As you may know, Ric Serritella hosts a daily show on the business of the game called The State of Football on Sports Illustrated’s Twitch channel. Well, except for July. He took this month off, which gave my friend Bo Marchionte and myself a chance to co-host this week.
We had an incredible lineup of guest this week and they each had incredible contributions. Here are some of the highlights from the first three days of this week’s shows.
NEC Assistant Commissioner Ralph Ventre on the lack of national leadership on NIL: “I’m not a huge fan, on a personal level, of a huge central government, but in this case I actually think the federal government could do us all a favor if they passed some kind of national legislation for NIL.”
Evan Brennan of UA Sports on parents’ expectations regarding NIL and how lucrative it could be. “It probably coalesces with how many agents are talking to them. The more agents that are blowing them up and making giant promises, the more ridiculous they get, but if they haven’t been (popular with agents), they’re actually quite reasonable.”
Nick Underhill of New Orleans Football on an offseason change one of the Saints’ QBs made: “For Taysom’s part, he thinks (his tendency to hold the football too long) was something mechanical with his feet. He didn’t have his feet pointed the right way, and then it would take an extra hitch to get set up to throw the ball, once he saw it, so that’s what he’s been working on this offseason.”
Vanguard Sports Group’s Eugene Lee on the firm’s cautious approach to NIL generally and to their first NIL client, Texas A&M’s Jalen Wydermyer, specifically: “We’re being very cognizant not to give away long-term leverage on deals. We’re being very careful not to dilute a player’s brand. We don’t want players to be billboards.”
Former NFL offensive lineman and prospective NFL agent Jeremiah Sirles on why people who played his position are different (in a good way): “As a former offensive lineman, we’re all kinda similar. I’ve said it for a long time: you can pick up an offensive lineman from pretty much any team and plug them into an o-line room and they’re probably going to, eventually, like, within the first five days, fit in.”
Former NFL executive Blake Beddingfield on NFL vaccination protocols: “I know of people who can’t take vaccines because it harms them physically. The NFL needs to be able to hear that and take each individual situation on its own merit. . . You’re separating the players and the league even more than it has to be.”
Octagon Football’s Murphy McGuire on taking the NFLPA exam in 2015, when it got tremendously harder: “When I went in there, I was like, ‘this is a little more difficult than they said it was gonna be.’ Little did we know that they changed the format for that year and our pass rate was like . . . wasn’t that the lowest pass rate it’s ever been, because nobody knew it was coming? It was like 40 percent or something. It was crazy.”
Former NFL executive Randy Mueller on how he headed off Michael Thomas situations during his days as a GM: “It’s a vital part of being a GM and running a franchise . . . One of my first meetings is always, when one season ends, I want to sit down with the medical people, first and foremost, and assess our whole roster and come up with pros and cons and come up with a plan for each guy because injuries are a giant factor with every player on your team, and they’re a giant factor with team-building, itself.”
Catapult Leadership’s Jason Montanez on the biggest mistake people make when interviewing for NFL, college, or any other job: “I think the most common mistake that people make is they don’t prepare enough. They don’t really get to know the job that they’re going for. I think you need to put in a substantial amount of research to get to know the job, to get to know who you’re interviewing with, who the hiring manager is, and really get a sense of what the job entails that you’re interviewing for.”
To check out the best of Thursday’s and Friday’s shows, check out the Friday Wrap, which comes out at 7:30 p.m. ET. Register for it here.
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