Episode 153 - XFL Off-Season For Dummies

Coming up this week on the Mark Cast. Well, per Wikipedia, the Four Dummies Books are a series of instructional reference books which are intended to present non intimidating guides for readers YouTube various topics covered well. Today on the Mark Cast, we are talking the XFL offseason for dummies. We'll look at this here, talking actual football in the XFL offseason. Big show for you today,

but working on this one for a long time. We are Rush Jilio coming on, senior Director of Player Administration and Officiating Operations for the XFL. We are doing a deep dive into the l twenty twenty four player acquisition process and what that means for you. By and large, most of the players that we wanted, that we thought were the best available sign with us. You know. To be frank, and I think part of it is really just it's not USFL versus XFL as far as all things equal, it's our

schedule I think is more attractive. And you know, I'm not breaking any news by saying that. I think if you ask most agents and players, they'd prefer our schedule, which obviously is a huge advantage to us in recruiting. If that's you know what you want to call what we do as part of our job. And then speaking of those showcases, we have Pat Raffino,

a longtime friend, coming back on. Pat was fortunate enough to be in Saint Louis talking with Russ Brandon, president of football Operations for the XFL, getting Pat's thoughts. Where did he see at the combine? Whether we expecting from the talent coming out of St. Louis. They did it at Missouri Baptist University, which is an n AIA college. Fair and so many of these Missouri Baptist kids to be a part of the c AJA se Eric see Dan, see Mike and all the coaches and pr staff that we're there.

And for a smaller school to do that for this community outreach in Missouri, it doesn't get much better than that for me. And then don't think we forgot CFL fans out there. We have Dave Naylor TSM Zone coming back on the program. Dave, we are talking everything CFL Week six Crazy time. Here is mccalled bettel Thompson coming back up north. What is going on in Ottawa? What is going on in Toronto? Big games this weekend?

Should be excited. There's a real issue with the depth of talent at quarterback across this league, the likes of which you know, we may never have seen before, and teams just don't have the margin to turn to the next guy because the next guy is usually unproven or nowhere near as talented as the

guy you lost. And then, speaking of the Ottawa red Blacks quarterback controversy, here in that really controversy but more of a dilemma, we have Tim Bains Ottawa, a sudden coming down, getting all of Tim's thoughts on the Red Blacks. A future pivot situation should be a good one, like can subscribe. Hey, guys, welcomes to the marcass read here. Really proud

of my photoshopping skills this week for the thumbnail of the episode. Hope you enjoy that if you're watching on YouTube. I don't know if anyone remembers those complete idiots guides or you know, such and such for dummies, but I thought that was great today. You know, we have an expert. We're talking with Russ Julio here. Everything involved in the XFL player acquisition process and administration, all of the things under Rus's purview here on the show should be

a good one. I wanted to be a little evergreen talking you know, what is the XFL looking for here coming into the off season, going into next year, what is Russ looking forward to? And the showcases and the combine kind of everything else. I hope you guys enjoy, Like I said, been working on that one for a long time since the showcases last year, So I hope you guys enjoy my lengthy conversation with Russ. And then, like I said, Pat Rafino, Pat was at the Saint Louis Showcase

last Friday talking with Russ. Brandon and AJ McCarron was there and the Ampthony back and all of that. So kind of getting first hand accounts from Pat Rafino everything with the XFL Saint Louis Showcase and kind of all of the you know, kind of summer showcase combines everything XVEL offseason on here. And they really appreciate Dave Naylor coming on, making time, Dave busy schedule, talking

about the streak in Edmonton. We'll be making fun of. I can't believe Dave Naylor, We're talking about the Edmonton Elks home losing streak and not talk about Bill Goldberg's one hundred and seventy three match winning streak and ww back in the nineties. Disappointed with Dave about that, but we'll be excited to get his thoughts everything CFL. Hey, guys, future read here. I just wanted to give an extended plug here. I recorded my normal intro before chatting

with Dave Naylor. You do not want to miss this Today we get into the CFL quarterback issues, Dave wants to get rid of the neglist, and then you'll even get an in office kind of studio tour of Dave Naylor's whole it's a whole situation here. Don't want to miss. I just wanted to make sure I gave proper, proper excitement and plug here for this interview coming

up, so I hope you enjoy. And then a longtime friend Tim as here if we're not partying in uh you know we were parting last year and we're giant in that will be in Hamilton hopefully for the Great Cup this year. But talking everything Red Blacks quarterback pivot situation they called the pivot up there North, the quarterback position. Everything with Tim, I hope you guys enjoy. The show should be a good one next week. I gotta figure out

what we're doing. I have a heavy work schedule. We'll figure out what's going on, but for now, please like and subscribe to this up to thirty five two subscribers, and we'll see at the end next Well. I'm excited, and I can tell from the interests I've gotten on social media this week after posting this, people are very excited. We tried to do this last year, but there was a lot of league building and everything else. But we're here now, we're in the XFL offseason. We imbrest Julio here.

How are you doing, sir? Doing well? Thanks for having me read. And I'm surprised people are excited because I'm supposed to be the guy behind the scenes that notable nobody's ever heard of, which I'm fine in that role. Yeah, well, no, people are excited. And what I am honestly really excited about is talking actual football here in the off season because there's a lot of you know, we do this, you know three sixty five, and obviously we have you know, CFL and everything right now.

Exciting times, but I'm enjoying this. At your full title here, XFL Senior Director, Player Administration and Officiating operations quite everything going on there, but a busy guy. I guess it wanted to do this last year. What did you make going through You know, we've completed the first year and you've been a part of the DC you know, but AF and XFL and everything else back in the day. How do you feel like L twenty twenty three

win. I think it went really well. I mean from my in my area and I hope to stay in my lane as best as I can in this interview. Is our group, meaning myself, Doug Whale at the league office, Mark Ross, and then the DPPs at the team and to some extent the head coaches right where to identify the best players in the country and the you know or the world who weren't playing in the NFL and attract them to want to play in the XFL. And I think, you know,

we have metrics to show. I mean, I could tell you we did a good job at that, but I think the numbers bared out too that we got really good players, and I think we put on good football games and that's our goal in my area. And then on the business side, I can't really speak to that, but I think um haven't been been part of three of these leagues. Now that it's the best, you know, it's the best league by far. I've been a part of for if you

want to call it, spring football, developmental football, startup football. So yeah, it's interesting, you know, and we've we've talked and I've talked, you know, we met it. We were the years in the showcase and kind of you know last season and uh down at the Choctaw you know what was it the hub like the Arlington Hub announcement whatever. And I've always said I had no concerns of any kind about the football that was going to be put on the field for the XFL, you know, last year,

this year, kind of whatever. It's some of the other things, and outside of your your preview, you know, that was my concern. I mean we saw, you know, the talent that you brought in, like you said, DPPs and you guys are running the showcases and doing all that. That was never a concern. And so it did bear out. I think that the XFL it was a high quality, you feel as though the

highest quality of any league. You've been a part of the vessel. Yeah, and I could you know, I don't want to bore the hell out of your audience just throwing numbers. But the one I think that sticks out to me the most. Again, I haven't been through the AF and the XFL twenty twenty is we signed about forty five. I think the number is practice twenty twenty two NFL practice squad play Guys who were on an NFL practice

squad in twenty twenty two signed with US forty five of them. Me and I think in the AF may have had in the teens like fifteen and XFL twenty twenty, we thought we'd get more because you know, the AF proved that it's a you know, for that type of player, the next best guy in the in the country or world, it's a it's a place to

go to play good football. We didn't get as many as we wanted in twenty twenty, and then this past season in twenty twenty three, forty five is a pretty impressive number, and I think we'll just keep growing, you know, we'll grow on that next season. So yeah, heading into next year, goals here looking into twenty twenty four, what do you guys trying to do from a football first record side? Another thing you know we did

that it's new, right I mean season two. A bunch of us have worked in some other leagues and season two is new to us, right, I mean, we planned for it a bit in XFL twenty twenty, and

then it never happened. And now we're here, and the first thing we did is, you know, and you covered it was, was the rookie draft, which we want to make part of our you know, our yearly cycle, which you know, we planned to be here a long time and every year we want to have that rookie draft after the season of the best players who didn't you know, latch onto an NFL team after mini camps and

so on. And I think I have to give credit to our DPPs because in short order, you know, we finished the season, they have work to do. During the season. They had to evaluate probably upwards to five hundred rookies in about a month. And you know how these these guys old and they're not not old, but the scout scouts are about being meticulous about film study and everything, so they I think they did a great job on

identifying those players. And part of it for us too is, uh, where we have to recruit them, right, I Mean, we're drafting them, but we also have to get them excited about signing on and that they have a roster spot and managing you know, the rosters. And I'm sure we'll talk about that and later an interview, but that rookie draft I thought was pretty exciting for us to to get new players who you know, younger players to be frank, although you know, if you look at our rosters,

we we don't discriminate. We have long time vets and and rookies and really we had draft eligible players twenty twenty three draft eligible players on rosters this year too. So well, what I like in you know, you had the the inside the league hall and you know, doing things like that with

you and Doug doing obviously this interview. What I like about it is the transparency, right of being able to see why you guys are doing things the way that you are, right and you said on the call, you know we want to do the rookie draft now kind of give people a sense, hey, we're you know, coming into the summer and if you're not on a camp, like what am I going to do with my time? And I think fans of the league right them obviously players want to be a part

of that. Just really appreciate that transparency, which I do not think we get the same level of that from the USFL. So I will say, I like credit to you and Doug and everyone whatever whoever came about making those decisions to do that. I would just give kudos because I think that that

helps let people know what's going on. Evading me to say something about well, no, I I have a question about it, but no, I just I want to you know, I do you feel like have you gotten good feedback of that, Like we're being a little bit more transparent with our process and why we want Yeah. I mean I think there's just a lot of players that want to play football, right, and they're opportunities and you know, our competitor and us we are providing those players and it's just a

matter of um, you know, tracting them, recruiting them and giving them a good job. To be frank, it's it's a good job, right, I mean, it's it's you know, if you want to look at his development to get to the next level. But it's also while they're there, it's a it's a good football, it's it's a good league, and it's a good job for these guys and that's in the up where we do

in operations. That's what you know, that's part of our charge. The one I do have one USFL question on here and then we'll get into all the XFL kind of numbers and combines and everything. Uh. The comments at the end of the season from you know, you're a good friend here, I assume Daryl Moose Johnson talking about you know, hey, like we're baffled and ratings and all of that. But the interesting know that bout it was there was no real critique of the XFL or the USFL from a football standpoint,

right. All Moose's comments were like, well, our production values better and we have Joel Clatt, so that makes it better. Obviously. You you know, you're peeking over the curtain here, over the fence in the yard. What did you think of the USFL's product or how they're handling things versus how you guys are. Well, I'll start with say, I mean, he's one of the best guys I know, and I've worked with Tim in the AF and the XFL, and he's as good of a guy as

he seems on camera. I love moves. Yeah, I mean, I don't know much about production and I don't know how that moves the needle. I mean our partners ESPN as a when I turn on the TV, I watch sports baseball, basketball, football, and I go to ESPN and go from there on my dial. So I don't know if that's a knock on ESPN. I can't comment on that. But about the players, again, like I said in the beginning, our job was to identify the best players

and to recruit them and attract them to the league. And I think by and large, most of the players that we wanted, that we thought were the best available signed with us, you know, to be frank, and I think part of it is really just it's not USFL versus x FL, as far as all things equal, it's our schedule I think is more attractive. And you know, I'm not not breaking any news by saying that. I think if you ask most agents and players as they'd prefer our schedule,

which obviously is a huge advantage to us and recruiting. If that's you know, what you want to call what we do as part of our jobs, you know, I mean that it's still up for debate now, even as we're going through and obviously the second season of the USFL here and you know, what is the better time of year. And I think when it came out in the USFL, you know, we're kind of reading in all that last year and like, yeah, we're going to go right into camps and

kind of all that, and then we saw the reality of that. And I think having this breathing room coming out from April and being able to get into the camps earlier and latch on, I do think is the benefit for the XFL now having lived through kind of the colendar cycle. Amen, there you go. So coming into this season, are any updates to like player contracts, anything in terms of if any pay benefits, any changes. We're still working through. As you know, you may have covered it and we've

talked about it on inside the league. You know, our rosters have been increased to ninety and that's really I mean, we have players under contract that finished the season last year on the act of List of Injured reserve who are under contract for the rest of the calendar year. And then the new players who we add are technically the rights to those players. You know, the team we're singing Lenity League, so the players will sign with the league and

their rights will be assigned to a team, so to speak. And so right now we're just in the process, our teams more so than me, of managing you know, those roster spots and how many players. We brought seventy seventy five or so players to camp last year, and so it's just a matter of you know, managing the players that are going to come back from the twenty twenty three season to camp in twenty twenty four, the rookies that we added to rosters and then combined players, and then the NFL players

who were released, you know, after Labor Day. So right now, I think we're in roster management mode, the teams and the coaches and from the league level. You asked about the tracks we're working. We're finalizing those now and we'll probably start signing players sooner. I'm not going to give you an exact date, but sooner than later. So you expect any any changes to benefits or pay or anything like that, Uh No, I think,

you know. I mean, there's pretty the market's pretty much been established for spring football, and so we'll be competitive in the marketplace. And you know, I think the decision to play where you're going to play, whether it be And you know, we haven't talked about the CFL, and you have to I have a lot of respect for them up there as well. So how players make that decision? I think in these leagues it's probably not so

much about the financials. It's probably other you know, when all things being equals. So in terms of the teams, you know, we're we're signing players over the summer, managing those rosters and then obviously with the upcoming and kind of the supplemental drafts and all of that in the fall, how are teams doing in terms of managing that? Is there going to be enough space for these teams to be able to bring that's on team? You know,

that's the teams having to manage it, the team by team. But so and I mentioned, you know, our yearly cycle, and I think we start now again this is year two is new to us. But the rookie draft, which will do every year, and then we go into our showcases and combine, and you know, I think that's how we differ from the the NFL. Obviously as a rookie draft are the access to our league is

different? Right and probably and for our competitors too, is where it's a little bit more accessible and opportunities, and you know, they're not quite open tryouts, but we're players, you know, and there's a ton of I mean, like we said last year, there were eighteen hundred players on a waiting list to go to a showcase. This year, every showcase is UH

is full to capacity. And so that we'll evaluate those players and then into the NFL camps, will evaluate the players on the bottom of rosters in the NFL that that it don't make you know, a practice squad after Labor Day and so sorry, I'll finish. So we'll have a draft. Unlike last year we had you know, a big draft if you want to call it, when we drafted sixty some players and then had a supplemental draft. We

had the rookie Draft. Now we're gonna have an NFL plus combine participant draft in early October, right and then we'll have a supplemental draft in December, right before we go to training camp for players that weren't available then. So that's our and I think it is pretty much it makes sense for us to do that on a yearly basis, where people in the football world know,

you know, our calendar and how we're adding players to rosters. In terms of this, it came out I think last week this IFL combine with the XFL. Any do you have any details about father how many players it's in August? I guess I don't know. I talked to their commissioner a week or two ago. It's around their championship game in Vegas in August, I believe, and it's gonna be I'd imagine their top players from their league that

and make it to Vegas and we'll work out for some XFL personnel. So has that, you know, depending on who you asked her, has been varying, like, oh, this is you know, the IFL partnership and all that. Has that proved dividends so far in your mind? Decided?

Yeah? I mean again, it's opportunities, right Like, So, we brought, like I said, seventy five players to training camp and we cut down to fifty one, and that's twenty four guys per team or more that we're out of football, and some of them landed and other leagues, including the IFL, So I think helping them, you know, to identify some of our better players to maybe attract them to that league. And then and then it works both ways, right, So the better players they had in

their league will work out and we'll have access to that workout. So I'm sure it could grow from there, but it's you know, it's the early stages of a partnership. How many spots are left for the combine here coming up? The wa in? Yeah, the big combine? Is it pretty full now? Because I know there was a lot of I guess, I guess Saint Louis had a lot of invites being sent out. Like I said, we had Pat on the show talking about that, but DC two,

I hadn't. I didn't go to the DC Combine. But they people, again, we've been people like me who have been in the a F and XFL have been to you know a lot of showcases over the years, and they said it's the best talent. That DC showcase was the best talent they've ever seen in one of these leagues. So I think we're getting pretty close to the There'll be two hundred players at the Arlington Combine, one hundred on offense and one hundred on defense. So that's interesting. What do you attribute

that to the DC one? I mean, I know you weren't. There is just location or now you know, yeah, I mean a lot of times, Yeah, there's I don't know if it's one thing you can attribute to a lot of times the location, you know, you go to hotbeds of football, whether it's you know, uh in places in Texas, Lord,

the DC area. So it's probably part of that partly that it's maybe you know, players think that it gives them a legit opportunity to make an XFL roster, and so it's worth they have to put some skin in the game to go to a showcase, and they're willing to do that. So do you think having made it through season one now is a something as well? Kind of the USFL was talking about, you know, we got to get through Like do you think that bats At trubuting Now, hey, okay,

now we've made it. You know, you guys have made it, like we're going to the year two? Is having increasing buy in I guess from players? Yeah, I think. I mean, like I mentioned earlier that forty five number of practice squad players from twenty twenty, those are players who are an injury away from you know, dressing in an NFL game, and they maybe turned down a future deal to come play because the opportunity,

you know, to talk about it on a macro level. You know, each one is a case by some players it's better option for to go and play in spring football in between practice squads, and some of it's better just stay with the team. But yeah, and the other one I mentioned earlier that I think is going to be something we could build on in twenty twenty

four is draft eligible players. So we had Willie Taylor. I don't want to mention too many players by name because I don't want to leave people out, but Willie Taylor was a draft eligible player in the twenty twenty three NFL draft and he signed with the XFL. You know, his last he played at Washington State up your way, and then he played his graduate school year at Eastern Kentucky and then signed in the XFL and then signed with the Jaguars

right after the championship game. And we had one other player like that, Harrison Frost, a quarterback from West Georgia, and he hasn't signed in the NFL, but he went to the Saints mini camp, and so I think we could identify more of those players that it makes again, it's it doesn't make sense for every college player to finish their season and go to the XFL.

But for hopefully for more and more of them, it does and we on the ones who can do it right, I mean that are our pro football players that it's not too much wear and tear on their body and so on and so forth. So in terms of the combine, are is those

the attendees list? Are those going to be made public or is it going to be because you know, I know last year going into the draft and stuff, we didn't want to, you know, put out all the different stuff we've seen kind of people posting about getting sign to the I don't think, well, I think same as last year. I think I mentioned too. I mean, if we put out certain lists in our draft to some extent, is a list of the players that we think are the best.

And why would we give lists when we don't have to to our competition? Although the draft is an exception because I think we want. Part of it is we want the players to feel like they're part of the team. You know. So in terms of quarterbacks here quarterbacks being drafted in the rookie draft. Are are we going to be assigning any more quarterbacks? There's a kind

of free market. Now you're on out, we will be drafting quarterbacks, whether it be in the rookie draft, the NFL Draft, or the supplemental draft. It's interesting, keV. You know, I mean the nice thing about working in spring football, and I worked most of my career in the NFL where you have, you know, a constitution and by law, isn't that I mean we were more flexible. So depending on circumstances, that may change. But how we see it is that quarterbacks would just be included in

drafts going forward. On the il call I brought up a little bit about the alumni Academy. Any updates on that ors it's still kind of TBD. Yeah, I think it's TBD. I mean, they're their own entity and we partnered with them. I think as far as you know, we would

sign graduates of their program, So I guess it's TBD. If they have a program, we'll talk to them about the players that they have there, you know, you know, to me, it feels like you know, and you don't need a comment where it feels like maybe last year we weren't sure how much interest there was going to be. We're going to cast in that where maybe now you guys know, Okay, we have interests from all of these different facets and maybe we don't need to have like direct partnerships with

anything like. I don't know if if that makes sense at all. Yeah, I mean, no comment. I guess that's that's fair. I haven't even thought about really. I mean, we're inundated, I guess. And you want to give everybody the tention that they deserve, but you, I mean, you can't imagine how many players there are out there that want to play, you know, and that's that I think as a football person that's been in football in my whole career and I love football, that I think

that's good for the game. You know, Any updates about breakaway data using any of their help coming forward end of the showcases this year, I don't know enough about that part. That's our our tech side, I'm not I'm not sure about that. I know we have some innovatives, innovative, innovative things going on at the Combine through Sean. Sean Hayes is our director of

I'm gonna say he's, you know, the head stretting conditioning. I think he has a bigger title than that, but he has some innovative testing that he'll be doing it to combine in Turm. We just saw Antie Levin's being brought in here as the Vipers coach. Thoughts on that, what kind of stands out to you about him? I think it's a great higher I mean that you have a sitting NFL coach that's willing to to leave to come and coach and spring football says a lot about maybe the stability in our league and

the opportunities that obviously, that's the obvious thing, is the opportunity. But and I hear and there was a lot of interest in that job, which I think also speaks well for our league. I don't really, I don't. I don't know, and I'm not part of the coaching search process, but I've only heard good things and it's exciting. You know. Well, there's been a lot of that came out last week when I was working I

think I was at a wedding and the like. There's been a lot of positive you know, and I even have here in athletic article talking about that as well, where you know, I'll say sorry, I thought so again. I don't want to harken back too much to my AF but you know with AF where you would never have a heady coach or a coach in the NFL leave his job to coach and the AF I think we did a good job and standing up the league from a football side and playing the game.

But that was you know, and who doesn't love Steve Spurry and Rick new Husl and coaches like that, But that was kind of our market is like, let's find guys who've been a few years out that are not gonna you know there semi retired to now or have you know, active NFL coaches leaving their job to coach in the XFL says a lot about our league. So it does. I talking here, and we've had coach back on a couple of times on the show. He's called him a friend of the podcast.

Now. He mentioned at the end of the season he didn't realize kind of a balance between building a roster to be competitive as also being developmental. Right, Like with the XFL, we're always kind of balancing that and you know, their team kind of struggled a little bit, if I want to stay a little bit. But have you seen growth from him or Hines Ward kind of any of these first year coaches in terms of like trying to get new players in different roles. Now, I guess if that makes sense, I

don't know enough of you know, that's also not my area. I think they're it's exciting that to see how they run a team. I've been around football forever. They how serious they take their their job and the craft, and that they're leaders of men and you know, and they're obviously learning to be head coaches and this is a great spot for them to do it. Um. I think they have what it takes, you know, that intangible thing that takes to lead profession. You know, these are to lead men,

Like I said, so, I think they have that. I think they're learning, you know, And there's an administrative the head coaches part of it. They're not the GMS per se, but they're involved in you know, the football operations and player personnel. So they have a lot on their plate and they you know, they think they both did a really good job

of managing all that. So how do you just personally view because it's this constant thing, right, if we we want to have a place for guys, eot get that step to the X to the NFL, right and all that, but also like this needs to be good football and kind of stand on its own, right. I mean, it can't just be we're recycling the guy like, how do you bet about that? And I go to uh. I love going to minor league baseball, especially Triple A baseball.

I've been to three or four different stadiums this past year and it's just different. What we're doing is just different. I mean, you want then stadium experience is great at those places, and I think we have some of that where it's it's an event, it's a fun, it's a family thing. But um, I mean these people are and I think they're trying to win

in minor league baseball to some extent. I mean in the XFL, they're trying to win games, right, I mean and the coaches, like, you know, it's the cliche, their coaching for their life and their career. And the players, yeah, they want to get to the NFL and to develop, but it's football is just a different hand and I love it. I grew up my dad's a long time high school baseball coach. I played college baseball. I grew up in a dugout. But it's just a

different game. I mean, there's ten foot in our league, there's ten games a year and they're important, you know, and it's when they kick off the ball. They're not thinking about development, They're thinking about winning the game. And I think that makes it a different product to put on TV and all. And again that's outside of my scope, but that's more just

my opinion on what our league is about. So in terms of you know, back in twenty twenty, the Team nine having that be able to kind of be able to cycle through with injuries or at least be able to increase a number of active roster spots we've had, we had Jonathan Heimbach on kind of talking, hey, what's your wish list going too the next year?

Any consideration about Team nine? There are more out I mean, I think we'd all it's a beneficial thing, but you know, we're a business year, so I think again I'll go back to AF and other experiences and start up football. I think we have a good relationship and dialogue from the finance, between the finance side and the football side of you know, what do we need to make this a good product? And yeah, we'd love to have a Team nine or something like that, but there's some things we just

realistically, from a business standpoint, we can't do. And in the pecking order that just you know, it wasn't high enough to keep to keep it. So in terms of Jordan Palmer coming in and kind of maybe more limited interaction last year, any chance of like increasing that or whether player is going to get any of the quarterbacks were working with him this year, I'm not sure about the Doug Willy manages that relationship and partnership. I'm not sure.

I think he is back this year, but I don't know the details of that program. Did you take away anything from that worthwhile beneficial? Again, I don't want to, you know that, what's the old adage. I'm not a doctor. I just played one on tea. I don't even play a scout on TV, so I don't know. I'm sure it was beneficial. I mean, guys working out in the offseason with the guy put with Palmer, who works with the top quarterbacks in the NFL. It couldn't have

heard, you know, But I wasn't there. I didn't go out there for the program, and I'm not a scout, so I couldn't speak to the specifics of it. That's okay. In terms of training camp this year. You know, they kind of had a great Texas ice storm and everything last year. They're kind of invaded part of that. Like, how's training camp gonna look heading into the season. I think it'll be similar. I mean, haven't gone through it a year, and we're all we're right now

and planning process with different departments around the league. So I think having a year under our cap will help, but it'll probably be pretty simple. I mean, like training football training camps are pretty similar anywhere you hold them, So I know it's outside probably outside of your ProView, but you know, local training camps in cities, so I think would be beneficial in terms of a public PR spectacle as well. So just something something I think you mind.

It's we we've talked at great length. I think this was on the IL call as well, about kind of the bye week and whether we deal with the bye week, and you know we've talked about do we do a March Madness bye week or a rolling by? You know, thoughts on the bye going into this year from a football standpoint is you know that's a broadcasting decision and an ownership decision. I'm sure it's on the table. So that's all, would you would you prefer to see at a different time than pre

championship game? Um, whatever makes the most sense for our business, you know, I don't Again, I don't. You probably know more about that that uh part of football, you know, as far as broadcasting and ratings

and things. So I'm sure they'll make the best decision that In terms of anything about like kind of injury reports anything, are you able to speak on that in terms of being able to get those sent out for more of like the uh, you know, people doing fantasy sports, betting anything like, Yeah, I mean as far as I don't know what the criticism, I mean, those were supposed to be available, as were they hard to find that I think the feedback was having the teams post them individually, as opposed

to like emailing them out to a select few and then having them be propagated that way through an easy fix and we would do whatever you know it was. I mean injury reports, I mean I've been at the NFL. Obviously they're important. They're important in football, and if there's gambling on football, they're critical and there's nothing to hide there from us. So I think whatever makes whatever is the most efficient way to do it. We'll do it.

So yeah, because it's the same with like the depth charts, and I know that some weeks are kind of like maybe there were some inaccuracies or we had kind of maybe more copy and paste, and we're seeing, Okay, this guy's listed, but he's on the injury report like I do. And this goes for all the leagues. It's not just an XFL thing, USFL and CFL. Like it seems like everyone knows that we need to embrace sports betting or like fantasy or whatever. But then like, well what does that

mean? And like, yeah, having like injury reports sent out, having like accurate depth charts and things. Again, I know this is outside of you know, you're but but you know, passing the long messages here, I think in terms of but I will say from all of the fantasy people I've interviewed on the show, feel like transparency for the XFL was better between the two. If that's you know, I mean, there's not really We're

not trying to hide anything, so I'm sure it's not. It's more of a process thing than a transparency in terms of if if anyone, and we'll wrap up here soon, and I appreciate. I know, I promise you at the time here here won't keep you too long. If more, if if any other players, agents, people wanted to get involved in this, wanted to have their info sent out, wanted the place to go. What

are you guys telling people to do right now? Yeah, we've all I mean, the easiest way for us to manage that is they send their information to FBO at XFL dot com f Football Operations f Frank Boy Oliver and we have people aggregating, you know, the player information. So we have a

database that here's players that are interested in their information. And you know, I mean again we have scouting departments of one per team, right, and we try to help them more from the league office side on managing data on players. But like I said earlier, we want to give everyone the opportunity to to make the league right. I mean, it's different than the NFL in that regard where you could go to a showcase or send your information in

and we'll take a look. And we want to turn over every stone and find I'll let me think of a few more cliches, find diamonds in the roughs and things like that, you know, from just a personal standpoint here, having you know, lived all these other things, did you ever think you'd be at the point here we're talking the spring league, season two,

going in offseason, you know, player acquisitions here. I always believed in it, you know, and I started when I started at the NFL was right around when NFL Europe was still going, but it was toward the end of that program, and you know, the football people always lamented that we lost something with NFL Europe, and obviously it was a business decision, and there was that void there for years and you know, between the AF was

probably the first one to seriously fill it. I know there were some other leagues and then So yeah, I answer your question, I've always believed in it. And this is just like I said at the beginning of the three that I've been a part of the best because of the ownership group, the experience we have in all areas of between football business and the player, I mean players and coach. The game is about players and coaches, and I think we keep getting better players as we proved that. It's you know,

it's a good like I said, it's a good job. It's a good opportunity for players and coaches. And officials for that matters, since that's part of my title. Well, Russ, I hope you feel like I grilgy too hard today. I've ever we got through some good stuff. Anything else from me before we get out of here, Uh no, I appreciate what you do. I think that you're objective and you know you have journalistic integrity.

But obviously you're a fan too, so I think you give us good coverage and you keep us honest and call you call it like you see it when you don't you don't agree with what we're doing. So well, I appreciate that. Like I said that, the league and everyone else were working this out in the off season talking role football here, Rush Giulio. Really appreciate your time coming on this week and everything else. Good luck with the

showcases. I know, like you said, you're going to Arizona and everything else, so you know we're no off season here for the mark House and no off season for the XFLS. I think that that's good, right, all right, thanks for well. I put on my best. This isn't

a flooral it's kind of floral. It's like a tiger and like flowers on there, so I can match my guest through day. We have para female back on here. Founder of Creative Arts, Pat, How are you doing? I'm doing great. Um. I think next time I have these mannequins and I'm gonna, you know, casting couch behind me all the mannequins with my flamboyant shirts. That's good. That's good. I like it said. Pat's here. We've had rests on. We're talking kind of offseason scouting.

What's the XFL doing. We're in showcase season combines. At the end of the month, Pat was lucky enough to go to the Saint Louis showcase there and talk with the rest, Brandon and kind of everybody else. AJ mccarren popping around. So, Pat, what do you have kind of going on? Busy week for you last week? Yeah, I mean I'm still pushing out videos on my phone that I took and all that goofy stuff. Doing

a lot of editing right now. But in the end, some of the guys from the XFL that I did talk to, or AJ mc Karen, Eric Magwood, Anthony back, Russ, Brandon, and Stephen Austin as well. If you don't know who Stephen Austin is, he's kind of a background guy, but he runs the ANC Combines and he works in collaboration with the

XFL. But he's also done the Spring League, he did the AF, he's done stuff for the CFL, and he was integral in the USFL of the nineteen eighties getting a lot of those guys back to work after the league folded. Because the combines have been his involvement in the combines have been around since about it. I think he said eighty seven or eighty eight. And he was also the guy who started the regional combines. So he's kind of an unsung hero in this and I was really lucky I got to talk with

him as well. Well, it's interesting. So we're going through, right, we lived through the USFL offseason last year, Right, what are they doing now? We're in the USFL and the XFL offseason. Interesting. It feels like the XFL trying to be a little bit more. We're in the spotlight a little bit. You know, we had our what was at the rookie Draft they were having these showcases. I thought it was great that Rust

was at the showcase. You know, talked with you. Max and I were going back and forth like it's good that it's good the rust is at this. It's good that he's making like we're kind of making these be a thing. I've been getting a lot of media alerts for the showcase. Are you liking kind of how the xfls approaching their offseason? Yeah? I mean, for me, it was a great experience on both fronts. So it wasn't open to the public, but they had a tailgate there and like Dirty

was out there from the x fan show. He was doing his thing, and it was great to see a lot of people with family members there as well, coming out to support them. And the XFL was like, well, it wasn't open to the public, but if some guys bringing his girlfriend here, what we're gonna do? Tell are the way in the car? So they let them stay in the stands. A couple of XFL players were there as well. Dan Williams of the Orlando Guardians was there. He was

with Mike Glass, formerly of the CFL Montreal Alouette. So you had guys who are in the professional space from Saint Louis coming out to support A prominent Saint Louis agent from Harold Lewis was there, you know, checking in on his guys. Looking for possibly new guy guys coming out there and uberall just the vibe of positivity for a lot of these hopefuls. And I think sixteen

is the number that got brought in to this. It was you know, now we have sixteen more guys who are getting an opportunity to be a part of this combine that's happening, I believe on the twenty fifth or twenty six. Yeah, so we have here. We had the HBCU on so these went back kind of mid June, right after the rigging the rookie Draft, the Atlanta we had Sat Louis on the seventh, DC on the ninth, and then this weekend we're gonna have the Houston one and the arizone the one

and then you have the combine back down the chata. You said, so sixteen of the showcase went in. Who were these What was your vibe of who these are specifically targeted for? Because there's been a lot of confusion that we've talked with Russ as well about this. But like we have the rookie Draft, that's for guys that are our word draft eligible, aren't on the team. But then you have guys like hey, well I graduated two years ago, or maybe I've been a free agent for a while, or I

was in the usfl or kind of So who is this showcase for? So it's it's for the second part of what you said. Interesting enough, We did have some guys there who were recently with Canadian teams or contracts didn't work out. There was two guys. I forget one of the gentleman's name, but the other one was Bernard McCall. He was there. They were in camp with the Defenders. I'm pretty sure they were. I know McCall was with the Defenders. I think the other gentleman was as well. We had

some guys from the class of twenty two that were there. Antar Antar Johnson was there. He was a Miszoo guy, finished up at Valdoza State. And then there were smaller school pross a lot of smaller school prospects. There one gentleman, his name was I think his name is Luke Hoffman. He went to KU, finished at West Texas A and m He ended up getting

getting an invite. And then another name was that he was from like Missouri State or something like a real one of those Northwest Missouri State University of our lady type places. He got an invite and this gentleman man, he was a man in Love's Boys. I think he's two years removed but from a smaller school. He was about six nine, three hundred and five pounds. And Dave Boehler, who was also there, was all over this guy,

like wanted to see him and talk with him and whatnot. So it was a lot of these guys who maybe had some movement in their colleges and whatnot. A lot of guys who were serious players, and then there was some guys that were you know, saw it on TV and thought, hey, man, let me give this a tribe. One guy I wanted to give a shout out to, and I don't believe he got a combine in it was a guy named Luke Drone. Luke Drone is thirty eight years old.

He played with the Bills in two thousand and eight and then from two thousand and nine to twenty thirteen played in the AFL, the Arena Football League one, and he came out there. He's coaching high school football and Western Illinois. I think it's El Paso, Illinois. And I mean mechanically he looked

good. He just you know, you're thirty eight years old throwing this football like it's things don't don't if if Payton Manning had to drop off, so Luke drone, you know, and it was cool that he just gave it that shot. You know. He's a great story. Not the most polarizing guy, but like you know, there is there's some players out there, man, that got overlooked, and there's some guys who were fresh off Canadian

roster or Canadian training camp that were there. And then there's some guys who are kind of like, hey, man, you know what's going on here. But overall, two hundred and almost seventy two hundred and sixty, I think the number was between that range getting an opportunity and the most important thing in my opinion was that they did it at Missouri Baptist University, which is an n AIA college there and so many of these Missouri Baptist kids to be

a part of this CJ. C. Eric s Dan Seem Mike and all the coaches and pr staff that were there, and for a smaller school to do that, for this community outreach in Missouri, it doesn't get much better than that for me. And it's also what the coaches were also there as well, being a part of this, and they did have some game based staff working as well. Well I'll say this, and you know, we

Andy and I had our big like what should the XFL do? You know, charting the chorus for the off season, I think is what we called it. And you know we were talking about some of the stuff and here, you know, I've seen seen a lot of content posts on social media. We're doing. The jerseys are for sale, I mean, take or leave that, but you know, we're USFL. It does feel like and

we're two weeks removed from the championship game. Now really drops off right, And obviously you're never going to be full steam with these spring leagues in the summer, right. I mean, NFL has enough money to kind of churn and burn. And they're even have talent, you know, NFL network, like the panels are different. You know, hey, we got the main

guys are off right now, we've got the backups or whatever. But doing these events and doing the rookie draft when they did it not in February, like we criticize the college draft of the USFL doing these showcases now having the combine, I just think you're you're giving these guys that maybe don't have a whether am I doing right now? It gives you a sense of purpose of

like, all right, I can look forward to this. I can build this kind of throughout the summer because you know, next thing, you know it, here we're going into the drafts and as you know, December, we're in the XFL like official preseason. We're USFL. You know you're going to ramp back up in in March, right and you're gonna say, hey, you know, we signed some people in the off season. I just I feel like it makes it more transparent than just seeing transaction notes on Twitter

from the USFL. Hey, usbl general signed a release whoever macau belto Thomason this release from the Breakers. I don't know if that makes sense. I would like to see the USFL do something similar in their four and their four hubs. I think you could do that UM and I think after probably the second week on a Saturday, maybe in in Memphis, in Detroit, UM in Birmingham, in UM. I would probably do it on Friday now that I think about it, because you have college football going on. But I

would do that. I would do a similar showcase in those in those cities, um in September after NFL Camp because then the chips are kind of lying and you only even have to do them, like how the XFL is doing them back to back to back one on this Friday in September till October. It's still good enough weather to be outside, especially in the South. And like, if you know, I'm seeing Louis guy, if it's in Memphis,

I'll go. You give me. You don't do it the day before, would you give me a week to like move around, I'll go. I'll go to Memphis and go to this. It was such a great experience for media to be there, you know and be a part of it. And I know the USFL was working with the Hub and the hub's been discontinued and now it's these grid camps and everything like that. But just having you

know, in Memphis make fun of it all the time. But Brady White being there, you know what I mean, Like he's gonna be there, you know, he's coaching and whatnot. That would be pretty cool. And there's a couple other Memphis guys around, you know, having a couple of the Detroit guys like around and whatnot. They Michigan Panthers have a couple Detroit. You know, they have Brian Luurki there, he's a Michigan's I think

he's from Ohio. But having any of these guys there, plus the coaches and staff, you can pick up a lot of talent because now you're getting all these cusp guys from the XFL combine who are you know, maybe theydn't get signed. Now they're going there too, And now you're creating more of this football wars and whatnot for talent because there's guys who went to this combine or who are going to this combine that even if they're not drafted, they're

signed, they will have an opportunity at some point. But either one of these leagues. Yeah, I wasn't it last year there was the rumors, Hey, they were going to do some either if it was a combine or like OTA's, they were going to do them in the city. Is to kind of get the people like Anne of that candidate fruition with the USFL, right, I mean they really it really was radio silence until it's all ramp up period. I mean, and you know we're going into the third season

the twenty twenty four season. They're talking and you know about this the walk, the crawl, walk, run, let's get walk. You know, I would love to see that, and maybe they're doing that. You know, maybe maybe I'm I'm putting the cart before the horse, and I'd love to you know, And I'd loved, like I said, if they did something in Memphis, I'd love to be a part of it. It's a

decent drive for me. But you know it's worth it because you know you're gonna be around a lot of these people and a lot of these players who who you know are living their dream and you know, and you know, to do that takes, as Aj McCarron said, a lot of courage to go out there. Are you finding because we you know, this podcast has existed in this you know, with the Spring League and fan at fort Football

and kind of all this stuff. We either the post COVID and there was the surplus of guys that you know, we've had the seven year senior years and all this stuff coming in, Like are we getting the point now where we are going to have to deep dive to find new guys? Like there were sets of surplus there for a while. Man I mean, I think that depends on who you are, who who the GM is, right, Like I look at the BattleHawks specifically, and you look at their roster and

there was a lot of AF retread. There was a lot of guys who retreaded from uh even the USFL and whatnot, Like like Dave Boller was, Dave Buller wasn't was an AF guy. Anthony Beck was the tight ends coach

for the for the Fleet Andy's Fleet. And when you're starting these leagues, in my opinion, and I talked to a couple of USFL coaches about this last year, why would you not sign a guy who might he had Maybe he's older, but I know who he is, I know what his deal is because I can go sign maybe someone who has more potential, but potential is great, Like I need I need someone who is in camp with the

Cowboys. I need someone who played in in the A for the XFL in twenty twenty at that time in the spring league who might not be as good, but I know who he could show up to meetings that I know he can learn the playbook. So like when we have these off seasons, I think it's going to expand our it could expand our our you know, our catch so to speak, of players that you might want to take a little bit more of a look at, especially with roster expansion as well. Going

in the training camp. It's just going to be interesting to see, how, you know, because you're gonna have you gotta have gaps to fill in the matter, whether it is where guys decide, hey, I'm done, or guys go up to Canadada, or guys go to the NFL or guys go to the USFL. Right, Like, there's so much churn that you're going to live with in these spring leagues, and so it's this balance of,

you know, do these teams even resemble what they do? I mean, I felt like the USFL it felt like there was continuity, right, I mean, didn't you feel like then they would either lived out to whether or not. But I felt like we went into season too at least knowing kind of what those USFL teams are going to look like, right and and do? And how do people feel about that? Like? I like that, right, I like knowing that you have to it's to the yeah.

And I like knowing that the Stallions were going to be good because it feels real to me, it feels like we're making progress that like you know, like for example, Scooby right got hurt, Well we can bring in Brady Buck or Quinn Polling could fill in and we're not missing a guy who might not be as good as Scooby, but we know the playbook. Like I know next year right now for our receiving corps, well we lost like four guys with the Battle Hoops right well, I know Austin Pearls there still.

I know Stevie Mitchell is still is still there. They've had guys that they released that they can bring in as well, maybe having like Chad Hanson or Poka Poopa is on another team, but Chad Hanson could come into camp and kind of bridge the gap if we don't have these guys coming back right now. And I love that because now it also and re you know me,

like I'm really in the stats and everything like that. And yesterday when West Saxton of the Generals got resigned, he's coming in for his fifth alt football season, Like five years of this man playing football after an NFL you know, cups a team in the NFL. I think he's playing two games in the NFL. Luis Perez is going into his sixth football season hit, you know, and Jamar Summer's number five, and it's like, this is cool,

this is cool that they are a part of these leagues. And you know, we're going to trickle in some new guys and I'm sure there's plenty of one and done guys, you know, and I mean that's what's going

to happen. But the fact that like continuity is there. So when you do get these new guys that come in, they can lean on Austin Prole, they can lean on Brian Hill, you know, they can lean on aj and be like, hey, this is how we do things in Saint Louis or even Jamar and in Birmingham because I'm sure he's going to be back next year or I'm not sure, but you know, and you can be like, you know, I was a guy here for two seats. I've been a part of this team for two seasons. Let me tell you how

we do things here. I think I think that's yeah, I mean, that's that's for That's that's what football is like. It's it's such an you know, and you can get new coaches, but as long as you have the players that are still there, the the halves and the half nots. As far as knowing what's going on is going to be a little bit different. Well, because it's this fear and we get people that comment all the time and like these teams in leagues and you have to have identities. And

the CFL deals with that as well. I mean just in their CBA they passed last season, you know, getting some more guaranteed money and longer contracts as you get in. I think once you're in the year three on that. Like, you know, there's a lot of movement in the CFL as well. You know, not just a quarterback. I mean you get the receivers kind of every year. It's kind of the feeding frenzy of free agency. So it's not it's not just the USFL or an XFL issue. I

mean it's any of these leagues aren't the NFL. But yeah, you need to have some identities with that. In terms of the showcase, Russ was there. I know, you guys talked and you posted the video on your Analyze and Educate channel. Thoughts on Russ and what he had to say.

I mean, the biggest thing he took was the championship game he's like, you know, first off, one of the things I asked him was now we have the monkey offer back, you know, like now we've proven that we can do this, and didn't really get into the financials of it. You know, I don't expect I don't expect him too. You know, it's one hundred degrees out on a football field. That's probably you know, gonna make it a little bit hotter for that. But it's it's building up.

It's building where you know, it's typical business stuff. Man, It's like, Okay, we have this, we have our baselines. How do we get better? How do we continue to build? The day before they did a meeting greet with certain season ticket holders and and um, you know, possible sponsorships as well. That from what I was told, you know, really going out in the community and whatnot, and like talking with people who are going to be invested in this. They talked a little bit about

the championship game. Um, you know, still undecided. I'm you know, I'm not. I think they should do it in San Antonio. Personally, I think it's safer. I think there's more fan friendly stuff to do and whatnot. M Saint Louis would be great only if the BattleHawks are in there. But there's really you know, the city isn't the best city. They'll go walking around, especially if you want to go from a place like Ballpark Village all the way up to where the dome is. It's not It

might not be the best thing. But if the BattleHawks are in there, I could see that being a pretty wild time. Russ talked a lot a bit about how Saint Louis is the staple of the XFL, and I don't think many people disagree with that. I talk with people about it all the time, and you know, we've talked offline a little bit about it is with Saint Louis. There's so much hurt here from the Rams and Cronkey. There's so much hurt here from even twenty twenty, which people don't blame the

league. They just they're like, well, this thing's not coming back. I'll watch it on TV. I live part time in the Ozarks. Sometimes it's just two hours away, and I had people tell me that they're not going to a game in twenty twenty three because the Ozark and vacation spot. These people live in Saint Louis area. But if they come back in twenty twenty four. I'm all in because I can't get my heartbroken again by another football team. And Russ touched on that a little bit as well. The

championship. Uh, they have a lot of venues already booked, but they still haven't decided, which makes sense because right now every team is O and O and they could all be winning, and they can all be winning their division and hosting a playoff, a playoff game in their home city. You

mean it's not it's not confirmed for Saint Louis yet. I was I read wild but no, well, yeah, I mean I don't want to deep too much about the championship game here, but I imagine the plan was Choctaw and they had the rugby stuff from whatever going on, and I imagine sant Antonio is To me, it makes sense just that's where our infrastructure headquarters kind

of is. Like you said, sant Antonio is the best in terms of you stay at the Riverwalk, you walk over there, there's plenty of hotels, restaurants, bars, eateries, that whole kind of thing, and it's built out that way. Um, in terms of just and this is of course rest brand. They we're talking about not Rest Julio that was on the show, you know, because two Rest is both of high prominence on here.

But I hope like having Rust at this thing and doing the showcases, having my interactions this week with the league, trying to set up all this stuff. I'm really excited for this offseason because it felt like last year. It's like it's such triage and we're just trying to kind of figure out what's going on. And we have eighteen thousand different XFL podcasts that I'll want to talk and all these news outlets and we're trying to you know, we're hiring

people, and it's just kind of chaos. Like I think, now, maybe okay, we really saw what worked, we really saw what didn't. I know a lot was made of like the sixty million loss with the Rock and Danny and Forbes and all that, but if nothing else, to me, it's hey, they're admitting, like we made mistakes and there's things we're learning now, right and the USFL right with Moose coming out and being baffled. I think both of these leagues realizing things that could be done better.

I think that's promising for both sets of fan bases. Well, I mean, if you don't constantly critique yourself and constantly try to get better and reevaluate your business model, you're not going to have a business for very long.

Talking to a guy who's got two failed LLCs, you know, just because I you know, I make an extra six thousand dollars in month one and month two, I don't make that amount, you know, and I'm I only make fifteen hundred dollars or something arbitrary like that, Like if you're not looking at your analytics and you're not like wondering, Okay, why did I

make more in month one? Okay, it's Christmas month. I have a merchandise thing, you know, or maybe in February I'm not doing as much Valentine's Day stuff, like that's why I'm not making you know, that money. If you're not constantly reevaluating, reevaluating and looking at your numbers, your engagements and whatnot, you're not going to be a league for very long. And as long as these two leagues understand that, Like in my opinion that it's you know, and I think and I know they do. I definitely

know Fox does. Like Fox has you know, Fox been around for god knows how many years they're you know, they they have plenty of people who are looking at the books and figuring out what works, you know, and I think there's less of a learning curve for them, while the XFL is like, we don't really know what works and what doesn't because you know who's there from two thousand and one, the twenty twenty season that that COVID curveball

no one like you know, you have incomplete data. So they were going probably off a lot of their twenty twenty stuff. Okay, this is what's working, this is what's not. But once you get the year two and three and four and five and six, you could start figuring out what's the best formula. And I think right now these showcases, especially because last year I don't think they did a showcase in Saint Louis. Big thing about Saint Louis to me is obviously, yes, the BattleHawks are here, not a

bad shake. But what's around Saint Louis compared to these others, these other places. You get your Chicago kids, you get your kids from or Ohio, you get your Kentucky, your Memphis kids, you get kids from Iowa. That has a lot of football. Some Michigan guys came down. You have all these different states and cities where football players have put out good products and good films, and now you're bringing it here. Everyone knows about Atlanta,

Lennish, clost to Florida. The DMB in DC has put out good products and whatnot for football, a lot of DMV guys. Plus you get your East Coast guys coming down in New York, Texas is Texas and you know Arizona's you can pick up all your Calli kids. We didn't see that last year. You know, now they have Saint Louis, they can tap into all these extra people. Then if not, you can go meet Aj

McCarron. Everyone knows who AJ McCarron is and he can shake your hand and tell you, hey man, you do a good thing that goes along way with people. It Also it feels like, yeah, we were last year, like they had the Hawaii one and like, I don't know how much of that was was specifically targeted demos over there, and I know the rock and everything, but that to me felt like a little bit more of a

pr thing. Although I know that they said that they're buried, they were very leaves with the talent they got out of that right obviously, but I

don't know, it feels like we're learning. I really enjoyed the call that rust and Rustilio and Doug did talking about the rookie draft and everything, Like I just think hearing these guys and obviously rush on the show here, like hearing how these guys talk and think and kind of, you know, we're trying to figure this out together, Like we don't have all the answers, but we're trying to cast a why this net leave, no son, no

turn kind of all those cliches. But it does feel like doing these advertising now, I mean they all look like they're sold out. If you get signed, you get your money back. Like we're trying to get people an opportunity to hear. Yeah, And I do think while you did get good guys from Hawaii, it's a pretty small island, right, So, I mean everyone who thought they had potential in Hawaii probably came out last time.

So it's like, and their numbers are there. So if you add someone who was under the red line and you're like, oh, I under what this? You know? You know this? You know John Smith from the U of ah, she's doing well. He performed this way. Call his agent, they have all the info. Is he still working out this football thing? You know? Could we do you know, have him come to California? Can he send me tape? The tape doesn't look good? Okay, man, we don't you know, we don't need to go out to

Hawaii like it's a small island. It's a it's you know, I don't want to use the word fixed population, but it's in my opinion, you're gonna have a lot of the guys who came last year, plus or minus a couple of guys that if you really wanted them on the team, you'd know who they were, you know. So I'm while I think Hawaii was cool, I'm glad they didn't do it, you know, because we got Saint Louis. We you know, did we get in Lina last year. I'm trying to remember they had the Oh I had a list on here,

We had the Arizona. We had the whole I would I could run down the whole list here, but probably not the most exciting podcast. And um yeah, we had we had the Dallas one, we had the Arizona one, we had the HBCU one. Where was that one that that was in um like North Carolina? Yeah, and then we had yeah. So I mean it was good. I mean they had this now there. I think they had six last year and then they had the Nick Nick Nick Novack, nick Nolvack one on that. So AJ was there? Backed? Was there

anything from them before we get out of here? And the kind of like how how invested is backed in the off season, because you know, it's different. I feel like it's different them coming to this kind of stuff than than the USFL, Like we're making some roster moves here in the off season.

I mean, he was there. He's in Saint Louis, fresh off vacation, had a nice tan um, you know, going out there, and he was looking like he was he was up in these not almost up in guy's faces, but when people called his eye, he walked over there. You know, his hands on knees, had the clipboard out. He was pretty active. Dave Bueller looking at these offensive linemen. AJ was AJ

was there? A lot of memories were made when I talked to some of these showcase guys are like man, and you know, I don't know how well I did, but like you're you're you're fifteen inches away from a national champion, an NFL guy like everyone knows who Aj mccaren is. The biggest thing with AJ was are you coming back? Are you coming back? Are you coming back? I didn't ask that question because I'm sure he's been asking

a fifteen and a half times. And you know, when when my personal interactions were very casual, we talk more about life than life than that, you know, because I mean, I don't know if you know this read, but these guys are human beings and sometimes they don't want to talk football all the time, just like I don't want to talk football all the time. So you know, as crazy as that sounds. But the big thing

to take away from AJ is that November. Per what he said, and you can check out my video lead where you don't know if you want to link them or not, November looks like his time frame as far as that NFL interest has been had people have reached out to him. Coach Beck was asked about AJ as well, made it very clear, you got a guy like AJ mccaren, training camp probably isn't the most necessary thing, and you have to look for him. What does he want to do. He can

go be a backup. Definitely had offers last year and whatnot. He can go back up. Hold the clipboard, make one point two one, you know, two point five that Chase Daniel. That Chase Daniel money. But AJ likes playing football. AJ has made a lot of money playing football. If you don't know who his wife is, she's probably made a decent amount of money doing what she did. Let this guy enjoy the offseason with his kids. And you know they're full on in baseball right now, and then

around November they'll reevaluate. And they got a couple of good quarterbacks on that roster, you know, Manny Wilkins and Nick Tiano, two good guys. And then we'll see what happens after training camp. I think the last time I looked at their roster it was around either fifty eight or sixty six. I can't remember because I don't think I added the the guys from the drafted free agents yet. But you know, training camp comes around in the NFL,

good guys are going to get cut. You know, maybe they they wouldn't they rather go to the XFL then play the practice squad game. And we saw a good showing from Nick Tiano last year, so you know, helicoptering and he's healthy, he's training, AG's talked with him. Manny Wilkins is still there as well, a Dave Boehlergard from ASU and worst case we see Vinnie tests of Earthy Junior, you know, the son of a New York legend and XFL twenty twenty a one, so there's options there at the

QB position. Well, good, well, Pat, I'm glad thanks for coming on sharing and I've you know, I appreciate getting the people on kind of firsthand that they're covering this and not just using your work and kind of coming on talking through it. But I appreciate it. I'm glad a that they're doing these from a talent finding perspective, from a media perspective, and then obviously from you guys being able to go into kind of talk and rub

rub shoulders and all that stuff as well. So I appreciate anything else from you. It's been a week we didn't have our USFL off the USFL. Yeah, I mean it's been a heavy week for me content wise. You know, I'm just doing a lot of editing, but I mean, man, it's always good to come on the Mark Ass and chat it up and you know, talk whichever league we want to talk about, you know, And uh, I don't know, man, I'm really geared up for this

CFL season. Not watching as heavily, but when I do, it's nice to kind of just casually watch the game and not really be analytical about it. To be honest, I was talking to Dorothy we were at dinner the other night, and I can't remember how it came up. We were talking, Oh, because I had booked Rests, right. We were talking like, oh, I'm really excited that we like rest is going to come on

the show and everything. And I'm like, you know, like not all these other podcasts really have to do all that, right, and you know if the USFL podcast wants to take time off or you know, we've got the XLA And she's like, like, you really did do it all year, Like there's still off season. I'm my god. They like, yes, we just we just are all coming about this, but no off season here on the mark Ass for pat and I appreciate it. Yeah, XFL

keep the content going here. This is good for the summer. So yeah, and like I said, man, you guys do something for the USFL in Memphis. I'll be there, yea, with a week in advance. Yeah, don't. They'll do it tomorrow and then people will say, why did it go. It's it's your fault if you don't go. That's what I've learned. It's it's it's only your fault. It's never anyone else's fault if you don't go. So yep, well, time jumps here. I

was recording with Tim and then we move inside and then we have Dave on jack hammering my neighbor's patio. We're back on the first time since we have you on the Big CFL pregame show here, Dave Naylor, How are you doing very well? Very well? Yeah, keep it busy. It's it's getting getting to that interesting part of the season where there are pressure points on teams and because teams are starting to see their seasons slip away the first third

of it. In the Canadian Football League, you know, everybody can make a recovery in the second and third parts of the season, but if your troubles follow you to the midpoint, it gets different. And I think you good illustration in the Hamilton Edmondson game tonight right that Edmonton, the streak, the winlessness to start the season, the pressure that's on that organization in Hamilton, you know, which got off the schneide last week. Um, you

know, losing to Edmonton for them would be a real setback. So it's one of those ones I think where both teams kind of look at and say, oh, my goodness if we don't win this week, you know, and neither of them want to say that publicly, but I think privately that's probably the sentiment. Well, I'm all in right now, very excited. I mean, we lived through the XFL and the USFL. No. Dorothy was seeing the other day. She's like, well you really are like all

year now. Yeah, there's no offseason on this but um well yeah this will obviously air Friday after the game tonight. But I think we can still talk about because even if the Elks, even if Elks win, I don't think that that gets the monkey out there back. But how how did you talk about famous sports streaks and not include Bill Goldberg's one hundred and seventy three match winning streak in WCW. I want to I want to know, is

that is wrestling? Right? Sports entertainment? Yeah, sports entertear. That would be the answer to when the results are prescribed. And I'm not a wrestling guy. I'm not a wrestling hater. I just it's just kind of beyond me a little bit. And in terms of the appeal, so yeah, I think we're talking about sports where where the results are in depth. So no, Yeah, Dave had this big I watched the Big Steaks.

Seeah, I mean, I guess we can start there on that. Um tie cats really kind of hot mess here, felt very much like we're gonna bring in Aaron Rodgeros, like the Jets were going, Mark and what have you made with Schiltz and everything there? Why not Matthew Schiltzz looked pretty good, you know, certainly throwing the ball down the field vertically different than than

believe Mitchell did. It was interesting. And the first one of mitchell starts he didn't do it very well and in the second one he hardly did it at all. And you know, again, I think this has reignited the conversation about what is boliev Mitchell at this stage of his career. And I would say there's there's two types of injuries in football. There's the type that you recover from and you're back in you're one hundred percent and the type that

you never recover from. And it's it's not always one right, Sometimes it's the accumulation. And I think that's the issue with Paulie by Mitchell, the number of surgeries, the number of times that he got hit. Is he ever going to be able to throw the ball the way he was? And you know, since this has happened, in conversations that I've had with people, there's been kind of a look, John Huffnagel and Dave Dickinson, we're going to put this guy on the curb at thirty two if he was still

capable of doing what he's doing. And I think that's looks certainly. Did that go off in my head? Yeah? It did. I think the Cats, you know, took a lot probably off his late game of his late season appearance last year, and you could look back at a Henry Burrus, right who they did a similar thing too. And Henry Burrus went on and you know, through forty touchdowns with the tie Cats and then ended up

winning a great Cup for for Ottawa. And I think some different circumstances around that one than than there really wasn't any concern about, you know, Henry's physical status at that time. I think it was more just maybe he'd worn out his welcome. There was some feelings there that they wanted to move on from him. They had. It was actually people forget. It wasn't moving from Henry to pau Levi Mitchell. It was from Henry to Drew Tate and

Drew Tait. If you look at statistically, he doesn't really good things. He just couldn't stay healthy, right, He's just one of those guys who was four games and down and three games and down and two games and down, and they just destabilized as a team, you know, to such a degree. So yeah, it did. It did feel like that. And look, I think with you look at the way the tie Cats tried to

build around him. They go and get James Butler from BC and all around back a team that really hasn't had a feature back in a few years. They get Duke Williams, they resigned Tim White. You know, they did a lot of things to try to give him the targets that they wanted.

I like what I've seen in Matthew Schiltz. The thing that always it's a compliment to Matthew Schiltz, But it scares me if I was the tie cats is man, he will stand in there and take a licking like he I mean, he's he's a tall guy, but he's a bit of a wiry guy, right, He's not He's not really solidly built, and his history would suggest that taking those kinds of hits is not sustainable. He's been He's a guy who's played in a relief role, you know, two or three

games at a time, and he's had injuries and things like that. So the first game he started, I was watching that, I'm like, holy smokes, Like he is getting the ball down the field, but he is paying a price to do it. And you know, as as we all have become aware and far halology and I tape some stuff on this earlier today.

Um, you know, there's a real issue with the depth of talent at quarterback across this league, the likes of which you know, we may never have seen before, and teams just don't have the margin to turn to the next guy because the next guy is usually you know, unproven or nowhere near as talented as the guy he lost. What do you attribute that to him? I think there's multiple factors to it, and and we actually it is funny because some of them are obvious, and mentioned some of the obvious

ones, but there's some others that are maybe not so obvious. And look,

the two other leagues, right, fifty quarterbacks off the market. That has to have an effect, even if CFL teams will often say, oh, the guys in those league we wouldn't want and things like that, you know, that's something you kind often here in a refrain, You've got the National Football League that has expanded rosters, expanded practice rosters, and most importantly, no limit on the amount of time a guy can stay on the practice

rosters, So that takes some other guys out, and that will even keep guys away from the CFL because they know that they've got an eligibility to get onto an NFL practice roster, even though they may have veteran status. A couple of it that maybe aren't as often. Look, I think the year the CFL only dressed two quarterbacks, I don't think that helped. And I think getting rid of the the what you know we kind of called ota season the CFL, which was really passing camps, right, they used to get

the offenses together. Guys got into the playbook at their timing down. I was talking to a GM this week who said, look, I'd rather have that than the rookie camps. Like, give me that a month in advance, because when guys went away and had that month before they came to main camp, they dive into the playbook, they had some time to digest you

know what they've done, think about it, communicate with coaches. It was a much better run up to the season in terms of getting your timing down on offense than it is right now, where everybody just shows up the rookie camp and bang your in main camp and so far. Hunt and I kind of actually had, you know, our favorite kind of favorite. We used to pick a kind of an issue that we picked in far. Hunt picked a really interesting one. It's the it's the development of the third yard of

the short yardage quarterback. Okay, it's almost its own position now. So you used to have your starter and two guys you were developing behind him, Like when when Ricky Ray was in Toronto, you had Zach Coleros and Trevor Harris behind him. Those were the next two in the hobbard, right, But you look at the BC Lions. Their number three is a thirty three year old guy who nobody thinks is a starting quarterback. Where ever going to

be Dom Davis. You look at what would have just signed Dakota Prucup. Why because he's gonna run third down? And it's two things. It's that and then also the CFL is running so many more short yardage plays than they ever have because the analytics have come in and told coaches, once you get to second and four or second and three, you don't want the ball moving

backwards, just fall forward twice. And Marshall Ferguson did some digging on this late last year when he actually counted the number of short yardage plays in the CFL game. It's way up. It's not an entertaining play, and it's funny. You know that we've got this league where eight of the top ten

touchdown leaders or backup quarterbacks. And I poured through the statistics when we had them last year and historically and found that the first three quarterbacks who kind of crop up on that are Drew Tate in Calgary, Alex Brink in Winnipeg, and Adrian McPherson in Montreal. Around like ten, eleven, twelve, you start seeing these backup quarterbacks creeping into the leading touchdown lead, and now it's ubiquitous, and it's it's funny. It's a trend that hasn't taken hold in

the NFL. You know, they still will roll their forty million gallars guy off tackle on a one yard plunge, and maybe someday we'll see it, but right now it's it's it has really taken hold in the CFL. And and I think that's that has hurt development of quarterbacks because you're just you're not developing necessarily the two guys behind them. You're developing maybe one and the other guy he's got a roll like a separate position. Here's one of my things.

I was actually I'm gonna write a column on this. I mean, not get it done this week and maybe next week because I got a bunch of things going on. But the neglis the average CFL team has between ten and twelve quarterbacks on their negotiation lists. Okay, so that's basically a hundred in the league. If you're a team that needs a quarterback, there's ninety quarterbacks that you can't talk to. Now some of them are in the XFL

and can't come anywhere usfls. A lot of them are in college, but you still be talking about dozens of quarterbacks that are not accessible to a team with quarterback needs. So the greatest competition for quarterbacks right now is other CFL teams. And I you know, I had a GM say to me this

week. This GM has an established quarterback. He said, Look, the agents are just Crazy's not gonna send me a guy who thinks he's capable of playing in this league and being a star because they know who our starter is and they know where you know where we are, where we're at. Whereas you know, Ottawa might be able to use that guy, but he can't because he's on somebody else's necklace. Honestly, I am really of the belief that the necklace needs to go in its entirety. I think it certainly needs

to go when it comes to quarterbacks. And like people, it's funny because people will think, well, why don't we allow teams to add more quarterbacks to the necklace. These aren't the things that allow you to sign quarterbacks. You can sign quarterbacks with a necklace. These are the things that present other teams from signing quarterbacks and that's not good for the league. So I would put a restriction and say, hey, you can protect two guys, but

not twelve. I mean, we just it doesn't make sense. I look, I think it goes across the league right now. And again, historically I was looking this up. The neglis came in in nineteen fifty seven. Okay, right when the CFL was incorporated as the Canadian Football League. Bang, the neglist comes in. But in that era, there were twelve teams in the National Football League. That's it. That was the competition. If you weren't on one of the twelve teams in the NFL, and in those

days, the salaries between the leagues would have been comparable. So a neglist was just really a way to prioritize a short list of guys that you wanted to be able to have, and the teams could certainly explore beyond that. Now the neglist is fourty five players. And you know, somebody made the argument to me the neglist was also to keep salaries down so you wouldn't get into bidding wars for players when they're coming in the CFL. But we have

a salary cap now. And you know what the CFL did when the salary cap was like, we've had a theoretical salary cap for a long time, but we've really owned a real cap talary cap for about a decade right when the real salary cap came in. And one of the things the CFL did was expanded the neglist from thirty five to forty five. So we've got, you know, three hundred and sixty players, four hundred players that are that are whose rights are protected by other CFL teams. And I think that's an

issue in general for players. I think it's an issue for quarterbacks especially, But I think you know, another issue is the league is talking like quarterbacks when you're attracting them, especially going up against these other leagues, need to know that if you hit in the CFL, you can be making between four and six hundred thousand dollars very quickly. You know, Like, what's Chad Kelly gonna get paid next year? Right? Yeah, he's gonna be a

half million dollars guy. Right. So I think there's also an education that the leagues need to do with the colleges, with the college coaches, with all of that. So the guys are aware that you know, this isn't Yeah, it can be a springboard to the National Football League, sure, and that's what these other leagues are all promoting. But the CFL, you

can actually have a legit career and make some money. I mean, you know, making a half mail playing football for five months a year is not a bad compromise if your goal was to someday start in the National Football Like I think they got to promote that a little more as well. So but look, I'll tell you this. I was talking to somebody at the league office about this this week and he said, look, when we entered league meetings in Canon, ask Us in January, we talked about all these things.

We all are aware of it. We're not blind to it, We're not in denial. We talked about a whole lot of solutions, and every one of them was either shot down because they didn't like it or because it was going to cost money. And he said, I guarantee you we will go back at this this offseason and everybody's gonna have to be prepared that there are no solutions that don't require investment. You know, there's gonna be some

commitment. You've talked about minimum salaries for quarterbacks, cap exempt salaries for quarterbacks, tiering for something like that, and not to make the game all about quarterback because I actually hate that kind of analysis of football. I think it's

oversimplified and things like that. However, as somebody who sits in the panel, you know, off air, if you see the energy on our panel when we're watching, you know, even a game like the Vernon Adams Chad Kelly game, and I know Vernon through six picks, but he also threw three tens and through for three eighty three. It was the weirdest six picked

game in the history of football. Just the excitement of us off air watching a game with dynamic quarterbacks versus the excitement of us watching a game, you know, insert some of the games we've had to sit through this year that didn't have dynamic quarterbacks. Just the entertainment value among the four of us is so different. I can only multiply that among the hundreds of thousands that are

watching and figure they're reacting the same way I did. I did to be fair, and I the rouge game that was out you know this week, that was I was taking Dorothy app for a birthday there Thursday night because their birthday was Friday. I had a wedding. I did go back and watch that whole game on demands and just see. You know, I did do my homework there with all of that, But I thought that was pretty entertaining. A couple of quick things. I'm realizing that the over year left shoulder

is that you're famous brick wall and bookshelf. Is that your shame? And I gotta show you something. You got a moment here, Yes, it's your segment. Okay. So I have taken heat sometime from fans for the fact that my right no bookshel has a National Football League helmet, right, And in fact, I took so much heat that I kind of I turned

it around. So it's just like a generic helmet. And the truth is I've been trying to get the Canadian Football League to provide a helmet with me that would kind of counter it, and I could put both up and such. So here you go, walk into my house yesterday, big box opened it up. Another box, Here we go and the row there you go, Dan's rock and then that looks good. Got it? So we got we got we got a new element for the backdrop there, so very happy to have the CFL helmet. There we go. I love it. I

love it. This good. We get a little back This is good. Yeah, Dave, do we have time? This is your segment you're on here. I will say just in not that the the fantasy sports bade is the biggest issue with quarterbacks, but you're also talking the short yardage that affects fantasy and all of that. Right, if we're trying to grow the game, we're trying to do all that having to go to prew cop you know,

winning with three touchdowns or whatever. Isn't My last point on that was you're talking about, Hey, there's people in the XFL or the USFL and CFL teams like, oh, we wouldn't want them. It's like, yeah, because Dustin Crumb was really like on the top of the people's wish list, right like I don't I don't want Alex Mgoo. I really want Dustin Crumb, Like he's really the guy that we want to put our money behind.

Well, there's still a little bit of I think sometimes superiority complex, you know, among some people in the CFL with regards in these other lakes. For sure. Yeah, no question in terms of it just to wind out, you know, because we go like, did Hamilton make a mistake with bo? Is it too early to tell? I mean, I'll be I have my flights books for Hamilton's So I mean, look, I think the early look. First of all, it depends when he comes back,

right like, that's that. I think it's too early to say that right now. And when they put him on the sixth game, you know, I was kind of led to believe it was one of those precautionary things, right because if an injury lingers, you don't want to look back and say, oh, we should have put him on six game and such and and of course the one thing you can't practice when you're in a six game, which is why jeremiamzz old he never was at the start of the season because

he need to practice to get up to speed. Yeah, I think the jury is still out. I'm not willing to write off believe I Mitchell this stage of his of the season. I know that when you know, they looked at bow in camp, they thought he was throwing. Well, you know Scott Milanovitch, who came in and has been sort of an offensive consultant with the tie Cats. You know, thought he was throwing the ball well enough to you know, to be able to win with the tie Cats this

year. But it's I gotta be honest, it's the first two games were not encouraging and now he's been down. So if if you didn't played better than that, if he's gone for eight weeks, you know, it's hard to see this as a positive move. But I think what this brings Upbreed is is kind of like, Okay, we could criticize that decision and say going all in on bolie B Mitchell was too risky. It's blowing up in the face. We'll come back to the well, what's the option here?

And this is again brings us back to the quarterback depth issue in the league. Bolie By Mitchell got benched last year and got a raise. You know, Trevor Harris was good last year, not great, but good. He started the year as a backup and got like a fivefold salary increase. By the end of the season, He's back to being a half million dollar quarterback last year. And I credit for Trevor for taking you know, the backup role, taking a much more team friendly salary and just kind of resetting his

career. I think I think it was a real lesson in what Trevor Harris did and like, look, what's Dane Evans gonna be worth next year? If he you know, after a year in BC. All it would take is a few appearances for Dane ev to, you know, to come on into a role in a meaningful part of a game during a season look good, and what's he worth next year? Somebody's I talked to a GM this week who said to me, like, is Matthew Schiltz gonna get paid next year? Because you know, he's, to his credit, I think he's

looked pretty good earlier in the year. But he's not somebody that every anybody ever saw, you know, as a quarterback who was going to be making Marquis salary in this league. So I think every time you examine a situation like BO, you've got to say, Okay, what were the alternatives? Right? Bring Dane Evans back? I don't think he could do that just the way last year went, you know, I think that would have been

a really hard sell, especially in a great Cup year for Hamilton. Okay, um, you know they were so so you know, what are your where you gonna go Cody Fajardo, he was available, right, Like, you start to get down to these options, and I think where people are kind of drawing these comparisons. It's it's not to go back to the seventies

or eighties. Like, let's go back to like a dozen years, right, every team had a frontline starter, three or four of the starters, you know, Ricky Ray, Anthony Calvio, Henry Burris, Dickinson was kind of newly was just retired. These guys were Hall of famers, and then

you had guys in the hopper who were the next guys. Whether it was the bow Levy Mitchells and the Drew Tates or the Trevor Harrison and the Zach colaross That's what people you know, like you'd show me the backup right now that you would say, I'm gonna go get that guy making my starter next year, you know, like Hamilton did when they when they went after Zach Colaris, right, or like Edmonton did when they went after Mike Rioting.

Right. The only guy in the league that I thought, yeah, kind of fit that bill was Chad Kelly, right, And I said it on radio during Great Cup Week and set off a firestar when that's radio and Saskatchewan. I said, if I was Saskatchewan, I'd call the Argos this offseason and say, what do you want from Chad Kelly? Right, that was before It's great Cup heroics and all that. But like I think the Argonauts

were, I don't want to say they were. They were happy be with McLeod Bethel Thompson moving on, but I think they were okay with it because they knew they couldn't keep Chad as a backup forever. He's not wired that way. He's a one year backup and God bless him that. You know, they got to him and said, you need to be patient for a year. This is how this league works. Like if Johnny Manzel had been on the Chad Kelly plan, what's he in year number two? Right?

Instead? You know, different kind of thing. Again, we can talk about how the Nicholas screwed that all up as well, so at the time, you know, by by forcing him into the hands of a team that already had a quarterback, which didn't make really that much sense as well. But my point is that you know, other than Chad Kelly, Chad Kelly was that guy, right, you could see it last year, right, and again his pedigree's there, everyone knows the history, but there aren't those

guys in backup rolls across the league. And you know when when Ottawa would would lose its quarterback at any point over the last couple of seasons and you see Caleb Evans come in, You're like, yeah, I can get through a game and get you through a few games. But did Caleb Evans screamed future starting quarterback in the Sea fount right? And there's just I think a lot of guys of that kind of ilk right now, and it's it was

enough. So I mean this whole quarterback thing, I think three down was the last week had the big article, you know AMBROSEI talking about all of that with this in just the streak and everything and Edmonton and whoever comes out of this right you know there Cornelius everything else going on there and Jared Aegi everything. You know, even if Edmonton wins, right if we wake up Friday, can they won tonight? Like that doesn't solve their issues? Right?

They still have whatever? What do you this? Chris Jones and Cornelius Like I just can't figure out what to make of it. It's really weird. And I mean it even predates Chris Jones and Edmonton, right, because let's go back to twenty twenty one. And I was incredulous about this. Right when they sat down Trevor Harris, I was like, are you kidding me? Like he's thrown for four hundred yards and Labor Day or something. But yeah, but you know he was he playing the best football of his

life. No. But when you have an experienced, proven CFL quarterback who's health is fine, and you decide to go on to the next guy, I mean that is, and then they trade him, right, they trade him, and I mean Taylor Cornelius early in his career it looked like a guy who might be able to develop into something because of the arm and the long striding in the run. And I would put him in the category of guys that you could see it's, you know, developing into the future.

But did he look like the guy who gave you the better chance over Trevor Harris to win next week? No way? And that's what was always curious and what all went down between Trevor Harris and Jamie El Lazando and how Brock Sunderland, Finn I don't really know. I've never heard a full disclosure about what happened there, but it never made sense to me. And I think it shows you the caution that if you're going to move on from a guy in this league, you better you better know what you have behind him.

Because I mean, Trevor Harris still playing, He's playing at pretty high level. And I did it. I don't if you saw the tweet I did, because you know, Ottawa kind of did a similar thing with Trevor right they lost him in free agency and whether he walked or they let him go, whatever, but I did. It was the combined records of the Elks and the Red Blacks since they moved on from Trevor Harris, and I think

it was fifteen and sixty four, which is like astoundingly bad. And then you know, then Jones goes into last year and Taylor Cornelius goes from fourth string to starter. You know it just like he all of a sudden, he becomes the guy. Then they make the commitment to him, then they pull away from him early in this season to go to a guy who's come off the practice roster. You know, Kyle Locksley didn't do a good job

running the short yardage and he pounded on the sidelines. He's gone. Trey Forward seems to have fallen out of the mix, which seems to be I think there must be some sense that maybe he didn't completely recover from what he had last year, because why is he getting those opportunities last year as a rookie right out of U Sport. You know, feel free to look up the history of CFL coote rookie quarterbacks from U Sport, and now as a

sophomore with an obvious need, he's not getting that opportunity. And people will say, oh, you know American Chris Jones. Suddenly look I stood beside Chris Jones at tray Forward's workout at the University of Buffalo in April of twenty twenty two. Okay, Chris Jones loved him. Who drafted him, Chris Jones? Okay, So if something's turned there, it's not like Chris Jones was always sour on tray Forward, never liked him, go forced to take him. No, that is not the case. He was he was a

huge tray Forward guy. And so something there isn't adding up as well. I thought the Jared Davey thing and our panel was, you know, incredulous on that one. When they moved on from him at halftime or after halftime or the of the Argo game. I just it was perplexing because I thought Taylor Cornelius made some strides in that game the week before where they'd been shut out. It was the BC Lions. His defense was performing at a historic pace. And you know, it's funny, like you, sometimes I have

to take games. I don't devote every moment of my life to live CFL watching, and one of the interesting things, I usually want to know what happened rather than, you know, do the fan experience to be in suspension because it allows me to know what I want to focus on in this game. So when I watched that game, I said, I want to watch Taylor Cornelius and his decision making and his throws on. I didn't think he

was horrible in that game, like a shutout game. Offense was terrible all the punts, but play by play, when you broke it down, it wasn't like Taylor Carnelius was missing open guys all over the field necessarily at all. So it was when he comes off of that decent first half in Toronto. It's really it's really curious, and look, Jones is the defensive guy, but he's a football guy like he just because he coached defense doesn't mean

you don't understand the offensive side of the field. He's you know, he's had Steve McAdoo with him in Saskatchewan. He's got him again in Edmonton. He's a guy who's sometimes not popular with the fans, and I think part of it is Seamack and who doesn't doesn't speak publicly very often. He's not a guy who comes out and defends himself, right, He's he's a very thought of, low key guy, you know, and that kind of thing, and makes himself maybe an easy target because he's not out, you know,

explaining himself or his philosophies or things like that. But boy, I think this has been a big disappointment for the Elks because I think we all thought when they went out and got those receivers, and you know, when when does it click for CFL quarterbacks somewhere between year two and three usually,

So you had Cornelius who's got the big arm. The other thing that was curious about it is like he was the leading rusher among quarterbacks last year in the league, and when I think he's the only quarterback in the top six to eight, ten, whatever it was, I remember writing about this. Again, I can't check the historical stats, but I believe I remember this from last season. Um he uh he. And yet you know, the first three or four games this year, they didn't run like he wasn't he

would say it was. I mean, he's and he's a deceptive runner, right, because he's not the typical runner we see in the CFL, kind of a compact body who can tucket. He's huge. He's a huge and he's a long strider. Right. But but it was obviously effective. I'm glad they saw they brought that back a little bit into the last game. But it's um again, we're gonna bring the conversation full circle here, what's

their option right now? Right? And that's that's the trouble. And again, that's that's why I think having quarterbacks that you're developing, I'll tell you a great example of the difference between the developed quarterback and a guy who's not head an opportunity to develop was the head to head matchup between Tyree Adams and

Jared Day two guys making their first start. But but Tyree Adams had been there for a year, you know, he'd done two training camps, you know, and then that's just a massive difference between taking a guy off the pr and his rookie year and saying, you know, go and I assumed Jared GG he's a much much better player than he showed, you know, in the limited action. But you know, this league has made a lot of decent quarterbacks who don't have the proper background or experience to handle the job

look pretty ordinary or bad. Yeah, the fact that last week they're like, you know, Cornelius with four wins in his I'm like, is insane that he has four wins in his CFL career got paid the way that he did with that, Again, that's the market, right and why what do they think? What did Chris Jones think was going to happen at the end of the last year if they didn't sign him, and by the way, guarantee money for next season as well, he's been playing in the league that

he came from, the XFL. Yeah, I would be curious if there was a market, you know, what the market for him was going to be in the XFL you know, just because like I mean, who is even who was it? I can't remember who the DPP was in the vibr Yeah, I'd be curious to see what the market there was for Agazons. No better than me on that. Yeah, well, you know, because Alison knows ELPs heads when they sign yes, yes, a couple more things. I mean, we could go forever. I don't want to keep you

forever. The Calgary mayor everything. It seems to be a little bit of dud season right now. What do you make of Calgary here, because like they're very quickly falling out of their way in the West. Yeah, and you know, and the Stamps have been so good at plug and play when they've been injuries. I mean, this is sometimes like one of the things about Winnipeg's quote ongoing dynasty or they're great runs. Man, they've been They've

been really good on injuries. You know, they have not had a ton of important players out of their lineup, and that's a big, big part of it. Calgary historically has has dealt with injuries, and you know, there's been kind of the John huff Nagel magic formula, you know, next man up, and they've always got a guy in developing guys the practice roster. But they've been decimated at receiver. You know that that that has really

I mean Camar Jordan's injury, Reggie Bagleton out, maliek Henry gone. You know, they brought back Mark and Michelle who's a you know, very good player, and once he gets up to speed, I think he can certainly

help them. But even among their Canadian receivers, right, they're they're very inexperienced um at that and and and even that two of their Canadians right um are are guys who've never played three down football, like like like at two rookie Canadians whose entire lives, one of them from the States, the other one grew up in BC and played at Simon Fraser. They're being introduced.

So so the one thing that you know, some a lot of times to look people look at, maybe it's the receiver might be one position that it's easier to transition out of U Sport to the CFL than the NC double A because of the waggle and just understanding the angles on the field and all those kinds of things. So that's usually one of the janities you get with your

Canadian receivers and the Stamps don't even have that. I mean Ryce and John in the game the other night at like one catching garbage time, right, I mean, he's a he's a huge guy who stuck around in the NFL for a while. He's six seven, and again he may turn into something, but the lack of experience has really hurt them. And Jake Mayer looks looks ordinary right now. You know of our guy who what through for three hundred yards in each of his first three starts in the CFL, And you

know that's that's a small sample size. That's pretty impressive. I don't know that anybody's ever done it. Even I think he may have been the first quarterback ever to open his career with three three hundred yard games. But man, I think he'd kill for one of those right now. Yeah, it wasn't that. It was like him versus Vernon right in Montreal. I'm trying to remember that debut game. Was it two years ago and he came twenty one? Yeah? Yeah, yeah, I just try to remember that.

Last things here, I mean we kind of hit on the argos at Cody is Cody got his groove back here and then in Montreal. You know, we've been we've been talking about that a little little bit one this week, and we're looking at the sack the sack figures, right, which is, you know, he's leading the league in sacks getting sacked, he led the league in getting sacked last year, he led the league and getting sacked in twenty one, and the year that he was the MP nominee for the West

Division, he was third in the league in game sacked. So you know, there's some compelling evidence that and I look at it looked and I love people made the first to say this is not what I do. Okay, I don't break down film and tell people who's responsible on what plays. But but there's a consistency there, right, And and when you go from one of the weakest offensive lines in the league to one of the best and the

sack numbers are still there, that that becomes. Now all that said, I think Ottawa BC in Winnipeg have the best pass rushers in the league. And that's three of the four opponents of Montreal's had. You got to be careful, always a small sample size and who your opponent is early the schedule, trying to project stuff. So there's that uh that you know, the

receivers I've been down, Reggie wiping down, Philpott down. And and I think the other factor that's been huge there is the run game, right that you would expect that with that offensive line and Williams Standbeck and jess ran Entry, that that that's going to take some of the pressure off Cody Fajardo because the defenses aren't going to just be able to, you know, pin their ears back and line up and go after him. They haven't really been able

to get the run game rolling. So but I think I think Fajardo has the fun things. The two things that people used to say about Figardo and Edmonton was you get sacked or in Saskatchewans you get sacked you often and he can't throw the ball down the field. Well, he's addressed the second one. He would throw the ball down the field really well, you know that, and that that I'm sure is something that you know, he's put some some thought and some some work into The sack thing is harder to solve.

And God bless him for the number of times Cody Fajardalan sack. I got his career sack number the other day. One hundred and fifty four. Okay, over the last two years eighty three. And you know the second player on that list is fifty three. He has been sacked thirty times more over the last season and a half or a season. The third then the next

guy. Now, again not my area of expertise, but put that, I'll tell you, I'll give him some marks for they're guys in this league that, you know, every time they get sacked, you wonder if they're going on six games or something. I'm exactly, but we know there's quarterbacks that when you see them get hit, you're kind of like, oh boy, all right, that's just the nature of something. One hundred and fifty four sacks in his career. How many games Cody fajardal miss Not a lot,

I'm struggling to think of. It was a game last year. I think he didn't play, but one. So hey, if you're gonna get taken down that often, uh, you know, at least it's not a turnover. At least you're not getting your quarterback hurt. But I think they know they're playing with fire, and I think, you know, Jason Moss

is certainly under some pressure to try and correct that for him. Yeah, they someone posted the video where it was him from from the last game and like doing the spin move where it's like a totally perfect pocket and he's running back and you're like, that's not a good look to have become kind of unnecessary. Scambe's last thing here the allans on the bye this week. You know, I've been happy with our performances thus far, except obviously the six

picks. What do you just quick thoughts on BC before we get out? Well, use the Argo game, right is there? That was the way that game got away from BC, And what the score eventually became was was not indicative. Like if you if you BC in Toronto were playing again next week and I was asked to make the point spread, I'd basically make it a pickup game, you know, which is which sounds weird, you know,

given the way Toronto played. But I mean, I joked earlier, I said it was the greatest six pick performance in the history of quarterback. I mean, it really was, and you know some and the weird thing is it is is that you know a good part of those picks were awful. It wasn't like he had contested balls. You know that we were taken. They were you know, passes to the other team, and so you try and reconcile that with what he does on the other you know, thirty

throws. It was a very it was a very unusual quarterback performance. But look he got a break the next week against Montreal because the clause pick six was a pick six. I mean, I think the league has conceded that was a wrong call, and James, you know, it wasn't. It wasn't challenged um by by Montreal's staff, and it should have been. And who knows if he's if he throws a pick six in the first quarter of that game, like did he gets Yeah, he gets in his head,

sure, yeah that that that changed it. But now, I mean, and Farheim has made this point about I'm gonna borrow one of his points about

the Lions defense. And one of the challenges in the CFL sometimes is unlike the NFL, it's harder to have time to develop, and the NFL has gotten very short and getting rid of coaches as well, But there's still time that you that you know, when you're investing in draft picks and you can see the talent blossoming and the investment you have, you'll you'll get sometimes a couple of seasons to to make that happen. In the CFL, we don't

very often, right, it is a win now league. Every team at the start of the year expects to be in the playoffs, expects to be in the hunt for the Great Cup. And we don't see that investment where teams will say, hey, we're gonna live with these guys because we know that in a year or two these are gonna be our guys. That's what the Lions did with their defense, right if you go back to two years, they're all no name guys and you look at the you know, the

talent in that secondary. You know, they've added some pieces from other teams that I think that's probably the best secondary in the league, maybe Toronto along with that as well. Uh, you know what they've what they've been able to do overall, I think is kind of a bit of a model for what teams should be able to do and and and credit. You know,

I thought it was funny. Far Hunt was really bullish on Vernon Adams at the start of the year, almost like one day at Sports Center he was said, I was like wow, and then Vernon Adams went out that first game and just played. I texted far out and said, here your sports center. It's looking better and better. But he washed him through companies, knows him a little bit and own him for a long time. Thought sort

of settling on the West coast. You know. I like what I like what they've been able to do. I mean, they've got a couple of running backs. You should always be able to backfill a running back, you know, and they and they looked like they've done that with a couple of guys um and the receivers there. I mean, that was one of the things I think when you were looking at who Vernon Adams is throwing too.

I think that's probably the best receiving unit in the league right now. And that's saying something given that you pulled Brian Burnham off that unit, you know, from last year, and that it's still as good as it is. So yeah, I U I would be. I'm trying to remember it. Is there a Toronto BC matchup rematch on the schedule this year? I'm not sure there is? Is there? I feel like there is some of us I'm looking here. We don't always have the guaranteed home at home every year

now, right, since they change the stuff after the pandemic. But you know, it wouldn't shock me at all to ce BC Toronto in the Great Cup, and that is certainly a matchup I would welcome. Yeah, I'm not seeing it on here. I did laugh when they had Nathan Rourke. They were showing him on and it's like, see, like we're still here in Nathan, Like he's still were I you know, it's like when you're

the kid goes back to high school and he's like the mega star. I go to see like we still But I did like that because Nathan has basically said like I was glad with my time in the CFL, and I'm glad of stuff. So yeah, no, it's I'm gonna be down on August twelfth at his first preseason game in Dallas, so yeah, yeah, yeah, it's it's it's a I think there's a lot of interest in his foray. Over the summer, we'll see if he settles into a number three role.

The story will go quiet until he gets a chance to play. But over the summer, while he's playing in preseason, we're gonna be unna be pretty engaged in watching his story. Yeah, I'm just good. I don't see it Toronto on there Allywright. Well, Dave, I appreciate it extended. Well, I said, we're we're being Hamilton. We got all that figured out. So hopefully, Job, it's got to the point where it wouldn't be the Great Cup with Vergie. Yes, I said that a spring

league guy. That's that's what we got to have. That's good. Well, we'll be there. I appreciate. We'll try to get you on here again, maybe midway through the season, but I certainly appreciate extending time today. So thank you, awesome man, have a good day. Well,

we are done him. I guess they had to flee practice for the Red Blacks. Thunderstorms everything else here thunderstorms metaphorically kind of circling as well around the Red Blacks. You're Tim Bains ottawas Sun has Has there ever been more interest in the Ottawa Redblacks quarterback situation than this week? Wow, let's I'm trying to think back to the dark the speaking of stormy clouds and all that, Matt Nichols. I mean, it's been a string of quarterback issues going back

to I guess Trevor Harris in twenty eighteen. Of course that didn't involve two starting quarterbacks having season ending injuries within two weeks. Yeah, so it's certainly been interesting. And a team that really has been very poor on the football field for the past three years and in the midst of trying to turn that around, has to do it again with a lot of adversity. It's crazy.

I was working. I watched the game on I had because that we can record the CBS Sports Network ones we can record right and watching with the States. I had a wedding on Saturday, and I'm getting the text and Zola's Zili's legs after what's going on? And I'm thinking, oh, maybe he came out and didn't look right right, you know, came out and maybe whenever and then no, they said no, you know, he went

down again. And I'm watching the broadcast and crazy experience. I mean, what was it like just kind of living through it and thoughts on everything going on. Well, I mean, it was a non contact play, so when you think of of injury, you think of okay, late hit,

you know, got hit low light happened a year ago. But he tried to tried to pivot a little bit and the light collapsed and without even thinking left or right leg, you're thinking, oh, no, same injury, and you know, as it turns out, it's it's the achilles and then it's in the other leg, and it's one of those things that that happens, and again not really related to previous injuries, but it was you could

hear a pin drop. Of course, Jeremiah was a great quarterback in Hamilton for a number of years and so a lot of them was an appreciation for him there. But when he went down and he tried to get back up and immediately went back down again and had to be helped off, I mean it was there was just silence, and I think you could feel, certainly there's an empathy for a quarterback. I'm much beloved quarterback for a number of

years. With the tie cuts, it's crazy because even you know, and I was watching the like the pre panel, you know, and it's like,

you know, like Jesus is coming back. I mean it was like, you know, but not to make light of it, but like you know, this team and he's like he's sent a leader and you know, I can't remember if it was Milt, whoever was on Whoever's on that down against talking and trying to give his perspective and like, you know, this guy's coming to come back and write the ship, and then two quarters in

it's like disaster again. And I don't know if the Red Blacks looked great, you know that if he was going to solve everything, but it certainly wasn't going to hurt. I mean, what do we do now? You know, Dustin crummin there, which is probably the worst name for us,

you know, backup quarterback to come in. What do you I mean he looked good, He looked athletic, but was that kind of like the backup cornerback bump is always what I think, right, like, oh, this guy comes in, we were a game planning for him and it's kind of cast. How do you think he actually looked? I thought he looked really good. And he addressed he made three really bad mistakes. Two interceptions really

that maybe weren't thrown to the proper place, and a fumble. Those were costly, just costly mistakes, and Dustin Crumb addressed that the other day, and he talked about really having to play clean football and about how games aren't one as much as they're lost now when you interviewed Dustin Crum, you have to know that Dustin Crumb is a rocket scientist, like literally rocket scientists. They graduated in eron whatever the degree is, aeronautic space engineering and built rockets.

So Dustin Krumb is a very very smart guy. So I gotta think digesting and understanding a playbook is probably something he's pretty good at. So he will certainly have a very good knowledge of the playbook. And I think every one of the quarterbacks would tell you anyway. They treat each week like the starter, because, especially if you're an Ottawa Redblack, can never know. Um, I mean, I was warming up my arm today just in case

you never know. Like, is there is there a need for a sixty four year old guy who really was never a quarterback even in high school or college? Probably not. I Actually, if I keep putting on more weight, I'd probably have a better chance of being an offensive lineman. Well what was this when they brought in Dustin? Like, how long was he part of the roster before this? Now he was he was brought in last year.

I think the team thought it would be like basically getting him a second training camp where he wasn't at last years training camp, but they brought him in and kind of a learn, um, just stay off the side, listen and learn. There was no chance he was he was going to be that guy last year, but then he said by the time he gets into camp this year, it's almost like it's his second training camp. Um. And he looked especially in in their preseason one of their preseason games, he

looked really good the thing and he brings to the table. I don't know that he's the fastest guy in the football field, but again, he's able to use he's smart, and he's able to use his legs. He's not afraid. He's patient enough. I think that he'll stay in the pocket and look. But he's able to use his legs pretty effectively. And I think that's his SAMO dating back to college, is that he can run with the football, which in the Canadian game is a pretty good asset to have that

you're you know, you're able to bounce out of the pocket. You want the quarter your quarterback to have patiences. You don't want him jumping out too early. But if need be, he can be that guy. If your second and nine and it's not there that he can he can get those nine nine yards for you with his legs. You know, I just I'm always curious, like was there in this big scout even pro like, oh, we got this guy here, and you know we just buy this time.

Whereas you know, really by process of elimination and my default, you know, he gets the he gets the spot there in the game last weekend. Yeah, I think it's always really, especially with quarterbacks, it's a bit of a guessing game. I mean, there's a reason why these guys aren't in NFL camps and some of them are getting NFL looks, But it is a bit of a guessing game, and you're trying to project a quarterback really to play almost a new game, certainly with different rules and different nuances.

So how do you project that? So again, I think you scout the guy, You'll you'll look at different intangibles and the tangibles and you think, does he have a chance? Does he have a chance. I don't think when you look at him, you're thinking, well, he's gonna be our starter next year. But that's what they're in right now, and certainly the Red Blacks exhausted. I think possibilities of maybe bringing back a guy with more

experience. There was contact with the agent for McLeod Bethel Thompson. I'm sure they reached out to a couple other teams in the league that you maybe check on the availability of some of the guys, maybe some backups, but ultimately a guy like Bethel McCloud Thompson is not willing, at least at this time

to come North. So when you when you cross that one off the list, um, you you go down the list and we have two new two new quarterbacks, one of them who was in training camp Jake don Away with the Red Blacks, and another who made it through training camp with the Winnipeg Boo Blumbers before I mean cut. So, um, we've got two new faces here. And Nick Arbuckle, who started the year as our who was our starter, is a backup right now. So it's just weird how how

things have changed so much. Where through the first a few games it was like, oh, well, yeah, but Jeremiah could be back next week. Jeremiah could be back next week, and there was that anticipation and you talked about kind of you know, the taking you to the promised land. He was you know, it didn't matter what their record was Jeremiah was coming back and that's the unfortunately that ended less, you know, really very fairly

early in his first game back. Yeah, and the macau things weird because obviously this week it came out, you know, he's beneficial released from the Breakers, and I think that's a formality to kind of so he can at least entertain um, you know, kind of NFL. And I think he's three games away from earning his pension there, which I think is probably a driving forrest for all of that. So if he doesn't come in right now, you know, we have Crumb and then who is the other one?

Tyrell? Right? Who is the other quarterback? Signed? The two on there? Like, is there enough here to kind of get this going well? I think they'd like to develop pay as they call him, uh uh. They'd like to develop him probably as a short yardage quarterback because of his ability to run. And uh, I mean with Jake Jake Dunaway again, I think a guy they liked in training camp. There was no room with four quarterbacks on the roster to keep him and a guy that they bring back

knowing that he knows the playbook of it. He was here for a couple of months, maybe a month and a half, but but it's there's a lot of inexperience on the roster, and the one guy they have with experience, they're not willing again, They're willing to go with a guy who's never started a game in the CFL ahead of him. So you know, let that speak volumes is there. You know, we we had just kind of has solved the home losing curse for Ottama, right, we still have going

on the Elks one. And then it was amazing to me as well they said Saskatchewan had like a seven game home Elsia stream. I'm like, what is without? Like, how do you have how do you have three home

Elisian streaks in the Nineteam League? But uh, Ottawa wins with with Tyrelle or Tyree, sorry with Tyree. And then you know, like we're getting a little bit of momentum now Missouri all this, I mean, can they afford to just uh march this out and kind of way if McLoud comes, Like, I mean, how do you keep like how does Ottawood keep the faith here with the fan base? Well? Uh win football games? I mean the thing in my mind they were going into the win against Edington at

home. A couple of weeks ago, they had lost twenty four of twenty six games at home. I don't know how that's possible. As bad a football team as you, you know, I could could I assemble a bunch of guys to bring a gun of a bunch of guys in and and put give them a defensive, decent offensive line, and give them a quarterback and at least maybe win a game or two. I don't understand how it could happen. So they beat vanton, They're still they still lost twenty four,

they lost twenty seven at home. It's not good they play. They played home Saturday against the Winnipeg Blue Umbers three times. They've been in the last

three Great Cups. Not easy. They've got some tough games coming up, and if they can get through this stretch they play the tie Cats again, you're you're if you're going to win games, you really got to win against your division opponents, because that they've proven back when they won the Great Cup in twenty sixteen, they had an eight nine and one record in the regular season. You just have to make the playoffs and be playing your best football

and you have a chance. So can they win with Dustin Crumb. Sure. The I mean they've got the special teams unit is well coached and they're good. The defense has been playing much better, and they're getting back some key key players in the next couple of weeks coming off the six game injured list, So if they can stay, I don't want to lose anybody else in the next game or two, but they've got some key players coming back

soon. Do you think long term McCleod is the plan here, whether it's hey, let's get through Labor Day and then kind of figure it out, well, I think they'd like to see Dustin Crumb succeed. Um. Certainly there'll be savings, pretty big savings with with Jeremiah being lost for the right rest of the season. I mean that so the salary cap, there's a lot of salary cap relief there. Would they like to see McLeod Bethel Thompson,

Sure, but I don't think they want him. I don't think they're gonna wait until mid September, really October again him, because we're talking about a guy coming in learning a new system, developing, kind of getting in

sync with his receivers. So you know that that ship is going to pass at some point soon, and it doesn't seem like he's too willing to come up for a variety of reasons in and that's fine, but I think right now they've got to hope that that Dustin Crum can can go out there and as they as I think it's been said about other quarterbacks, just manage, manage to the game, don't make mistakes, let your your your playmakers make plays, and you need really really good defense to make that old work.

I just wonder, and I know that there was you know, the reports, you know when when he left the argos and okay, they were going to go with Chack Kelly, and kind of everyone was sure up at that point because even right at the way I had Neil Mazzoli and everything else, and like, you know, he got paid, you know, fifty five thousand. I think they do the playoff win bonuses in the USFL. But you know, like if you know, he lost in the playoff game and

not a good game. I don't know how much of the USFL you covered, but I mean they kind of got their asses beat there going into the playoffs and it wasn't particularly close against Birmingham, and I don't know in retrospect, if do I take six months off and just spend time with my wife and kid and not play football in the USFL, And I don't know if this works out him going to the NFL, or you know, do I just sit and then I get a call here and pick up the phone and

take the money now, Like I don't know if the us AL was world like at the NFL doesn't pan out, you know, does McLeod just take the year off and wait for this call? Like I don't know if it was worth him getting beat up for eleven twelve weeks to get to this point. I don't know. Yeah, Well, I mean let's remember as well, it's not like McLeod is like the second Coming, Like he was a pretty good quarterback. But you know what, I think he almost lost his

job in Toronto last year. Is he better than what they have? Well, he's got more experience. He had a lot of passing yards, and I think he is a pretty good He's a bit of a gun slinging quarterback, takes risks, but he has a lot of success doing that. I'm just saying, yeah, he's he's certainly not the best quarterback in the CFL, and is he Ottawa's best option right now? Sure he would be, but you know what again, Yeah he's a he's a pretty good quarterback.

I'm just not sure that that. Maybe he's the guy you would want to say, Well, he's the messiah, he's gonna lead us, he's the guy. Yeah, we'll see that's hot. Takes well. Well, now, if he signs here and he listens to this, he's gonna be like, I heard what you heard? What you said about me? Hey, he's afraid. He's been on the show's friends. I think he's a good quarterback. My point is, I don't know whether expectations should be well, look, we signed him all of a sudden, we're, you know,

from being maybe a decent team to being a really really good team. I don't know if he can bring that team to another level. Maybe he can. Again, I think he's played pretty well. I don't if he's listening. McLeod, I love you. I mean he's non Nick Harbuckle. I mean you can't remember that. I remember like two years ago we were getting into all this coverage like, oh, like Nick Harbuckle got traded, Like that was like the big stories, like a Harbuckles on the move or he's

going to evidend in terms of you know, Bob Dyce here. First, you know, he's got his you know, came in last year and all that, he came onto our show during all the media day stuff and kind of the offseason, like how how do you gauge him here being able to kind of manage way way this ship through all this Well, I mean, it's not easy when you're losing football games. But again they're they're one in

three. Um, certainly if they if they look at the four games, it's always I think a lot in the CFL, it's often it often turns on one or two plays. And and certainly of all of all their four football games probably all winnable. It's not like they were blown out, so it could be much different than one in three they lost to Hamilton last week. He was very winnable. So, um, I think Bob Dice is a very fiery, emotional coach. And I think, as the players have

said, they would go through a wall for the guy. So I think he's got his guys fired up. And part of that emotion I think is built off you know, we here, we've got more adversity. Let's go show everybody what we can do. And it's certainly a tough test when the Winnipeg Blue Bombers are lining up opposite you in your next game. But they've got to respond, and they've got to come out on Saturday with some emotion and in front of your home fans. You've got to do something early.

You've got to put some points up, get your fans engaged, get them into the game. Because if you're fans hanging their heads right now, probably going, oh no, we've we've lost Jeremiah, you know we have no chance. So give them hope. That's what you want to do when you're playing it at home, is give your fans hope. If you think about it. You know Ottawa, you know on the road lost, you know

their starting quarterback and you know horrific fashion. I mean just you know, you see this go down and they were two yards away from at least tieing the game there at the end of the game, you know, I mean, you can't write. And I was telling I showed Dorothy because she was I was watching the game, like I said, I'm on, you know, record whatever, and I said, you gotta come watch this because I said, you know, in the in the rudy version of this movie.

Right, he gets the touchdown, right, he gets tackled and flies into the end zone. Then they you know, they tie the game or win the game. And it's obviously not real life at sports, but to think that they came that close, even with everything in that game, to be two yards away from winning and from time the game is pretty remarkable. Well, I mean, you see the field you're watching, you watch from up above, and you can see everything opening up and you can see this like

this, there's a lot of opening in front of him. He makes a decision to run and I don't know if he had receivers open or not, but he makes a decision to run and you see him nearing the end zone and you're thinking he's gonna make it, and you're right, like what an ending. You still got to score the two points and then the game maybe

goes into overtime. But wow, like Dustin Crum who had already scored a touchdown earlier in the game, like all of a sudden, if he makes that runs into the end zone, somehow they tie the game and then and then win it. Like we're it's a different scenario we're talking about Dustin Crumb being the next great thing because all of a sudden he's done what he did. We can and then you'll put the three turnovers behind you and say, man, this guy's he's gonna be great. I think he could be good.

But it's it. You don't often see quarterbacks emerge that quickly and assent to that next level. It takes knowledge, It takes experience, especially when you're coming into a game where you've got you've got the waggle and the wider field and the longer field, and you've got a twelfth defensive player. There are a lot of things to adjust to and and and we'll see. I mean, I hope Dustin, as I said, he's a smart guy. So we'll see what happens Saturday. I'm meeting my mic here. My neighbor

has decided to I guess that Jackhammer has Pattio or something here. We'll see how that comes in. Before I get out of here. You you talk to Winnipeg, hope. I understand that at home coming out strong, But this is a pretty heavy, pretty heavy burden that Ottawa has here this this coming weekend. Yeah, and I never want to downplay what Winnipeg has done it they've been they've been the best team in the CFL for now for three

years. They've gotten well where they lost the great up last year. So I guess theoretically you could save Toronto is the best team, but wouldn't take it. Has been a really, really good football team, and there's still a really good football team, but they haven't looked, I think, especially offensively, they haven't looked in twenty twenty three like the Winnipeg Blue Bombers of the past couple of years. And maybe that's just right. Maybe maybe that's

something that they're working out some kinks there. But a lot of their key players are a year older, and in general, when guys get into their thirties and they get a year older, the level of performance the era wasn't necessarily pointing up. And I think a lot of their players are still playing in an extremely high level. But you gotta wonder again, a lot of

their key performers on the other side of thirty. So at some point, at some point, these guys are gonna I'm not gonna say they're gonna lose it, but but maybe you'll lose a bit of an edge and other other players catch up to you. Again. It's it's hard to argue with this success that football team has had over a sustained period of time. Um, it's it's been phenomenal, um. But all of a sudden you're seeing other teams like the BC Lions, um, showing that maybe it's maybe it's time

for a change at the top. It's I like that that we just got to wait for him to get old and die and then we'll be the can't be when a thing well, yeah, yeah, yeah you might you might have to wait for that. Yeah, last thing for me here, Like I said, this jack hammer is horrendous. I gotta get move inside here for my next interview. Um. In terms of you were talking with the

dustin crime and like it could be whatever you know. Here, we've seen Jake Mayer kind of be presumed to be the guy in Calgary and he's been in the system and had years and now he comes in this year and he's kind of pooh pooh right now. I think at least if you wanted to talk to the round, Ryan Valentine's for the world like not doing great.

So I don't know. I mean, there's a lot of pressure with Dustin and it's a really steep learning curve to come in here, especially now, like you said, in basically a second year, which was supposed to be a glorified training camp. It is tough. It's it's tough for a guy who's been in the league for four or five years when you're asked to be the guy, when you're asked to take the starting reps and really you put

the team on your your offensive hopes at least on your shoulders. And sometimes it's not even just the technique and all that technical stuff, it's the weight of being the guy. And when I say that, yea, yeah, you're gonna yeah. These guys have been the guy and probably in high school and at college, but NFL too it to be the guy. You're not holding the clipboard anymore. To be the guy. There there are special people

that can do it, and the CFL is in the NFL. Um these are guys that, for whatever reason, are not in the NFL right now, so coming up learning again, they're learning a new game. So you look around the league, where who's the next great young thing. I don't know. I mean, it's not like a few years ago when we had Mike Riley and Bow and Zach Kilos and Jeremiah Um But they got to develop somewhere. They got to develop somewhere and somehow, So we'll see maybe a

guy like Jake Mayer. Uh, maybe Taylor Cornelius finds it. Maybe Dustin Crumb finds it. Dustin Crumb the next grade CFO quarterback and in thirty years let me talk in that. Well, remember you heard it here first, right, I'm giving you the scoop. That's this guy. Hey, I tried to get Mayor I ted last year, so I want to get Mayor on because I want to. I want to hitch my wagon too that you know, hitch my ride in that wagon. And now it's we'll see,

we'll see. Well, Tim, I appreciate it. Hopefully we'll try to get you on again this season here. But you know, it's quite a time to be a beat writer for the outworld Red Blacks. I mean, it's a lot of excitement going on. As bad, there's not a lot of there's not a lot of things to write about. Would you like me to call like the cops and have the guy with the jack ammer taken away? Well, it's because it's so quiet in this yard. I mean,

that's why I can seat here all day and record. But literally it's like not my next door neighbor, but it's the one behind. I don't know them as well, so I can't. I might scream at them here. So well, hopefully he's not bringing the jackquant hammer over and starting to put it into your house or anything. That's good. Tim Vans out of a side. Appreciate it, Good luck with everything. Busy times there, stay say thanks, good catching up, take care, huge special thanks to all

four of our guests coming on today. Really appreciate Rustilio's time. Really appreciate X League Offices for working to make that interview happen. Means a lot. You know, we were trying to wanted did you SHOWCASEE talk last year and I know there was a lot of league building happening, So really appreciate making

the time now talking to XFL offseason and kind of what's going on. I appreciate the transparency, Like I told Russ on the interview with the XFL, with him and Doug Whaley talking, you know, what is our thought process here? Why are we doing things the way that we are? I think that that is refreshing for fans of a certain spring football leagues, so really

appreciate coming on special. Thanks again to Pat Rofino coming on first hand accounts sharing his time in Saint Louis. Dave Naylor as always for making the time. I really appreciate that. As busy as he is, I'm making videos about the Edmonton alex and covering everything CFL, running crazy. If he's not on the panels everything else, Dave's doing a busy guy. And then Tim Bayin's a longtime friend of the show. Really appreciate Tim taking the time.

That will do it for me today. Like I said, it off the top. Busy week next week and then we're going into vacation, so we will figure it out. Not quite sure the plan yet, probably talking CFL Jason Hussey and how I will be back on Mondays as normal doing the CFL CFL weekend recaps, but everything else kind of d TVD but I will figure that out. Keep you guys posted, like I said, like can subscribe. Appreciate all your guys to support. We'll see you next time. Thanks