Colin Cowherd Podcast Prime Cuts - Nick Wright On Durant’s Legacy, NFL Top 100 Debate, Rookie QB’s Most Primed To Succeed

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I don't. We have a series of people. You're a football guy and a golf guy, Like everybody has sort of a lane. And it's worked that way. And I've seen that most of my life in corporate America, and in corporate America, when you have problems is when people think you know, a sales guy suddenly comes up and wants to talk to me about content. ESPN was famous for that. Here, I've got a segment I think could work well for a car dealership, and I'm like, I'll

create segments. If you can sell them, you sell them. But iHeart has never asked me to do a segment because they found a sponsor. Like, that's not the way it works. It shouldn't work that way. So Belichick, prime example, got into trouble. He took over personnel. Pete Carroll and Seattle got into trouble. He and John Snyder. Once John Snyder the last couple of years took over personnel. Seahawks

had back to back great drafts. They had several where Pete had influence, where they just kept missing on first round picks. Rashad Penny the running back's a great example where like everything was a reach. So when the players vote on the NFL Top one hundred, it's illuminating. It lets you look into what matters to players. They love athleticism. Lamar Jackson is the voted the number one quarterback over

Patrick Mahomes because he's viewed as hyper athletic. This is the NBA players a majority thinking Westbrooks better than Steph Curry despite the fact they're both guards. One can't shoot and has bad hands, like the two most important things for a gar.

So in the days that you were working for the Eagles. I look at the top one hundred. I'm not offended by it, but it illuminates how players view the world. Hyper Athleticism is viewed on a grand scale for players.

Bill's mind. Andy is not asking Patrick Mahomes, you know his for his draft board, right or in free agency. Now, when a player plays somebody, if you play Lamar Jackson and he kicks your ass and you go, that was really good? Like that, there's something to be said. But in the NFL, you don't play every team. So in the NFC, only four teams in the NFC played the Ravens last year. Right, it rotates every four years, so

half the league is not even playing this player. And then there are teams in the AFC that aren't playing them either. Colin this ranking, which I honestly have to fake even caring about, I do not care about this, and the Madden rankings which had Lamar and Patrick Mahomes right here, Josh Allen is a better player than Lamar Jackson. He's He's a better player. Yeah, the Chiefs feared Josh Allen. They just played him both back to back playoffs on

the road. They feared Josh Allen. They were excited to play Lamar again. That's not saying that Lamar's not good. They knew they could handle Lamar. Josh Allen has kind of owned them. This is in the playoffs. The reason the Bills haven't won was Sean McDermott the defense, not Josh. To me, there is a gap again Lamar's regular season in the playoffs, he hasn't been remotely the same. No, no, and that's a big problem for a team that at this point in time, Like, we're not judging the Ravens

on twelve wins, thirteen wins, like who cares? Like, Yeah, I expect the Ravens to be in the playoffs. He's getting judged on those couple of games, just like Mahomes. And that's the thing with Josh. He hasn't won, but I think we all go.

You're not going to avoid that guy. If he's available, you're probably gonna And it's the one position where they've been really immature. Tony immature, Rashi Rice immature. Xavier Worthy, I think that's his name out of Texas.

For the most part, Andy kind of embraces it. And I'm not saying like, and that's the Tony's even tyreek. Early on, Kelsey was a character guy coming out of high school. So I think Andy feels pretty comfortable that he can mold that. But overall, the quarterback ranking, you can not have an NFL quarterback ranking and not have Josh Allen second. And I take you seriously, you can't do it. I think he's the second best quarterback and honestly, like I have more faith in him winning. It's on

the organization. But I've seen him be awesome in the playoffs. I mean, say what you want about you know the Bengals, who the owner's been cheap, they have proven over the last twenty years. They've had moments with Marvin Lewis and Carson Palmer, some really good teams with Marvin Lewis and the Andy Dalton teams like they can build a team. Joe Burrow benefitted two years ago. Their team was talented.

in the Hall of Fame game. Seventy three percent of kicks last year went through the end zone or touchbacks. You get an extra play about six to seven time a game. There were only like four balls kickoffs taken for touchdowns last year. It almost never happens.

So Fox literally told him how to tweak their schedule speed the game up. ESPN, by the way, has no interest from what I've heard in resigning baseball Lachlan Murdoch, it's pretty clear in our building, it's not like baseball is a priority. Baseball has changed when it's fundamentally had to, or networks just don't want to do business with them, and they have sped the game up. But it's a different time and it does still feel like it lacks juice and energy and pacing. So but the NFL in

a leadership role. I always said this about Tiger Woods, number one golfer in the world, number one and change clubs. Oprah Winfrey had the number one ratings and she literally changed her show to more of an ethereal quality of life, elevation of life show. She was number one Tiger and Oprah changed. NFL does this number one pulling away and makes changes. That's different from somebody going John, if you

don't quit smoking, you die. I'm not going to give you a ton of credit for quitting when the option is you're dead if you don't start exercising and stop smoking. So baseball is a little bit like change or we're just not interested in resigning you to long term deals. So I guess my point is on the preseason thing. People can fight it, but John, I watched it, and I'm like, it's I It was the first time I can remember watching every kickoff.

one if we see different things. Because Sean Payton mentioned this, and I do agree, there's a lot of moving parts with where the ball could end up, and he's like, it's hard to follow. It's hard for us the coaches, it took us a while. The fans cannot follow this, like if one goes out of bounds, if one goes through the end zone, and obviously if you don't get it to the front square. There are different yard lines. I think one's twenty five, one's thirty, and one's forty

might be thirty five. He's like, it's too confusing. His Sean Payton's pushback was, I'm totally cool with this change of the formation, but just have one or the other right. If you kick it out of the end zone or kick it out of bounds, it starts at the forty and if you kick it, if you don't kick it to the square, started at the twenty. But you can't have too many complications. And I agreed with that. The one thing I think again, it was preseason game, the

Hall of Fame game. You could even have that in his own category, like there's preseason, then there's whatever the hell that is. I know it got ut out or whatever, but I mean the people playing. I thought there would be more just open lanes, and I'm not trying to take too much away. It felt like the offensive players because this guy gets a running start five yards, I do have to back up immediately. And I in the old rule I had more space so I could back

up and then attack. There's not really that much space. And there were a couple of times when everyone just went by him and the offensive guy was swallowed. So and I assume the opposite. I was like, you're only going to have to make a guy or two miss. It's why, like Deebo Samuel's like, I want in because in theory you think it's going to be easy, but then you watch it in practice, you're like, maybe it's not going to be as I would say offensive as

you it's going to be harder than who knows. Maybe we'll see all sorts of stuff. But Sean Payton said this, He's like, if the average if you're kicking in the square and the average where they end up with the ball is at the thirty eight yard line, over like a two or three week period, every coach is going to kick it in the end zone, start at the thirty right. We'll just play the numbers, which would be bad, which would negate everything they're trying to do and the

league obviously understands this, so they're trying. They want it to be a play.

And this quarterback said, man, when you come into this league, and this quarterback spoke from experience, he goes, I had a defensive coach first, he said, it's a different language. He said, bow Knicks and JJ McCarthy are getting a master class level coaching experience that Pennix isn't getting with a coordinator, Caleb's not getting he said. This guy said, it's just he goes, and he said this he goes. People bang on Josh Allen and Lamar Jackson for not

winning playoff games. He said, if you gave Josh Allen to Andy Reid, do you think he'd have a super Bowl? And his thing was, of course he would. So it's just interesting is that we every year in this draft, John, there's a quarterback drafted below the star. Very rarely is the first quarterback taken the guy c J Stroud too, Bryce YOUMP, So I'm not just saying now, c J. Stroud got a great coach, a great coordinator, tanked Dell

Nicole Collins they had on draft picks. But your take on because Kevin O connell is highly respected, I mean the tall Sean McVay, Sean Payton, I spent a lot of time with Sean. Shawn is way too smart to be broadcasting. He has to be coaching. I think the best over bet in the league is Bonecks at five and a half. Like the old line's pretty good. If the Franklin kid from Oregon works with Mems and Courtland Sutton, they have workable tight ends. Two backs I think are capable.

What do you make of that that the first year rookie quarterback the two with offensive coaches who are deeper in the draft could be the hits.

in the press conference was a lot of love. I think he is really really high well. I think he liked his like his rookie class. The way he was talking, I think he's pretty excited about his team. This did not feel like, you know, I think a younger Sean Bill Parcells guy. If he's not happy, you can feel it. He looked pretty excited with the group he has. Doesn't mean they're gonna win eleven games. I'm kind of out on Washington this year, not because I don't think Jayden

Daniels isn't really talented, but they're not that good. They haven't been. They got rid of multiple d linemen. Now you could say Chase Young's a little overrated. Monte Sweat is not so that they lose talent there, they just are not as talented as obviously. The Eagles are the cowboys that divisions hard. The Giants have some players and day ball, you have like he has been coaching, now

he's calling the offense. I could see the Washington just having a rough season, and that's where you know big. Of course they should. They've been been bad. They're resetting. But when you're a quarterback and you don't have your play caller and then all of a sudden, these are offensive play caller good enough, Cliff Kingsbury, you see a lot with defensive guys they start getting pressure, well who they point the finger at the offensive play caller when

it goes wrong. It goes to Kyle Shanahan or Andy Reid or Sean Payton or Kyle Shanahan and they go, we'll fix it, and you go, yeah, they will. They'll figure it out. And that's where it gets difficult. I mean New England they feel a little bit like a shit show right now. You know, no team in the league has spent less cash. I've read this and heard people say this over the last decade than them. I mean that speaks one to the brilliants of Tom Brady

and Belichick building a team. But also I think there's a knock on the craft can be a little cheap. They like to do the most with the least amount, where I think a lot of teams, like the Niners of the Cowboy, they'll spend whatever it takes to try to win. Like he's always it wasn't just Belichick being cheap. You know, it felt like a kind of a mandate. You have this rookie head coach who's not that far

removed from being a player. You got this defensive star players underpaid that they had a kick out of practice. It's getting weird. Diana Russini says, you know they've made an offer to him at Judon that he's saying bullshit. It's just there's a lot going on. The quarterback situation. They have this major project. We've seen a million times. What history doesn't repeat itself, but it often rhymes. I've seen Jacoby Brissett in a scenario on a bad team

thirty times in my life. We know exactly how this goes. The record's terrible before Halloween, right around there, it's like, we can't take this anymore. Throw the kid in. The team's awful, and it can Jared Goff go the wrong way and they got lucky. McVeigh came in the next year and saved everything. But it goes the wrong way with a situation like that, like dried Mayo ain't calling the offensive place. You can just see how it gets ugly.

Even again, dan Quinn, he did inherit Matt Ryan. It's a little harder with a young quarterback who, let's face it, Malik Nighbors looks like a bigger thicker Odell Beckham from eight years ago. And the other wide receiver went in the top twenty five, and Brian Kelly got a pretty good history of developing offensive players at Notre Dame, at Cincinnati and now here, So I don't know. I mean,

dan Quinn got and I like dan Quinn. He did get a job with Matt Ryan and Julio Jones on the roster, so it's just they were kind of a little more. They were already good, but Matt Ryan had already been in the playoffs. Star it's a lot more difficult. And I was thinking about this today. If you know in that Giants dock when they tried to trade up from three to six and Elliott Wolf essentially at the end of the day said no, unless you give me

some godfather offer, not going to entertain it. If I told you Drake May was with Daball who spent the four years you know with Josh Allen, you would like that scenario a lot more. Yes, when you put a project on just a god awful team whose coach, I mean, there's a decent doesn't mean he doesn't know football, but he's never been remotely close to a position like this. And now the fans are already turning on the owner because of everything that went on with the Apple documentary

and the treatment of Beli. It's just weird. It's hard to overcome that. I saw it when I was in college with Alex Smith. The Niners were just a joke that we used to joke in college. Could Pete Carroll's team beat the Niners? And it was like, yeah, I mean a lot of people would argue, I don't know, they got about fifteen first rounders and this Niner team struggled to win like four games, and Alex went there and it was his career was an embarrassment, and then

he got real coaches and what happened? You're like, Alex, it's pretty good. Yeah, it's and he's he's as mature and smart of a quarterback that is coming to the league last twenty five years. It is really really hard to overcome negativity losing a coach who's not really comfortable. So I guess that's a long winded way of saying, like I I think it's so much easier when you're When you're head coach, is the guy pulling the trigger

on the play call, he impacts the game. I'd never quite understand, Like Sirianni, like, what really is he doing on game?

the asset in which I hired you for. Part of being the head coaches, you gotta lead, You got to you gotta motivate, you gotta run practice and ideally call one side of the ball. That's what all these coaches do. There's a rare group of people. Harbaugh's a great example who can dominate Bill Parcells. Most guys have to be pretty hands on in this modern day of football, right the games. This is not nineteen eighty seven where I

can win most of my games seventeen to thirteen. If I got the toughest guys, I can beat the shit out of you.

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contract in the league. I can remember Albert Hainsworth for about a year got paid a ton with the Patriots. You remember it because it's so infrequent. It may be the only bad contract for the Patriots. Every NBA team has a terrible contract, some have three. You know, before James Dolan got distracted by the Sphere, it was like the half the contracts for the next were bad contracts. Is that One of the reasons that the NFL is king is because they have a weak union, And that

sounds terrible to say. Players have like Brandon Ayuk. They're like, no, we're not going to cave. There's a bunch of good receivers in next year's draft. We'll just go draft them. Now. I think they want him. They're furious. They know that the windows shrinking, their players are getting older. But I think I've talked to a lot of guys in the NBA. St Frank Vogel the other night at dinner. You know, La, you see a lot of pro coaches, like especially where

I live. There all are in the beast communities, and football coaches are happier. Basketball coaches are all miserable, even the successful ones. And the reason being is they have cost certainty, they have control. In the NFL, you can be productive but you're a pain in the ass. I'm moving off you. I mean, seven rounds of players half the league's undrafted. In the NBA, after the fourteenth pick,

you run out of players. And this Brandon Ayuk situation is interesting because in the NBA he would get paid and he may go to coach fired. And in the NFL they're like, now we got a bunch of good players. Draft will give us nine receivers. We'll give you a number. I mean, you didn't make like twenty three million.

by the individual player max. I think so many of the if the NBA salary cap was one hundred and fifty million, and if you wanted to give Joker one hundred and forty of it, you could so many of these. So many of the complaints of the NBA go away for two reasons. One is one of the reasons NBA guys get what I would call non contract benefits, which is, I don't want to practice today, Let's not practice today

those types of things. Is because if you're artificially capping what you can pay them and everyone can pay them the same, you have to pay them elsewhere. You have to be like, Okay, you're actually worth one hundred million a year, I can only pay you fifty so, and everyone can pay you fifty so, therefore we have to give you these fringe benefits like you know what they give college football coaches, country club memberships, whatever, in order

to make up that delta. The other thing the individual player cap does is it makes it to where the middle class NBA is wildly overpaid, and that's what fans. People think fans are gonna get pissed when NBA guys are making a million a game. They're not. They're not going to be mad when Jason Tatum, who's the best player on a champion, makes a million a game. Not more mad than there are right now when he makes half a million a game. Where people will get mad

is when they got mad at Tobias Harris. They're like, wait, you're the sixty third best player in the league and you're making thirty million a year. But that exists because of the individual player max. So that's the first that's the NBA part. In my opinion. The Ayuk thing. What I think is fascinating about Ayuk is people are wondering,

why are the Niners gonna cave? Why are the Niners who are gonna get nothing backup substance for this season when they've got to win, when it's the last year theoretically, when perty's cheap, when Trent's thirty six million, why are they going to cave and trade him at an inopportune time?

And I said it on the show today, and I think it's I think people, I think this will resonate with people if they think not of NFL teams but of their own workplace, which is it is the leverage a Ukaz is I can make it miserable here and people don't think about that. Think about any workplace you've been in where someone who's important and unfireable or ish comes in has a bad attitude. Is shit talking other

people is bringing the morale? Like bringing every room they walk you, they walk into you like, oh that kills the vibe, that kills working anywhere. And I think that is oddly the leverage au Caz. The leverage i ukaz is this can be miserable guys, and if people doubt how much of an impact that can have. Read the ESPN article today on what happened to the Eagles. Eagles were ten and one, they had won like twenty three of twenty five games. Yeah, went to Super Bowl, did

all that, and then what happened to him? Well it seems like the coach and the quarterback couldn't be in a room one on one together and the whole thing collapsed. So I think, oddly, the leverage I you has, or any of these guys have, is I can be a dick and I can make team meetings and the locker room suck. And you if I'm too good to cut, what are you going to do?

There's only so much you can do. So and then you put him on this team, And I said, if you look at even great players, you put Tatum around great players, he kind of shrinks, Steph has to adjust Embiid clogs it. Lebron takes a leadership role but won't score as much. KD works everywhere. Now as long as you don't ask him to lead, don't ask him to do that, just ask him to fit. He is the salt to the chef. Oh We've got it. Everything will

taste great tonight. So that is that's go ahead, finish. Sorry. So it's perfect that he on a collection of the world's best players that thirty years from now in a bar, you'll be like, who's the leading scorer?

they already have anything. Drop him on any great team and it works no great And so that is and your point is, I think if if Kevin heard this, he would say, that's what I've been saying, which is, I don't want to be the leader. When I'm asked about leadership, I'm like, that's the coach's shop.

not leader, so fuck off. Like I think that's what he's say And it's like, it's not a terrible argument except for the fact that it seems like the other guys in that room of greatness are kind of able to multitask it or have somebody alongside him who's also great, who can do it for him. And so it is it is such a unique thing because I do think I do think Durant is I've told you this on the podcast before, but I'll say it again. I had somebody who is super close with one of the greatest

players ever and it's not Durant. Say if you if we were to line the twenty greatest players up and they're all at their peak on a black tip and ask someone who didn't know about resumes or anything whatever, who they wanted who they think the best guy is, and you described it's like, Okay, the points at Michael Jordan and it's like, all right, tell me about that guy. It's like, well, he's average size, amazing athlete, good not great shooter, crazy, crazy competitor. They'd be like, okay, next

to point it shit. I mean, the most dominant physical force is you know, gonna come and go with effort, is going to be a liability at the free throw line, but is going to give you a guaranteed thirty Okay, Nora. They pointed Lebron all right, not the best shooter in the room, not the best dribbler, probably the best passer, and is probably the best athlete. Okay, what about that guy, oh, Durant, Well, he's the second tallest person here. He's also the second

best shooter. He's also the fourth best dribbler. He also can pass, he can defend, and they'd be like, well, I'm fucking taking him. They're like, wait, he's the second tallest and the second best shooter. They're like, oh, yeah, he can do that. Is he durable? Well, he's gonna play twenty years, like the can't. Is he a terrible defender?

grade lower, like Tatum. Tatum's around the best, and it's like, oh, you're just a grade lower. Durant's around the best, and you're like, are you the best player alive? Like it's such a fascinating thing.

with the Lake Kobe Bryant. But Kevin Durant actually would be a fun hang like he would be you could do eighty two games and it'd be like he'd get a drink with you, you know, they're you would just he would make you laugh when you were having a bad day. He'd put his arm around you and goes, okay, bro, let's just go HP.

that's fine. But I have tried to kind of throw back channels like political stuff, like try to set up a situation where he and I could sit and talk basketball or sit and talk, because over the last four years, I have grown to have such affection, if you will, for kind of just how comfortable he is in his own skin, like the he's gone a long way from the burners and all that stuff. It's like, nah, if I think you're full of shit on the Internet, I'm

gonna tell you. Like I thought it was hilarious that like a couple of days into the Olympics, on and off he was arguing with strangers on the internet on Twitter. It's like, dude, you're you got half a billion dollars your single, You're wildly famous in the Olympic village in Paris, and you're like, I got to get these tweets off, man, I don't care. I'm gonna sit here and argue with you guys about basketball. And I was like, I just

I found it charming. And I also think he has such an immense respect for the game itself that I really like. So I like Durant. I really like Durant, And I do I agree with you like he would. I do think he'd be a great guy to be, you know, to be on a team with. And I do think he'd be of all the superstars one of the best hangs and that's also it's also probably helpful. He's one of the only superstars of that level that's still like a single guy, like hanging out with the

fellas like Steph and Lebron. Everybody's married with kids. Durance is like, Nah, I'm gonna play video games, smoke a little weed and play basketball. Like I don't know about you guys. Spell them a life man.