LISTEN | Bob Wischusen and Marty Lyons Talk COVID-19 and Jets Draft (4/10)

But I'm doing well, you know. I get up every morning, I have an hour conference call with the people who from the Lantech group and make sure that we're trying to do as best as possible for all our employees. Then I'll go out and walk anywhere from four to seven miles, and I keep track of how many days I've been out of the office because I try to walk every day, so I know I've been out twenty

three days. So always well, you know, and it gives you time to reflect, and every time they turn the TV on, you get a whole new appreciation aition for the doctors and the nurses and the volunteers and everybody is on the front line. Uh going out there trying to do the best that they can to protect us. And I think if all of us can do the best that we can by staying at home and staying you know, away from other individuals and we're doing our party, that's all you can do right now as we make

it through the difficult time. Four to seven miles, yeah, forty seven miles a day, and you know, I just uh started walking and all of a sudden, you know, I went from two miles to four miles to six miles and you just keep walking. It's one of those things that you know, as long as you can keep counting, and I count in paces of fifty and then I'll go back to one, and you know, I just keep the legs moving. You're like the forest gump of walking. Yeah, you know I might be, but it's a it's a

what else am I gonna do? You know, you've got to find something about I started reading a couple of books, and then you start to watch different shows on the TV. And I always find myself tuning into you know, Fox News or CNN, and you jump back and forth, and you know, you can get depressed, but I I have to commend that you know, Governor Cuomo and Governor Murphy have done an excellent job trying to keep the people of are of New York and the people of New

Jersey safe. I have to commend them. Yeah. Great, they've done a great job. And I mean I played golf with you. When you play golf, you welcome minimum of nine miles with where you hit it. So it's probably right about you know. I mean yeah, but it wouldn't be nice if you give me a mulligan every now

and then on a t shot. That would be helpful. Yeah, Long and Wrong is your nickname for a reason, you know what, you know, it is amazing, and I'm sure Jet fans and anybody listen to this podcast, everyone's kind of going through the same thing. You know. I we're not in prison, but it kind of feels like that, I I kind of compared to what everyone's going through right now, it's almost like it's a medium security prison, like you're allowed to walk around outside and maybe visit

with people who are twenty feet away. But you know, it's just it's it's unbelievable not being able to live your life, and on top of that, so slow and fast time goes there's that unbelievable movie that people haven't seen at the movie in the Name of the Father with Daniel day Lewis. He plays that character Jerry Conlin, who was wrongly convicted of a crime and spent about twenty years in jail. And there's this one scene where he's talking about kind of the concept of time and

it's like, drip, drip, drip. You like, can't believe how long it takes for five or ten minutes to go by, and all of a sudden, you blink and years have gone by. It's just we're all kind of in that in our own weird way right now. I can't believe we've been doing this for a month, you know, it was it was almost exactly a month ago. I was in Kansas City at the Big Twall basketball tournament and they canceled it and sent us home. And now a month later, we're still in this same cycle of having

to sit home. And I guess you're right to our part. But week based at least the numbers that the governors are talking about in both of our two states, and we're the two hardest hit states in the country right now, Um,

we're having an impact we're definitely having a positive impact. Yeah, you know what, Bobby gives you a chance to reflect and just realize how fortunate we really are, both you and I to be doing what we're doing doing it, you know, be associated with the New York Jets, and you kind of look back and say, wow, where did

nineteen years go? And and all of a sudden, you know what, reality sets in that all these people dying from coronavirus or dying alone, and you think about how sad that is, and you think about a guy that we have worked with for nineteen years, Dave Shapiro. He lost his father and mother there within seven days of losing one another. I mean that, and you don't have a chance to have awake, you don't have a chance to have a funeral, and there's no real closure because

you never had a chance to say goodbye. And that's the hard part that this deadly diseases doing to every one of us. So I think for all of us staying at home, we need to take time to reflect and realize, you know, just how fortunate we are and realize that all the gifts that we have around us, uh use them to the best of our abilities. Yeah, I was you I was gonna complain about being stuck in my house. But you know, you're good at that

making me feel like a jerk. It's kind of your specialty, Mr Party, Mr Foundation, And I'm the idiot that that's another is you know what we've already We've already canceled three, maybe four fundraisers, and you know, if I can't get get the golf tournament in in the second Monday in July and foundation, I'm going to be in trouble. You know, we're a mom and pops shop. At last year we were a little short on bringing in money and started

January we had eighty one kids in the pipeline. And with all these you know, charity events being canceled, I think I'm just like every other nonprofit. Everybody's struggling at this point. And you know, if I can't get that big golf tournament off in July, then we're gonna have some problems. Well, we will use the jets and my vehicle and your vehicle to get the word out there. If that's the case of try and draw. Yeah, I actually, uh just did kind of spur of the moment go

fund me and if Jet fans are out there. You can go on go fund me and search my name and you'll find it. I mean, I was able to raise about seven thousand dollars and I don't know, seventy two hours to bring food to area hospitals. And it's easy, you know. I mean, people donate and then you're able to kind of spend the money around and go to

some local restaurants. It's a win win because the restaurant gets some take out orders, which of course that's the only thing that a lot of member subsisting on right now. And I'm able to bring that up to some area hospitals, and uh, I guess the good time to bring in our surprise guests by the way, because um, I'm married to her. My wife, Julie is sitting right here, and she about three weeks ago decided as a registered nurse that she was frustrated because she felt like she wasn't

doing anything. And so all right, leaning here, honey him already. I just miss you. I love you, I love Christine, and um, I love the Jets, and I'm really happy to be here with Bobby. This is like an exciting event right now. We've just been kind of like here every night looking at each other and decided what kids yell at? And you know what movie are we gonna watch? And you know, now we have events. We're here with

you and I'm so glad. Yeah. Like three weeks ago, you know, I'm sitting with Bobby, We're walking the news and UM saying I've got to do something. I'm a registered nurse. But um, about five years ago, I opened a performing arts studio in scotch Plains, New Jersey with my good good friend, UM Stagecraft Studio. It's spectacular, we love it. Um, but that's what I've been doing. And I said, you know, I really need to help now.

I feel I kind of feel like a jerk. I'm like in home, in my nice safe house while my other fellow nurses and healthcare professionals are out on the front lines. And UM, I ended up seeing my other great friend, Kathleen Ollen and jet fan herself and she's also registered nurse. I saw her in the shop right and she said, Juel, you we gotta. I got in touch with UM the Medical Reserve Corps and UH for our county, and UM, she hooked me up with this

lovely woman. Her name is lovely Randall and the next thing I knew about two days later, we were at the Kane University COVID nineteen testing site, which they had one week to put together. The National Guard in our county officials put this together and now it's become the gold standard of the of the entire state. They have other people from other counties coming to see what we've done and it's it's unbelievable. I was going to say, I feel um proud to be a part of it.

It's a very safe and well coporation. Last yesterday we saw five hundred patients. I my team of three nurses saw three uh one hundred patients. UM, it's a very well run system. Basically, the cars pull up after getting a health screen UM through a phone call the day before, and then they are told to show up. They get registered at the front of the line. UH. They basically match up their ID and their slipped to get the test. It's tucked into their windshield. They get an X made

out of soap on the car window. That's UH the designated person to receive the test. And they wind through this line and then the National guardsmen send them into one of the tents and We're in the tent and it's a team of three nurses and we communicate with the patients holding up signs because we don't want them opening their window. If they don't have to, their windows are closed of the time. We swab them and out they go. They get the results in about three days.

It's a very efficient system. But at the same time, the whole thing is surreal. Every day and we're out there, we're looking at each other saying, I cannot believe we're here. This is absolutely bizarre. We're in a testing site. It's like being in a science fiction movie. We are well protected, we are in full ppe. Our safety is there, you know, the natural guard in the county. That is their main focus is our safety. And uh, it's been going well. I'm proud to be a part of it. I'm humble

to be a part of it. I can't believe they put it together so quickly and so efficiently. It's smarty, you're you're like the foundation. So we both felt guilty. We were sitting here like schlunkers. So I had to start to go funding and she had to go to the drive up testing site. And now we're both volunteering and I don't know. I guess we all feel like we're doing our part to trying to get through this. You know what, Julie, what was the what was Bob's

first reaction? Because you're now you're putting yourself in harm's way with the beautiful family that you guys have. I commend you for doing that, and you know it doesn't surprise me that you're doing it. But what was Bob's first reaction when you said, hey you he wasn't happy? Yeah, yeah, yes, I can understand that. My friend. Yeah, he was with me when I saw my girlfriend Kathleen in the in the shop, right and we hatched this plan and he was like he made He kept looking at Kathleen. He

was like, shut up, Kathleen. Yeah, thanks a lot, Kathleen. Yeah great, Okay, let's go. We gotta go get more or more serial let's go. And you know, when he was kidding, because obviously I think he knew that it was gonna I was I was kind of kidding, yeah, kind of kidd And I swear, like, you know what, Julie, when your heart opened up when that earthquake happened back in two thousand and ten over in Haiti. He tried to talk Bob into maybe adopting some baby from over there. So,

like I said, what happened. I mean, I'm not completely that really just you know, makes me think of you, because honestly, I didn't go to Haiti on those health missions until you went, you and fired me, and that's why I've been there. Well yeah, but you know what, Julie,

it is. It is inspiring to go over there and see the the type of world that those kids have to grow up into and the environment that they have around in and it just kind of makes you feel good that, you know what, even if you're over there for a day or you know, a couple of days, you know you're making a difference. And when you leave, you you realize that it wasn't You didn't just make a difference for them, You made a difference for yourself.

You come back and you look at everything a little bit differently, and you feel better about it, and you can share that experience with the kids. I'm trying to What I'm trying to do is I want them to feel like good things happen when you're brave. You know. That's like the the thought that I want to try and get across the hint to them. But the thing with Haiti and with the thing that's happening now, what I said to Bobby was that it's um this heightened

sense of all of your feelings. When I'm in Haiti, and as I when I'm in the testing site, You're feeling um, nervous, You're feeling um confused sometimes about what's going to happen next, You're feeling hopeful for the people that you're taking care of, your feeling inspired by the other people that you're working with. You're feeling all of these emotions all at once. And that's how I feel

when I'm in Haiti, and that's how I feel now. Honestly, it's uh and that and that's exhausting that, you know, to be feeling all those emotions um at once, at such a heightened level. And I felt a lot better about it once I saw what they were, you know, strapping them into when they went to this, And that made all the difference when they when they first went, we didn't know and they didn't know what they were walking into. I mean, all right, all right, we're gonna

go volunteer to drive up test things. So Okay, well, we're registered nurses, let's go help. And then they sent me a picture and they've got the face shield on, they've got the full you know, gown on, they've got three or four pairs of gloves on, they're taped in. I mean, they they we actually feel more endangered at the grocery store than I think they feel the testing

site we did. Yeah. Yeah, wait, Julie, being that you're on that front line, how much longer do you think that America is gonna be, you know, running these tests before we can really get back to having a normal day and normal life. Right. Yeah, that's of course the million dollar question. I mean, and that adds to, you know, the confusion and the uncertainty of it. But I mean, I definitely think it's we have a lease another two months,

another two months at least. Yeah, yeah, I mean, I don't know if we're gonna be locked down for another two months, but I think they're gonna be testing people pretty regularly for for the four seeable future. And I hope we don't. But I can't wait for this job to end. Yeah, you to do it, but I can't

wait for it to be over. And this will just be the you know, it's a main parking lot of this beautiful school and I just there and there's no kids, and it's just, you know, it's like just another level of all the weirdness that's going on. Well, I think I speak for a lot of us, a lot of the jet fans, and just two people that maybe you don't hear from every single day. But thank you for what you're doing, and you know, we really do appreciate it.

Make sure that you tell all the doctors and nurses how much we appreciate them, and you know, we'll just keep praying. There's a lot of jet fans at the testing site. There's a lot of jet fans, a lot of jet stickers on the cars, lots of fans. I don't get a Jenny chance to talk to them because I basically am like, okay, open your window, let me

swab get a minute. Yep. And these are these are now and these are now Julie's people in a way that she never expected that they would be, because she legitimately has become a lunatic jet fan over the last uh, you know, twelve to fifteen. You and I've been doing this for eighteen years. I would say the first two or three years that did this, she was, you know, kind of a fan and grew. But by the time we were like three or four years in, I mean

she became a borderline face painter. Like I think she's on that level. I didn't grow up in an NFL house. My dad loved Notre Dame. My brother went to Virginia Tech. I went to the Lenovo. We are college sports people. I didn't have that feeling when Bobby got the job. I was like, that's nice, Sonny, here's some spaghetti and met Paul's good for you. I'm so happy. And now

it's like, uh love that. Well, you know what Julie throw into the mix with Katrina singing the Nashoy anthem the way that she has the last couple of years, that's Christmas present. That's been my Christmas presents for the past two years. Off the most. That's just an unbelievable moment. It's amazing. My you know, Bobby's you know, giving her the thumbs up out the press window and she's down there and that girl, man, she's got some pipes. Yeah,

I wish you to give her the volume. I don't know where the rest of it came from, but I definitely want at least accounted for projections. What she probably doesn't see is seeing Bob wipe his eyes. Yes, well I'm up there, you know, but I've got enough of a buffer that she might not be able to see the full emotion on me. But but I want to. I want to thank my bride for everything that she's doing and for joining us here on the Official Jets Podcast. Julie,

stay safe. I love you, thank you, love you. Marty. We gotta do a little football here because you know, this is a football podcast as well, and the draft is a couple of weeks away, and I mean right now it's our escape to talk about football free agency and who the Jets might take, and sitting there at eleven,

I don't know. I mean from everything that you've read, everything that you've heard, whoever you've talked to, Like, what do you right now, if you had to make your best guess at what you think they are going to do? What do you think it's gonna be? You know what I mean. I'm thinking that they're gonna go with a wide receiver. I know that they've rebuilt the offensive line. They already have four new offensive lineman that they got during the free agency period. I think they got to

give Sam some help on the outside. You've got Paraman coming in, but you still need somebody to compliment him. So I would hope that they would, you know, lean to the offensive side, get a wide receiver. Maybe in the second round you can get an offensive tackle, and then of course you need to get a pure pass rush or you've got to get somebody off the edge that can beat the tackle one on one and without blitzing a lot. So you know, I think that uh,

Joe Douglas has done a fantastic job. He hasn't gone out and opened up the bank and overspent. I think he's bringing in some quality players. There's gonna be good competition at both the offensive line in the middle linebacker position because they got quite a few players in there. And I think if you have that open competition and you fit into the system and you don't make a lot of mental mistakes, and the biggest issue is you've got to stay healthy. I mean, look how many players

the team ended with I R last year. I remember talking to Chris Johnson at the end of the season. I said, Chris, I don't know what it is, but I've never seen this many players on an IR list at the end of the year. Something's not you know what I mean. I know that you know they've ended up with you know whatever, winning six out of the

last eight and ended up with seven wins. If you would have told me at the start of the year, these are the injury these these are the guys who are gonna be out, and here has cumulative how long they'll be out for. I would have thought they would have been a four win maybe a five win team losing all of those guys for the time that they lost them. So I agree. I think they did well

last year to be as competitive as they were. Having said that, um, let me put it this way, because I'm not a hundred percent sure that I agree that they're gonna go with a wide receiver in the first round. I guess I think going with a wide receiver in the first rounds and no brainer if all four of those tackles are all off the board by the time they get to eleven. But let me put it this way. Let's say that their number one tackle is on the board at eleven and their number one wide receiver is

on the board at eleven, they just get lucky. And however they have the tackles graded, their number one guy actually drops to them at eleven, and you still have whoever Jerry Judy or Stedey Lamb or whoever their number one receiver is. Given that, do you still think they would go with a wide receiver or do you think they would take the tackle if the guy they had rats Plot rated highest was available at the level you know,

if Ibban, that's a good question. I think Joe Douglas being an offensive lineman, he made lean a little bit more to get in that fifth offensive lineman in there and try to build, try to build something in front of sam Um. But do you know what you gotta look to and see if Quincy and Noua, if he's going to be back. You know he had that neck

injury last year. If he's back and they the medical staff knows that he's going to be back, I mean that goes into the draft decision that Joe Douglas and the coaching staff have to make also if any so you know they've got a high to they've got two high threes. Because I don't care what anybody says, it's still highway robbery, what they did with the Giants with

Leonard Williams. Oh, I mean the Giants pick is what the fourth pick in the third round, and then they got their pick in the third round in in historically deep wide receiver draft. That's why I I put these

odds on it. I think it's seven that they're gonna take a tackle at number eleven because I think one of those four guys is going to be available, and I still think that that's a glaring need even with what they did bring in George Fantoon, even with the guys that they've signed, unless they pull a stunner in trade for Trent Williams, I think they will have tackles

a major need. So if you feel like tackles a major need and you can get that in the first round and you can still address wide receiver in the second or third round, I think they're gonna take a receiver.

They might take two before the draft is over, but I put it in about seven percent they'll take a tackle, assuming one drops to eleven, about twenty percent that they'll take a receiver because that could definitely play out of the four tackles all go, or if they've got like, you know, whatever, Jerry Judy as the third best player

in the draft, and he drops to eleven. Even if a tackles there, you might say, well, I just I can't not take my third best player, so I'm gonna take him there, and I left ten as an out that let's just say for the sake of argument, like a Kuda or Isaiah Simmons, one of these really tremendous you know, maybe perennial pro bowler defensive players drops to that spot and they also maybe have that player third or fourth overall on their board, and they're just stunned.

I can't believe that guy's there at eleven. You know, you might take that guy too, So I mean, I think all of that is in play, but I you know, I think it just they're gonna have to read what the board brings them at eleven based on what happens in those top ten picks. And you know, unless somehow you've got you know, spy as in every other front office, you top ten are gonna go, and so they're gonna

be I think you kind of a read and react mode. Well, also, Bobby, I was reading today about Jamal Adams and you know, whether the Jets are really going to try to sign them to a long term contractor where is he going to be waved again out there? And maybe there's a team that might want to trade for him. Uh. I think Jamal Adams is one that require I don't know.

This was the trade that was kind of thrown out there hypothetically if the Cowboys were still interested in Jamal Adams, Um, you know, I think they've got the seven pick if memory serves, So would you trade Jamal Adams for the seventeenth pick and maybe the Cowboys number two pick as well? No, I went not enough for two picks. I think if you throw a player in there, then I might consider it. I really think Jamal Adams is you know, certainly he say star player for the Jets, and I think he's

a true leader on that defense. And I think too that he adapted pretty well to Um. You know, Greg Williams, you know, his the defense coordinator, put him in places that he could come up with big plays. Now, can you replace him? I think one thing that you realized last year is that with so many players getting hurt, everybody can be replaced. But when you replace him with somebody with less talent, you're gonna have worse results. So I think that Adams also, Jamal Adams is a cultural

player in your locker room. Like he's just a natural born leader. He's just one of those guys you were that way. I remember watching you and like, you know you you obviously weren't a perennial pro bowler, a Hall of Famer, but you brought equality to the Jets that only the guys in the locker room that were around you,

I think realized that you raw. And Jamal Adams is I mean, Jamal Adams could be a Hall of Fame safety, but Jamal Adams does bring some of what you brought, you know, in a in a way as a leader and as a you know, an emotional kind of um barometer with that team. That that that's hard to replace. That that's an intangible that I'm not sure everybody realizes you're also trying to replace if you get rid of a player like that. Yeah, you're exactly right, Pop, because

you know what, football is a very emotional game. You have to play it with emotion, and you know it's contagious also, and Jamal Adams has a way of bringing out the best of his teammates. He just you know, sometimes he may go over the top a little bit, but that's his personality. UM, So it'll be interesting to see again what Joe Douglas does with that. But again, the communication lines from everything that I'm hearing from the Jets, from you know, Joe Douglas to Adam Gaze, to the

coaching staff and the scouts that they have. Everybody's in one room talking about the players, just not a closed door meeting with just Joe Douglas and his staff and the coach is not having some sort of an input. That's why I think this is going to be a valuable year, and this is the year that you can judge whether Adam Gaye and Joe Douglas and where the future of the Jets are going to go because they're

bringing in their players. Last year they had to coach somebody else's players and unfortunately, you know, going seven and nine, you have to restructure the The NFL team will never be the same as it was last year, is constant changing. I'm excited about it. I'm decided to get to know some of these new faces. You know, you you read about the players coming in and you've built relationship with

players from last year and they're no longer there. And and we've seen a lot of rotation of players over the last nineteen years, but to see Jordan Jenkins get resigned and I I will always really enjoyed watching you know, was James Burgess. They're going to bring him back, so you know, you're excited about, uh seeing what they can do with a whole new roster and making the perfect

example of one of those guys. There's a cultural effect to having him in the locker room that unless you're around Jordan Jenkins and you hear him, you know, you hear him talk yere I was, teammates react to him, you know, you you see the role that he plays from a leadership standpoint on that team, You just you don't totally get it um because I mean, he may not be an All Pro on the field, but there's

a trickle down effect on that defense happening there. There just is well, you know, if Bobby I think he would be an All Pro player if they didn't go seven and nine. You know, Unfortunately, unfortunately a lot of players fly underneath the radar and they're not getting voted into the Pro Bowl because of the team record. Um, so I think Jordan can. He can definitely go out

there and perform like that. And I think if the Jets go maybe eleven and five or ten and six, you'll see him out of Pro Bowl And it will be interesting to see if Avery Williamson can come back. Yea, and yeah, it's it'll be they They should have some pieces on defense this year that they didn't have last year, or at least on the front seven. Hopefully they can stay healthy and hopefully we'll get a chance to do

this again, Marty. So I want Jet fans out there to understand that COVID nineteen has forced the cancelation of some of your foundations biggest fundraisers. So go to the Marty Lyons Foundation and give what you can, because Marty's trying to make these wishes come true for these families and these kids that desperately needs everybody's help. And you know, we just were not able right now to have the events that would normally raise the funds to make these

wishes come true. You can certainly go to go fund me and search my name and hopefully my name will pop up and you can donate some money, um to my go fund me because we are going to continue to deliver food from takeout spots to hospitals in New Jersey and in suburban New York City to get some meals to the front line workers who are fighting this

battle for us UM. And one of the spots actually that I'm delivering food to next Thursday is going to be the testing site where my wife Julie, who joined us earlier on the podcast, will will be there doing the drive up testing. So we're all trying to do our part, Marty and uh and hopefully folks will understand that they need to get to the Marty Lions Foundation website and give some money because this is this is

the time you needed. Well. The big thing too is, you know, let everybody know that uh, you know, I said that on the last podcast that we did, Bob that you know what, when you're sitting there doing enough and take out your roll decks, take out your phone, call somebody that you have and talked to in a

while and just see how they're doing one. You know, that means a great deal to the person on the other end of the phone because you know what, maybe you haven't had a uh conversation with him in any year, two years, three years, maybe you had a little bit of a falling out and you just call him up. You say I was thinking about you today, and you hang up the phone and trust me, you'll feel a lot better that you did it. And on the other end they're gonna be shaking their head, going, wow, I

wish I had done it first. Yep, absolutely well, it was great talk to your partner and hopefully we'll get a chance to do this again soon and Jet fans, stay healthy, stay safe. This is the Official Jets podcast powered by Amazon Web Services, Boba Shows, and Marty Lyons. My thanks to my wife Julius well for joining us, and we'll talk to you next time, and hopefully it will be under better circumstances as we move on through this offseason. Jet fans, stay healthy and stay safe. F