't remember the exact number, but it was like it's a real thing. It was like fifty yards or something like that. It's it's a real thing, man, competitive advantage. I did ask him, I'm like, can you do that nowadays? He's like, I don't. I don't really know. It's like back that we could

check him, So keep it to yourself. Moved. Hey. One other note on just because I know people really you know, got people who are like into shoes and like sneaker culture and the whole thing. Just some research numbers on the actual cleats themselves. As Emrod made reference, he got the molded ones permanently fastened to the shoe. That's the most common on artificial turf. The detached ones are the ones that Emrob was talking about. They come off the soul.

They're usually longer spikes, and you're using those when the weather is not great snow, when traction is a little bit more difficult. What pros where actually found that six of starting wide receivers and the season were Nike cleats. The most popular where the Nike Vapor Edge three sixty speed, super light, almost no ankle support, but I mean literally it's super super light, Mike, you would holy shoes and be like, oh my goodness, like do you even have

anything on your feet? Like do you even feel like you have something on their super light? And again this iteration of this three six speed because it used to be Speed TV back when I was playing. It is a little bit more durable. You can actually run as hard as you can and make a cut in the cleat won't burst. Sometimes back in the day to cleat euston burst Adidas they're most popular. One. Do you know this one? The Adidas at a zero zero? No, I don't know about that one, um, but I'm sure my

thirteen year old does. There's no doubt actually taking a selfie and going to the selfie and Rob. You know, it's kind of interesting because the NFL began tracking cleats players where in the nineteen to find some trends between cleats and lower body injuries. That's pretty cool man, that they're actually even looking at that, because again, the way that your foot hits the ground is the first part

of health when you're talking about athletes. Em. Rob, you know, actually, since you knew all about like the Nike vapor cleats in the whole thing, I'm gonna throw something in your way. It's one of the coolest things that I think the league allows to happen because, as we know, the NFL would be a little sticklers on uniform right, you know where I'm going with very much sticker on uniforms. Yes, my cause, my cleats I love. First of all, they get to do cool designs and all that stuff. I mean,

it is and it's for a good cause. Like depending on what the cause of the player is, did you take part in any of that stuff? Um, no, ity didn't start doing it until I was on this side of it. But I did take part in it on this side, on the media side of it, because I'm an next player. The NFL Player Engagement Department, Yes, they come and ask us if we want on my cause

my cleats. But I think it's awesome. It's allowing players to take ownership of their causes, allowing players to say, look, this is what means the most to me when you're watching me out here running around, when you're watching me out here and put my body on the line and things like that, I'm doing it for this cause. And I think it's pretty cool for me from a cleat standpoint. I used to always steal Russell's and Marshawn's cleats because they were the big money dudes man, and they got

all the sweet cleats from Nike. So I'm like Russell after Tuesday's practice, I need those cleats because he wore a new pair every day with the green tips after Tuesday practice. Them need to come on over to Mike Rob's locker and then I wear him Sunday and he's fine. He got like thirty more pairs. He's fine. He's a quarterback. He got half a bill and dollar. Dude, we all knew he was gonna get paid. And then Beast Mood Beast Moore would still my real shoes, like my real

shoes that I wore to work. You know what I'm saying, drive home in sometimes, you know what I'm saying. Because he would take my real shoes. I would take his cleats because he would have he would put the goal and he would pay the fees and the fines for not having the team colors on because they would find us if your cleat is not the team colors. He didn't care. He just had a stand in check waiting for him him. You can have it. I'm wearing the cleats.

I want best mode. They were pretty doped. Alright. One last question, because I don't want someone to d m me saying why didn't you ask Rob about this? You didn't take Russell's cleats every single day, which means if he was not wearing them twice, where did the extra ones go? Yeah, so at the end of I don't know, every three or four games I was actually in charge of when I was playing, in the middle of the locker room, this big box full of cleats and we

would just e k our equipment manager. He would take those cleats to a local high school. Local very cool. Donate I mean literally one where cleats, literally one where gloves one where I mean do you give them? You give them away? Who just fast forward for a second, because you do so much youth football. If you find out that you could be wearing Russell Wilson's cleats, do you actually want to wear them? Well, like you want to just like I want to like put those into

like a nice case. So it's crazy, right, Um. I donate a lot of stuff to like, you know, good will stuff in Richmond. And yeah, you got old Russell Wilson jerseys that I bought my kids when they were old Mike rob jerseys walking around Richmond. People have no clue that those are real jerseys in a real locker room. Warned by real guy. Yeah, it's because I don't have enough space forms. I give it away, literally, like sign bought footballs and everything. I have so much, I give

it away. I got a Beast Mode Hawaii jersey from one of his Pro Bowls that I accidentally gave to the cook Will. This kid is just walking around has no that's a small game war here here if you're in rich Man and there's a good Will near you and you see some cool like Seattle gear. But we just just realized, um, look, I know we got so

many questions. I was so thrilled to get not only the words of encouragement like hey really love the like it's really cool, Like are actually checking out this podcast, continue to support us man, really really do appreciate it. If we didn't get to your question, I promise you I'm literally screenshotting and sending them all to our game. So this went way longer than we were I text everyone, I throw in like fire emojis and the whole thing.

But make sure you follow us on Twitter at real Mike rob at Mike underscore yeamh and I promised this is not the only mail bag episode we are going to do. I promised before the season is over. We got at least one five more just like doing these, so keep them coming. Really do appreciate it. That's uh. The mail bag episode explained