The Season with Peter Schrager: Buccaneers GM Jason Licht

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
The Season with Peter Schrager is a production of the
NFL in partnership with iHeartRadio. What's Up, Everybody, Welcome to
another episode of the Season with Peter Scheger. I am

(00:29):
Peter Schrager. I am joined by my producer and friend
Aaron wang Kaufman, and also Jason English from the iHeartMedia team.

Speaker 2 (00:38):
What forty eight hours for New York Football? I got
to start in New York as we go to the
Sunday Night experience to the Monday night experience and do
a quick snippet on just the total polar opposites of
how you can feel after a loss Jets Sunday Night, Aaron,

(00:58):
They're down seventeen to nothing. They start with this ridiculous
safety and then they get a field goal of seventeen
to five, and then all of a sudden it starts
clicking and Zach Wilson begins out playing Mahomes. I joked
on on Monday mornings Good Morning Football that I thought,
you know, did Mahomes.

Speaker 1 (01:15):
Go out the night before? Like, was Mahomes the one
out with Taylor Swift till three in the morning at
zero bond? Because all of a sudden, Mahomes is throwing
ducks and he's getting intercepted, and if mostly picks that
one off doesn't drop it, who knows what else can happen.
And Zach Wilson starts looking like not only a competent quarterback,
a good quarterback. The first drive in the third quarter

(01:36):
of that Jets Chiefs game, Zack Wilson gets the ball
and takes it right down the field. Therews a couple beautiful,
beautiful passes, a beautiful touch up pass to Almazard, and
then on the two point conversion, looks like Brett Favre
running around with his head cut off and gets the
two point coversion games everything he can to get in there.
Yes there was the fumble, and yes they lost, but
after the game, Mahomes pulls in Zach Wilson is like,

(01:59):
you got it, Like it was like the coolest moment
if you're Zach Wilson, and if you put yourself in
Zach Wilson's use for just a second. For the last
two years, all you read about, all you see is
that you suck, You're awful, you're a bust, you don't
have it. The season's over, You're a punching bag, and

(02:19):
I'm as guilty of this as anyone in the media.
Like you just you take something that's it's almost like
this like rotting carcass and then like you feel the
need to like kick it one more time, and that's
what we do in the media, and that's what it is.
But it was based on the fact that he couldn't
play well and he couldn't do it well. Then suddenly
you have this performance on Sunday night and it's a loss,

(02:41):
and the Jets are one in three and the season
is likely not going anywhere. But you wake up Monday
morning as a jetspan and you feel good. You know,
we've had Hanka's area on the time on the show
countless times, and Hank tells you, like, you know, you
feel like you just you don't deserve nice things. Well, yes,
they lost, but you gotta feel nice things. When Zach
Wilson has this moment of hope, this glimmer of positivity

(03:03):
and if there isn't that controversial holding call and so
it's Gardner who knows, maybe Zach Wilson has an opportunity
to go seventy yards and they win that game and
it's even better, but at the very least Zach Wilson
doesn't have another good game in his career. At least
we saw that this is what the Jets saw in
him and what they saw in practice, and there's some
chants of positivity from Zach Wilson. Meanwhile, less than twenty

(03:28):
four hours later, the Giants game starts, and they've got
a quarterback who makes forty million dollars a year, who
goes out there and throws one of the most inexplicable
pick sixes to Devin Weatherspoon to put the game away.
Also was sacked eleven times behind an offensive line that yes,
is down there left tackle, but has plenty of talent
that they have brought in in the draft and free agency.

(03:50):
I don't know where Darren Waller is in this offense.
I don't know where Paris Campbell has been. You know,
Wandale Robinson's wide open deep. Daniel Jones doesn't see him.
Sterling Shepherd makes good money. I don't see him on
the field. I don't know what Darius Slayton's been up to.
The Giants, big ticket quarterback, first round pick they doubled

(04:10):
down on, and now in hindsight, I'm looking at it
and it's like the Giants didn't weren't dying to pay
Daniel Jones. They did not pick up his fit year option.
He then has this incredible season where they win all
those games by one scorer less, the coaches Coach of
the Year, and yet they weren't rushing to pay him.
It went to the very bitter end. He fired his

(04:31):
agents with a week left in the negotiating process. Daniel
Jones was represented by CAA his entire career. He fires CAAA,
hires athletes first. They take it to the absolute wire
and like in the final minutes before free agency starts,
Daniel Jones signs this crazy not crazy crazy is relatively speaking,
but a big, big contract to be the Giants quarterback.

(04:55):
And now if you look at it, all you know
in the rear view, and it's eight months later, it's like,
what was the alternatives? Like they did? Could they have
rolled the days? Do they end up with Will Levis
as their quarterback? Do they say let's just go with
Tyrod this year? There weren't many alternatives, but they did
pay him that big money. Now they're on the hook
not only for this year, but definitely for next year.

(05:15):
And those two teams are both one and three. The
Giants loan victory over a Cardinals team that had a
miracle comeback. The Jets loan victory was Week one and
what was one of the most wild finishes in NFL
season if you look at it now, they somehow beat
the Bills that look like they're a locomotive and it's

(05:35):
two one in three teams the biggest media market in Aaron.
I feel so much better about the Jets right now
than I do the New York Giants, as a Buffalo
Bills fan who also quote unquote claims is a New
York team, you know, I'm talking about the city when
I talk about New York team from afar. When you
look at the Jets and the Giants, what's your feel?

Speaker 3 (05:55):
So, I mean, going back to Zach Wilson, it did
kind of feel like in the past twelve months he's
lost the job three times because he was the starter,
and then he lost it, and then Rogers came in,
he lost it again, and then he Rogers gets hurt,
and then as soon as that game's over, everyone's just like,
who can the Jets get Can they get Flacco? Can

(06:16):
they It's like it's he just is losing it again
and then to suddenly have this game. Yeah, you're right,
like he's not going to be the news this week,
which is great for him. And as opposed to Jones,
who I don't know. I mean like he didn't, he
didn't do himself any favors, but that line, I mean
he was he would. Yeah, you can't blame that.

Speaker 1 (06:37):
But I pushed back on that, and I know this
is not fair, and I sound like I got something
personal against Daniel Jones. I don't. I was his biggest
cheerleader last year when he was proving the same doubters
that brave Zach you know he was. He did it,
he won, they went to playoffs. They beat a Minnesota
team on the road in the very hostile environment, and
he played great. I am watching on Sunday on my

(06:57):
little phone on the red Zone YouTube, which has been fantastic,
if I can. The Steelers defense, which suffocated everybody the
last few weeks and was absolutely dominant the previous week.
In a Sunday night game against the Raiders, I'm watching CJ.
Stroud behind an offensive line that doesn't have Howard, that

(07:18):
doesn't have Tunzel, that is down four starters, and CJ
Stroud looks like Dan Marino throwing the ball to Nico
Collins in Tank Dell and I'm like, all right, I
know he's a number two overall pick and you expect
that someone to be like, don't tell me about the
offensive line, Like figure this out. The Giants had eleven
days to prepare for this game. They got blown out
by the Niners on the road. Fine, you know whatever,
that's okay, No Saquon no Andrew Tomas. Eleven days to

(07:41):
prepare for the Seattle Seahawks, who, by the way, Andy
Dalton sliced up last week. I mean Andy Dalton walked
in there with Carolina winless team and put up a
ton of yards and looked fine against Seattle. Suddenly the
Seattle defenses of Steel Curtain or the Legion of Boom,
and with you know, eleven days to prepare for that
Seattle defense, the Giants could not do anything on offense.

(08:04):
I'm sorry if this sounds very New York folk and
your listener of the season and you're like, guys, there's
more teams. It's just two one in three teams, two
very different feels. Can I go through story time for
a little bit on what my Sunday was like, yeah,
let's go, all right if heelsen this podcast. You know,
I travel quite a bit for the NFL during the
season and the season with Peter Schreger, but it's sometimes

(08:26):
the season of Peter Schreger. And that's because this is
my podcast and we can do what we want. iHeart
in the NFL said, tell the stories that we don't know. Well,
I'll give you a story. I had a really cool
Sunday and this is one of those pinch me moments
where I'm like, I'm actually paid to do this. I
am a very lucky guy. Sunday I usually travel from

(08:47):
on a Saturday morning from New York to Los Angeles
and do the Fox NFL kickoff show in studio. I
got a special exemption this weekend because the Eagles, the
defending NFC champions, were undefeated. They only have two home
one o'clock games this entire season. Is that not nuts?

(09:08):
Eagles fans only get to two to one o'clock games
out of all their home games, six of them are
either four o'clock Thursday night, Sunday night, or Monday night.
So with that in mind, I reached out to the
Fox NFL folks and said, hey, this could be a
cool opportunity. I'm never going to get a chance to
do Eagles this year from Philly. I can take a

(09:30):
train that can drive down whatever. Let me get the
one opportunity to interview the head coach before the game
where we can do it on the pregame show. Now,
of course the Eagles have to approve that. Nick Sirianni
has to say, sure, I don't mind seconds before kickoff
talking to you and doing three questions. Fortunately enough, the
producers at Fox, the executives at Fox who are great,
We're like, that's perfect because we're doing Commanders Eagles talk.

(09:51):
Why don't we use that as our lift off point.
You'll be there, you'll get a feel for it. You
can do that game. So I go to Philly early
Sunday and I'm there in the bowels and I got
to experience game day in Philly, which was awesome. This
was an amazing atmosphere, and Nick Sirianni was cool enough
to do an interview. I talked about what they've got
going on. I talked about Philly's fan base and how

(10:13):
they've been rallying around this team. But I also talked
about with him the fact that the Commanders beat the
Eagles last year and it was Taylor Heinicke, but it
was the only regular season game that Jalen Hurts lost.
And Sirianni was awesome in the interview, and he was
really honest. He's like, we do not overlook anybody, but
Washington is a divisional opponent and they have given us

(10:35):
some really good fights the last few years. We will
not be overlooking this, sure enough. I do the interview.
It's great. I get to roam the field, and here
are some of the people I spoke to off camera
for extended amounts of time. I got to talk to
Howie Roseman, the GM of the Eagles, and we had
a very candid conversation about the selections of not only
Jalen Carter, but Nolan Smith and Kyrie Ringo, who were

(10:57):
from Georgia, what that connection was like, and how he
made about those picks. Very interesting talk from how I
then had a good chat with their defense of line
coach Jeremiah Washburn, who has been there and was in
Detroit before this. Jeremiah, I don't know if he would
be comfortable with me saying it. So here we are.
I'm going to say it anyway. I said, Uh, what

(11:18):
do you see in Jalen Carter? He's like, this dude
is an absolute bohemo. This guy is the real deal.
And he said Fletcher Cox said it best. And I
don't know if he said it publicly or if he
said it just to Jeremiah said anything he goes, Fletcher
Cox said it best. I'm like, what if Fletch have
to say? He says. Fletcher Cock says that Jalen Carter
wakes up and he gets out of bed and he

(11:41):
looks to what ass what? I was like, Ah, if
you watch him in warmups like I remember, and now
obviously he's in the headlines for the reasons. I remember
Chandler Jones during warm ups when he was with the
Patriots Ones and I had to take a video and
I put it on Twitter. I'm like, this guy's just
just just it's a different speed and like it's and

(12:03):
Aaron Donald. I get to watch him pregame who And
this is me as a sportswriter slash podcaster trying to
imitate move. If you're watching on video, I'm doing that.
And if you're listening to the audio, the who is
me like doing Jalen Carter was destroying tackling dummies for
the end. I'm like, oh, so, like, I get that
experience and you're on the game. I get that on
the field. Then I went to the Washington side and

(12:24):
I talked to Jason right there president for a bit
and just about the new blood there, and it was
really cool. I love being at games. I love being
at prega and then a game breaks out and it's
absolutely awesome. The Washington Commanders were not scared of the
Philadelphia Eagles. They had not a flicker of hesitation when
they went in there. They scored on their opening drive,
they scored on their second drive, like they came right

(12:45):
down the field, and they tested Philly. Philly comes out
with the win. They're four and oh. They don't apologize
for anything. But to get a field for both teams
was huge for me. But I wasn't done, Aaron, No,
I wasn't done. I reached out to the Jets earlier
in the week and I said, I'm not in Los
Angeles doing the pregame show. I'm actually in Philadelphia. That

(13:05):
game should around three thirty four o'clock. If I get
on my horse, I can make it to Jets Chiefs,
which felt like more than just a football game. It
felt like a pop culture moment because of obvious reasons
of who was in the building. I was there to
get a feel for the defending champions, the Chiefs, but
also to see what the Jets had left in the tank.

(13:26):
And if I happened to end up with Taylor Swift
and Ryan Reynolds and Hugh Jackman and you name who,
and if Blake Lively wants to celebrate with me, that's fine.
I would have been Okay, I wouldn't. I don't want
to be the story. But if I happened to be
the story, then.

Speaker 4 (13:41):
So be it.

Speaker 1 (13:41):
Right. Well, I didn't see any of those people, but
I got on my horse. I get to the game. Pregame,
Jets are cool enough to credential me. I have a
press box seat, Like, I'm excited, I'll be there pregame.
I walk on the field and I'm just walking around
and you know, one of our guests and our friends
in my Brooklyn homie, Paul Rudd is there with his
entire family, and Paul's like, come over here. I'm like, eh,

(14:02):
I don't wanna. All right, he's over there on the
Chiefs sideline there, go over there, say hi to him
and Brett Veach, the GM and the Chiefs is there.
We're talking for twenty minutes, Paul, his son, Jack, Me,
Brett Veach, We're all talking about all the different players
on the Chiefs, not Mahomes and Kelsey, but like what
Trent McDuffie has done this year to make him one
of an elite corners, What George carl Laftis has done,

(14:24):
and what kind of student car Laftis is. Carlaftis is
one of these guys that Veach was like, he's like
the teacher's pet. He is in there every morning talking
to our defensive line coach. He's got film, he's trying
to do the work. The message in Kansas City is
it can't just be Mahomes and Kelsey. These other guys
have to step up. And if you watch that game,
it was Pachaco, it was Noah Gray, it was Willie Gay,

(14:46):
it was younger players stepping up because Mahomes did not
seem to have the Mahomes game until the very end
where he pulls it out. But as I'm walking, I
get a text from someone on the Jets, not a player,
not a coach, someone else, an executive type person, and
they reach out. I don't want to give their name
because if you give their name, you're revealing your sources
in this one. Hey, I see you over on the

(15:08):
chief sideline. Come say hello real quick. So I make
my way over to the Jets area and I'm on
the sidelines, but I'm not trying to come too close
to the team because it's before the game, and you know,
I don't have all access in this situation. And as
I'm doing that, I get a little hey, see who's here?
And I looked to my right and he's got a
little smirk on his face. What's up, buddy? Aaron Rodgers

(15:32):
Rogers on the crutches on sidelines. We talked briefly. Didn't
get into the timetable, if you will, but I will
say this, good spirits moving on those crutches. I was
told this would be four weeks or five weeks before
he can be off that scooter. He's on crutches, there's
no boot, He's moving and I'm watching Rogers during pre game. Yeah,

(15:54):
I know everyone's out there and Sauces giving up pep
talk and you got Breize Hall doing the drills, and
I'm not doing the same thing I was doing with
Jalen Carter. While I'm watching the Jets, I'm just focused
on their quarterback who will not see the field till
the least January, if he even does, or December, whatever
the timetable might be. And I'm watching Rogers and he's
not in everybody's face, but he is very active participant

(16:18):
in the conversations on the sidelines with some of these guys.
And I think the Aaron Rodgers effect can be real
because I saw it firsthand how these players. He's not
in their face, he's not demanding spotlight. But like he
spoke to the team on Saturday night, he was there
on Sunday, he was in Woody Johnson's box. All good.
I think that there's no coincidence that Zach Wilson played

(16:39):
the game of his life and that Rogers at least
has been a part of the game planning, and it's
been a part of the team on Saturday. But here's
where the night takes the Peter Schrager twist, and I
just end up wherever. Okay, So amongst the people I
spoke to pregame, it's not just Paul Roden Bretviach like
I saw. I talked with Clark Hunt for a long time.

(17:01):
And Clark Hunt is obviously a guest on the show
during Super Bowl week, but he's the chairman and CEO
president of the Kansas City Chiefs. Mark Donovan, who is
their CEO in maybe different titles with Clark and Mark,
talked to him for a while getting a feel for,
you know, the Chiefs organization as a whole. As I'm

(17:21):
getting that grasp there, I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna go
up to the press box, but I do the Rogers thing.
I talked to him for a bit. As I'm stepping out,
I you know, get a tap on the shoulder from
someone else in the Jets organization says, why don't you
come by for a second and just say hello, you know,
to some of the people at the highest level of
the ownership group, if you can, if during the game,

(17:41):
if you want just I come in, just say hi. Whatever.
So Christopher Johnson is, you know, with Woody Johnson obviously
owners of the Jets. I was in the press box.
I'm a journalist. I've wearing that hat. But I'm like,
if I got the invite, do you say hi? Do
you not say hi? So I just pop in before
the game and I walk in just to say hello,

(18:01):
and I look around this room and they were on
the big deviatrios. I don't think here was the crew
that was in this suite. Everyone's talking about Ryan Reynolds
and Blake Lively and Hugh Jackman. And you know, I
respect the Jets as a business because as NBC went
to that box seventeen times, I don't think the Jets
showed Taylor Swift once on their in house jumbo tron.

(18:24):
And they're like, you know what, they're here to root
for the Chiefs. We're not showing them. The box that
they should have shown was the crew that I saw
watching the game together. And I'll give a quick story
that was hilarious. But I walk in, I say high sheepishly,
and I'm like whatever, I'm an invisible ghost in that room.
In that box, you want to talk about a murderer's
row of like of like guys that I would want

(18:46):
to have beers with. First guy, Ray freaking Romano was
in the room. Ray Romano's in the room. So Ray
Romano's in the.

Speaker 5 (18:57):
Room, and I'm like, you know, do you say some
of the others like, I don't think Ray No's but
as we film, I don't think raynols No. I know
Ray doesn't know this, but as we film this podcast
right now and we record this, Aaron, you and I
are in this cool, little like green room that Sny
puts us in, which is where we film Good Morning
Football downtown in Manhattan. This room, for four years I

(19:18):
shared with Nate Burlison as a dressing room. Nate would
get down to his skivvies in front of me, put
on his really fancy clothes and look great. I would
throw on my hooded sweatshirt and my new balanced sneakers
and go and do the job. But Nate and I
would be in here every morning from five.

Speaker 1 (19:33):
Thirty to six point fifty, I would say, And Nate
became a best friend and her brother. Great. Everyone thinks
we're breaking down all twenty two film like we're Brian
Baldinger that we did not watch football in the morning.
We get football all day. Nate and I would watch
Everybody Loves Raymond reruns on TBS. There's a TD in here,
volume up. We probably watched eight seasons, no every episode,

(19:53):
and it was not even a conversation. We'd watch the
commercials everything. Everybody loves Raymonds. So here's Ray Romano as
I walk in and he's in there, and I'm like,
do I say something doing not another wrinkle? Last week
I'm on my Jet Blue flight or two weeks ago
to Fox, Jet Blue is running a couple movies. There

(20:14):
was a movie and maybe you can google it real quick, Aaron,
because I wasn't even familiar with it. I didn't see
any promotion for it, but I think it's called like
Somewhere in Queens type in Ray Ramono.

Speaker 3 (20:22):
Somewhere in Queens.

Speaker 1 (20:23):
Yeah, this is a ninety minute movie that had me
laughing and crying. It was fantastic. I think Ray Ramono
produced it.

Speaker 3 (20:30):
He might have his directorial debut and he's worked on
the screenplay.

Speaker 1 (20:34):
This movie was great. And the story is raised a
part of an Italian family in Queens and everyone goes
into one line of work. They're in construction. Sebastian Maniscalco
plays his brother. Very quaint, small movie, and Laurie Metcalf
is fantastic as the wife. And like you're talking about
like Ray Ramono and Laurie Metcalf and Sebastian. Of course
there's laughs in this thing. But the story is his

(20:55):
son is a pretty good high school basketball player and
he's a quiet kid. And I told him. I was like,
you know, that's why I do go up to him.
But you know, Daniel Jones is the character in this
like quiet great athlete, doesn't say much and a girl
breaks his heart. And I'm not giving any spoilers away,
but like the girl breaks his heart and breaks his
will to want to go play college basketball, and Ray

(21:17):
goes above maybe where he should go. His character does
to talk to the girl to convince her to maybe
give the son and a second chance. And oh, it's
a story. It is a beautiful movie. And I just
seen it and I cried on the flight, and now
I cried to every movie on the flat. I think
I've cried to like like movies like Taken with like
Lenisan and I cry at the end on Veneer on
a plane, you just cry. Yeah, So Aaron, I'm I'm there,

(21:40):
and I see Ray Romano and I know it's like
he was a director, And I know this movie did
not make you know, major waves. I know it's not
Oscar nominated as of yet or whatever it is. And
I know it wasn't like a critical darling. I haven't
heard anything about it, but I saw it and it
was great. So I went up to him, and of
course everyone goes up to him and talks about everybody
loves Raymond whatever. I just said. You know, I was
on a Jet Blue flight recently and I loved somewhere

(22:01):
in Queens and ray who probably was approached by one
hundred people. You know, his eyes lit up, he smiled
and he was like, dude, thank you so much. He's like,
I've gotten so many comments over the last week or
two about this movie that I put my heart and
soul in. But yes, because it's on the planes, people
are watching it on the planes, and so I'm like,

(22:22):
is it streaming. It's streaming on Hulu and next week,
he said, and it's coming out. And he's like, gosh,
it's crazy because that movie went out in the theater.
We put everything into it. It was like my heart
and the soul and like, and now people are kind
of seeing I go, dude, if that movie came out
ten years ago, it would have gotten a major you know,
a theater, and it would have been if it was
in a traditional situation ten years ago, where people saw

(22:43):
romantic comedies and people watch movies other than Star Wars
and superhero movies. It would have been great. Ray was
so appreciative. I had the greatest experience meeting Ray Romano.
He was so nice, he was so great. And then
it was like game time. He was locked in, Aaron.
The other people in this box sitting off to the side.
I had it took a double take. I was like,
what Kendall Roy himself, enemy Strong was sitting in this box.

(23:08):
And when I tell you, maybe he just didn't want
to talk to anybody, locked the f into the game,
like wearing a Jets hat every play, watching analyzing, no
bathroom breaks, no nothing like he was in. I had
no idea. Jeremy Strong love football. He loves Jets football.
What a great celebrity fan to have the eldest son,

(23:31):
if you will. Gosh, he was still locked in. So
there you go. Those are two like Titans. Next one,
What is your favorite comedy show? Maybe of the last
fifteen twenty years, like when you need like just a laugh,
what's yours? Aaron?

Speaker 3 (23:49):
So that came out in the last fifteen to twenty,
Like what's your show probably The Office.

Speaker 1 (23:53):
Okay, great, that's perfect answer. The Office is one of
mine too. If it's on, I'll watch it, yeah, if
I need a laugh or if I'm just I will
watch Kurby Your Enthusiasm, and I will specifically watch Leon. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (24:09):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (24:10):
JB. Smooth was in this box. And I am telling you, Aaron,
the JB. Smooth you see on TV is one hundred
percent to JB Smooth. I saw it in this box.
He sees me and we he's been on the show before,
and immediately it's like, okay, okay, he's here, and here's

(24:31):
here's here's my favorite character in maybe TV history Leon.

Speaker 5 (24:34):
And he starts doing that we are not worthy, like
Wayne's world thing to me.

Speaker 1 (24:38):
Stop stop stop, comes over and immediately arm around me.
We start talking and you know, the Jets are his team,
and he was talking about Bruce Hopkins. He was talking
about altoon like we go into Jets deep and he
is so great, and then all of a sudden he
goes on this incredible rant if you will slash bit

(25:00):
slash monologue where the I could never imitate him, Like
if I was to imitate him, all I'd be canceled
for trying to limitate him be I just it wouldn't
do him justice. His bit is that sauce is on
the field, but the gravy's in the building. And he's

(25:20):
pointing to himself that he JB. Smooth is the gravy.

Speaker 6 (25:26):
A whole bit about sauce on the steel. Gravy is
the building and he's gravy. We talked for a while.
He wants to come on the podcast amazing, will be
a guest. Here's the part that gets a little tricky.
He's with his longtime manager. I'll say his name. His
name is Rick Dorfman.

Speaker 1 (25:47):
I don't know Rick. Rick is awesome. Rick comes over,
introduces himself to me, says, JB. Would love to come
on the podcast. Would love to come on the show. Says,
let's exchange numbers. Rick presents me with a q R code.
Oh no, no, no, no, no no. This is very smart.
This is a great way to do it. He doesn't
have a business card. He says, scan this QR code.

(26:10):
And I scan the QR code and it's all his
contact information. I was like, that was the coolest thing ever.
Phone number, email, everything. There was an app for it.
The app, I believe was called Blink b L I
n Q. He's like, you have to get blink. It's
gonna be a game changer for you to not have
to type in numbers. It's it just QR code. You

(26:30):
scan it. It's great, that's what I do. JB and
I have this incredible experience together. I'm talking, laughing, hugging.
I filmed a video with him. He wanted to film
a video like we had a plat like talking about
if you want the ultimate Ying and Yang, it's probably
Larry David and jbswoth. Yeah, I think we can't talk that.

(26:50):
But like he and I do not look like we
would be uh, you know, regular bedfellows. We got along great.
It was incredible. I get in the car after the game,
which was fantastic. Obviously, I go back to the press box.
I watch from there that I try to beat the
traffic just a little bit, which I did so I
could do Good Morning Football. I had done two games.
I get in the car. I have been up since

(27:11):
four am because I got a full way to go
to Philly and then I was ending the game. I
got in the car around midnight. So that's a long day,
but like two amazing football games. I was on cloud nine.
It like reinvigorated me, like just being in two buildings,
Like I love this sport, I love all of this.
I get back in the car and I'm like, I'm
immediately gonna say great to meet you to this, Rick Drfman.

(27:32):
I go into my phone. It's gone. I can't find anything.
I didn't save whatever that QR code thing was. And
there is no silver lining as we record this on Tuesday,
and this is a call to action. If anyone has
Rick Dorfman's number or email, send it along to me.
I want to have JB. Smooth on the podcast next week.
He was incredible. My day was incredible. I woke up

(27:55):
the next morning, I'm like, I feel like I completely
ready to go and roaring to go, and I'm excited
by a lot of stuff around the NFL.

Speaker 4 (28:04):
CJ.

Speaker 1 (28:04):
Stroud looks amazing, Anthony Richard Loss looks amazing. Mcvay's team
is fighting despite players that you know named Aaron Donald, Pukinakua,
Matthew Stafford. And maybe that's it on the roster. There's
so much good around the league right now. Maybe there's
no better story than the Tampa Bay Buccaneers. Which leads
to our guests for the week, Buccaneers GM Jason Light.

(28:36):
The Tampa Bay Buccaneers have had the third most win
since twenty twenty. They have had the fourth most regular
season win since twenty twenty and if you look at
their roster, they are number three on highest percentage of
home grown talent, which means they have drafted or signed
undrafted guys themselves who are now playing. The general manager

(28:58):
of the tam Bay Buccaneers is the architect of this
team and he is joining us on the season with
Peter Scheger. Mister Jason Light the Bucks.

Speaker 4 (29:06):
How are we doing doing great? Man? Appreciate you having
me on.

Speaker 1 (29:11):
I figured the only time I can get you is
during the bye week, and it certainly helps when the
team is three and one as opposed to a different record.
But you and I have known each other for many years,
and I have to say the Tom Brady stuff was great,
and of course last year again they were great. To
see this team at the top of the NFC sound
standings as we head towards the bye I don't think

(29:32):
a lot of people saw that, me included. How proud
are you of this team? First mouth of football?

Speaker 4 (29:36):
Well well, first of all, we've got a long season
ahead of us, so I know we're not putting the
cart before the horse here. But you know, I'm very
proud of the coaching staff, the football staff, everybody here
in the building, but then the players too. But I
will say that I went on record several times in
training camp people kind of were writing us off, and

(29:57):
I said, I just liked the DNA of this team.
I just liked the way that it was all coming
together and the players to prove to the world that
you know that there we still have good players. We're
still a good team. And and so I'm not surprised
that you know that we started off the way we did.
You know, we have great coaches too.

Speaker 1 (30:18):
Yeah, And I think it's sneaky with what the Bucks
roster is. And I think a lot of people, if
you looked at it from thirty thousand feet, said, okay,
Tom Brady was dropped in, they won, they win the
next year, all right, tom Brady's moved out of the thing,
and it's like, all right, they're going to fall apart.
But I'm looking at some numbers that my research team
has helped put together. Most total snaps by a team's

(30:40):
own first through fifth round pick since twenty fourteen, and
it's the Bucks by a mile. And it's most total
games started by a team's own first through fifth round
pick since twenty fourteen, and it's the Bucks by a mile.
You go through these guys, whether it be Mike Evans
or Godwin or vite Veya or Devin White or Jamel Dee,
all over the guys over the years. This is homegrown talent.

(31:02):
There's something to that when you look at this team,
do you see this is like there's a sense of
pride that, hey, we drafted these guys and for the
most part, a lot of them are performing at a
high level and key spots.

Speaker 4 (31:13):
Oh absolutely, I mean that's that's what we in personnel.
I mean we want to we all aspire to as
a GM, as a scout, as a personnel director or
what have you. You want to you want to grow your own.
You want to you want to bring them in, you
want to develop them, You want them to understand the
way that we do things as an organization. You you

(31:37):
want to give them, you want to reward them with
contracts and keep your own and you know that's what
we're doing. And you know we've got we've got a
great First of all, I the only thing I will
pat myself on the back for is I've hired extremely
well that's the only thing I'm going to say that
about me. That our staff has done an outstanding job.

(31:59):
Whether it's the scouts, the personnel directors, spy, Tech, Greenburn, Jackie,
I mean the whole I could name everybody. I'm going
to leave somebody out, but the coaching staff.

Speaker 1 (32:08):
Don't forget my boy Byron down there are the best
scouts in the game.

Speaker 4 (32:11):
There's no doubt.

Speaker 1 (32:11):
Give Byron love Byron.

Speaker 4 (32:13):
He has been here for a long time and he
is incredible, incredible, So I could go on and on.
So but anyway, and our coaching staff just having the
patience with these players. So it's it's been awesome bringing
everyone to be on the same page.

Speaker 1 (32:30):
Yeah, and it's it's cool. And even look at this
team now, and Baker's the new story, and Baker people
doubted and Bakers spent time in Carolina and then was
of course with the Rams left over, and Baker looks
great and competent, and you guys go into New Orleans
and win the signing of Baker Mayfield is one story.
The other story is how well he has taken to

(32:50):
this team and they've taken to him. Can you go
through the Baker Mayfield experience for you guys when you
were looking after Brady hung him up, like, what's the
next step?

Speaker 4 (32:58):
Yeah, well, you know Baker. Now, as it turns out, Baker,
he's a very very smart person. I knew he was smart,
you know, we did our due diligence on him coming out.
We weren't looking for a quarterback that year. But knew
that he was smart. I didn't realize just how incredibly
smart he is. And he was targeting us, I mean

(33:20):
maybe more than we were targeting him.

Speaker 1 (33:22):
And he saw a little flirt.

Speaker 4 (33:24):
He saw this as an awesome opportunity for him, you know,
And we told him from the beginning that this is
going to be a you're going to be in a
competition here because we really like Kyle Trask. And he
didn't you know, as you know, Baker, he didn't flinch.
He accepted that and you know, he just ran with it.
And it was a good competition. But we saw a
lot out of Kyle that we loved to see too.

(33:45):
He was doing a did a hell of a job
for us, but he is such a you know, even
as I go around town, people know what's Baker like?
Is he a good guy? It's like, I don't know
where this started that he wasn't a good guy. And
I mean, I think you can point to a few
things that maybe people got the wrong pression of him.

(34:07):
But he's a freaking awesome dude. He is a dude
and the players saw it right away. I mean, he's
whether he's taken the lineman to the Bahamas, you know,
during on our break, during camp, before the first you know,
after final cuts to go golf, or he's he's spotted
around town at dive bars with a different group of

(34:28):
position group with receivers, with Mike Evans, you know, with
a godwin with these guys. He really knows he's not
doing it's not fake. He really knows how to how
to be a dude with the team and they love.

Speaker 1 (34:40):
Him and and he and he lays it out there.
You see him throwing blocks, you see the hit he
took against the Saints on Sunday, and it's like he's
gonna leave it all out in the field. What's your
favorite Baker's story between you and him interacting, because I
know coaches who've had him and are like, you know, Nick,
they had him last year for a small window and
he's like, yeah, Big Baker's hilarious too. He's funny as hell. Like,

(35:00):
have you had a moment where he's had a snide
commenters or cast a comment where you're like, this is
one of us. This guy's a.

Speaker 4 (35:05):
Fun Yeah, a few. I probably shouldn't tell them on this,
you know what. You know, what's really interesting is so
I was born in this very small town in Nebraska, Freemont, Nebraska.
It's about twenty thousand people. It's kind of halfway between
Omahon and Lincoln. And when I was young, we moved
to Colorado. So I grew up in Colorado. But that's

(35:27):
where my parents both were from that area, and that's
where my grandparents, you know, that's where they settled and
all that stuff. So anyway that when we finally agreed
to terms with Baker, I texted him, Hey, congrats, we're
celebrating here. We're excited to have you. He said, yeah,
you know, my wife is from your hometown.

Speaker 1 (35:48):
Get out of here's some Freemont, Nebraska.

Speaker 4 (35:50):
Freemont, Nebraska. So I texted my mom and my sister.
They are like, oh yeah, the May family. Oh my god.
They founded Fremont. You know, the library is named after him.
You know, there's a you know, their names on buildings.
I mean, but she's kind of a big deal in Fremont, Nebraska.
But anyway, she turns out she's a wonderful person. She

(36:11):
has a suite right next to my wife's at the stadium,
and which could be an issue I guess with my
when my father in law sits in there, you know,
when things aren't going well, he tends to you. But anyway,
we already warned her about that.

Speaker 1 (36:26):
But you hear him banging on the wall, don't don't know,
that's not that's not. Everything's okay, that's just my father
in law.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
But it just kind of tells you the researching, the
detail he went into to know that I was born
in his wife's hometown. So that's pretty cool.

Speaker 1 (36:41):
That's wild. Love this team right now, and love the
juice that you guys have as you look at the
roster up and down and you got all these guys
that you guys drafted. Todd Bowles is the head coach,
and a lot of people after last year said oh,
I don't know if he could be the coach and
after a post Brady world and yet this team for
spinning to Todd, He's never gonna have the SoundBite that

(37:02):
goes viral. What do you see from Todd Bowles on
a day to day basis that you guys know, he's
the man for this squad.

Speaker 4 (37:09):
He's he's got incredible patience, very focused, but he's a
he's a great teacher. So it'll be once or twice
a week you go down. You know, I'll pop into
his office, you know, several times a day just to
talk about little things with sometimes just a book, but

(37:29):
he'll have It's not uncommon for him to have the
entire secondary sitting in his office, sprawled out couches and
having food delivered up there and him just having a
session with them, just going over tape and just talking
through things.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Saw picture this, you got, you got Windfield, you got,
you got all these guys and they come in and
they're just hanging with the coach. It's not an instructional
period where it's you're in a lecture situation.

Speaker 4 (37:53):
Well it turns into that casual, It turns casual, but
it's become like a weekly routine where he just wants
to get them all on the same page.

Speaker 1 (38:00):
And it's, uh, this is the head coach talking to
a position group.

Speaker 4 (38:03):
I love this in his office, not in a meeting rooms.
So it's I mean, he just that's just been common
of him since for him, since he's been our been
here as the defensive coordinators as well for all positions.
You can see offensive players pop in and just he's
just a very h He's got a very soothing way
about him that that makes you been very fiery behind

(38:25):
the scenes as well.

Speaker 1 (38:26):
Yeah, I love that Rende went into the Hall of
Fame this year, and I love that this organization with
so much a part of it. It wasn't just oh, here's
a former player, like I know from knowing Ronde and
I know you very well, like he is a frequent
visitor to the building. How much has Rende Barber played
a role and not only this team's young players and success,
but also for you and the guys in the organization

(38:47):
to see a former buccaneer so active and vibrant in
the team's day to day.

Speaker 4 (38:52):
Yeah, first of all, Rende quickly became one of my
closer friends when I got the job here, it's going
on year ten. I just love Ronde. He's our families
are close, and jeez, you know you talk about this
summer of joy, George, this is the year of Ronde.
I mean, go on. He feels like I've been to
about a million parties for Ronde's Hall of Fame already.

(39:16):
But and then that's it and well deserved, well deserved.
But I was actually just texting with him a few
minutes ago before I came on here, Pat he was
talking about the what he was excited about to play
some of our players in the secondary. So he's you know,
he's always welcome. Here's such a like he never missed
a game, he never missed a practice.

Speaker 1 (39:36):
It's insane.

Speaker 4 (39:37):
I never missed a practice. I mean, it's it's crazy.
You never see that. He should be an inspiration to
a lot of our players.

Speaker 1 (39:45):
Yeah, and I'm sure they come in they see him
and he's president, and it does go a long way.
I go back to last like ten years with you.
Obviously we talk about the Jamis era, and then there
was these you know seasons where there is like hope
and then it just fell short. And then Brady comes
and you guys have this incredible ride. Have you had
a chance to do the thirty thousand foot you yet

(40:06):
and be able to look back with proper perspective on
what the Brady era was like in Tampa or is
it still too new or it's you're still in the
whirlwind of Okay, on to the next or do you
have a moment to like appreciate just how insane those
I guess what twenty four months, maybe even longer it
was with Tom Brady.

Speaker 4 (40:22):
Yeah, I mean he was nuts. Really No, I haven't yet.
I mean there's been little moments, but you know, it was.
It was awesome for the entire fan base, for the city.
You know, we signed him. I kind of joked around
with a few of the people here at one time
that you know, real estate went up in Tampa and

(40:46):
the Brady effect, and I was wondering why we didn't
get a cut from that, you know, I mean, right, yeah,
so Ronnie got Ronnie Barber Dave the mayor here in Tampa.
Well we get some kind of day front. No, I'm kidding,
it's it was. It was phenomenal. But I will say
this was a big turning point obviously in the last
few decades of the Buccaneers is Brady. But I would

(41:08):
say it's gonna sound a little crazy. No offense to Brady.
I mean, I don't want to minimize the effect that
he had, but I think the total turning point, at
least in my tenure here was the day that I
hired Bruce.

Speaker 1 (41:21):
So brusarians interesting. You know, that's a kind of a
take right now, and it's obviously not dismissing what Brady did,
but like Bruce changed the culture.

Speaker 4 (41:28):
Also, he came in along with Todd and you know,
most of the staff, A lot of the stuff that
we still have here on coaching staff changed the culture.
And it was you know, I, you know all the
Although I did know Tom from my time in New England,
I was there when we drafted him. I wish I
could say I was the one that told Belichick to

(41:48):
draft him, but I didn't. But I knew him from
seven years that I spent with the Patriots organization. But
I don't still don't know if we would have gotten
him without Bruce.

Speaker 1 (41:57):
So I think Bruce, what was the pitch? I mean,
I know we've probably told this story to others, but
I don't recall it ever being on I'm like, what
was the pitch from you and Bruce to Tom Brady,
who at the time we knew was leaving New England.
But I remember like an ESPN graphic of like fourteen
available suitors for time, and I don't think the Buccaneers
were number one on that list.

Speaker 4 (42:14):
You know, it was Bruce such a way about him.
He's you know, he's just a Bruce is just such
a phenomenal leader. And we had a great team, We
had a great you know, Bass foundation, and it was
basically a half once you come down here. What better

(42:35):
place would her be to to win some games and
win the Super Bowl than Tampa. You know, I don't
know if that did it, but you know, probably would
have sold me.

Speaker 1 (42:44):
It's and Bruce's you know, he's known as the quarterback Whisper.
Even long before he was in Tampa. He had a
book I think called Quarterback Whisper. And if you want
to go through the Bruce Arians lineage, it's from Peyton
Manning to Carson Palmer. Uh, you know, you name a
famous quarterback. They've had some experienced Roethlisberger with Bruce Arians,
what was what was his pitch? To Brady more, Hey,

(43:05):
I'm going to give you more ownership for this thing
where you're gonna have a chance to fly, or I'm
gonna take you even higher and bring you back to
where you were when you were winning those super Bowls
with the Patriots.

Speaker 4 (43:12):
Well, no, I think he was always willing to give
him some some leeway to do some things the way
he wanted to do them now. But within within Bruce's
you know, realm of things that he likes to do things,
I think it was the perfect match matchup, to be
honest with you, where Tom was like very analytical in

(43:32):
terms of, you know, these are the passes that have
the best chance of having success, and you know we're
gonna keep it dialed in on these things, and Bruce's more, Okay,
let's go for it.

Speaker 1 (43:42):
Let's go. We've got Mike Evans and Chris Godwin. Throw
the ball, no.

Speaker 4 (43:45):
Risk it, no biscuit the you know the play right
before half in the NFC Championship game.

Speaker 1 (43:49):
You know, yes, Scottie Miller, let's go.

Speaker 4 (43:51):
You know, without those kind of things, we wouldn't have
made it to the Super Bowl. But without Tom as well,
I think that was the perfect marriage. It was it
worked out? Well?

Speaker 1 (44:01):
You go through that run enough. Sorry, I'm lingering on
twenty twenty. It's just such a such an amazing year.
And we'll move on after this. But there was the
wild card win, which was you know, big fine, and
then we go through the next few when you go
into New Orleans and then into Lambeau and then beat Mahomes.
When you look at those three games, you probably look
at them as one amazing experience, but which one was

(44:24):
the most rewarding? Because to go in New Orleans and
beat Shewan Peyton and Drew Brees had to feel pretty
good after they beat the crap at you in the
regular season, and then to go into Lambeau with Aaron
Rodgers and all the hype that he was getting as
an MVP. And then there's a Super Bowl, which is
like we freaking on the Super Bowl and we be
Patrick Mahomes. Which one to you do you smile the most?
Or maybe like at night when you're lying in bed,
you're like, you know what, that was pretty damn good.

Speaker 4 (44:45):
Well, first of all, I do want to let you
know we're not living in the past here. We've got
I know. But if you were to ask me, you
did ask me, I say, just because, and I mean,
this will all due respect to the Saints, I hate them, yeah,
you know, and they're just they're just they're just always

(45:05):
just such a off team and so good it's and
especially going there, it's such a tough place to win,
and they beat us twice that year, and we went
in and beat him, and I just kind of got
the sits that, you know that they I don't think
they were guaranteeing everybody that they were going to win,

(45:25):
but they just had a kind of a cockiness to me,
and then when they should they were a great team.
So when we beat them, and I remember walking off
the field and I pulled out my phone and I
just tweeted we that and I was like, maybe I
shouldn't have done that. But then all of a sudden,
I started getting all the alerts and I was like,

(45:47):
you know, this might come back to bite me.

Speaker 1 (45:48):
But you didn't delete the tree.

Speaker 4 (45:50):
I didn't delete it.

Speaker 1 (45:52):
Sometimes you gotta be that way. All right, let's let's
talk about this team and the way you guys have
built this. Obviously I mentioned all the homegrown guys, but
one of the little things that you might not notice,
as if you were watching it, you guys have two
young draft picks in the last couple of years playing
at tackle, which is the hardest position to find. And
as Baker is doing this from an efficiency standpoint, you
notice he's not under dress at all moments. It seems

(46:14):
like this offensive line, even with the loss of Jensen
and the loss of Ally Marpett, they're anchored by those
two tackles, and you guys drafted both of them. Is
that a sense of pride for a guy like you
who builds the roster from the ground up.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
Yeah, it really is a sense of pride for all
of us that were involved in in you know, the
selection of those guys of Tristan and Luke and you know,
are we're very happy with our offensive line right now,
Cody Mack and Haines, he's doing a good job for us.
And then Filer, Matt who signed this year.

Speaker 1 (46:43):
So but the anchor, Matt Filer, let's go for.

Speaker 4 (46:47):
You know, Ryan unfortunately had the injury. He's not playing,
but he still is here every day. He's in all
the meetings. And if that, if that old line room
is good and cohesive and and loose and having a
good time, then the whole organization seems to be running well.
So it's awesome to have Ryan in there because he's

(47:09):
rubbing off. He understands what's that. You have to have
a tone setter, and you know, he and I had
this conversation a couple weeks ago practice, like, you don't
want the tone setter to be the quarterback, you know
when I'm talking about in terms of setting the tone
bashing people on the field because you don't want him
to get hurt, although Baker has been doing that, so

(47:31):
but you want it to be a running back. You
want to be receiver, of tight end or an offensive lineman.
And we're starting to see that. You've saw Luke Gadecki
this weekend. You know, oh my god, pinning up player,
laying on him and just that intensity, and Cody Mauk
has that in him and it's it's it makes it.
Everybody thrives off of that.

Speaker 1 (47:49):
So we still defend.

Speaker 4 (47:50):
Ryan Jensen is still infusing his his his prickness into
the offensive line.

Speaker 1 (47:56):
Prickness. I like that, and you feel his presence at
the way they're playing. And then if you look at
the defensive line, and this is very inside Buccaneers. I
know if you're listening and you're like, okay, I mean
that defensive line is playing as well as anybody ELSEO.

Speaker 4 (48:09):
Yeah, there they've been. We we have a great group
there too, and a great rotation and get some new
players since you're great Gains being one of them, and
he's done a great job. And uh so we've got
we're pretty deep there, especially at outside linebacker, and we've
got a nice little rotation going there and Vita's playing well.
And so we'll get our first round pick coming back

(48:30):
here soon, so that'll be exciting.

Speaker 1 (48:32):
You know. The the NFL network has our show Good
Morning Football in the morning, and Jason mccordy does a
list every week of the best defensive backs in football,
and I think now twice a in Week one when
you guys went into Minnesota and he made the big play,
and then second was this week in New Orleans making
the huge fumble, you know, claus fumble. In this one.
Antoine Winfield's playing out of his mind. You drafted him

(48:54):
in the second round and he has often said he
believed he was a first round pick and he slipped.
What did you see from him coming out of college
and what do you see from him now playing in
this pivotal year for him.

Speaker 4 (49:05):
Well, we saw a really intense, athletic, smart player in
college Nicolauld play safety, do a lot of different things,
and then you saw a lot of his dad and him,
you know, very intense player, great tackle. I think he's
one of the better tacklers maybe in the you know,
I don't want to throw out the history of the

(49:25):
NFL at from that position, from that position, just just
so reliable, just super super super reliable, great guy too,
So very fortunate we have him.

Speaker 1 (49:38):
Okay, so we've done the football. Now we have to
go off the field a little bit. Everyone's talking about
Taylor Swift. I know you are a father of three. Correct,
did did Taylor swift sensation hit your home before there
was a crossover with Travis Kelsey or were you already
affected by Taylor Swift this summer when she took over

(49:59):
America for every person ages ten to twenty and maybe
now beyond that, I think it's stretchedway beyond that. Have
you been swifty? Were you a swifty? Did you know
of Swift before she took the league by storm?

Speaker 4 (50:11):
So she played here in Tampa and I have a uh,
you know, my wife has a suite to the games, now,
I guess. And so with that suite, you're going to
use it for anything that's at Raymond James.

Speaker 1 (50:27):
And is it year round? I don't. I don't know
this stuff. This is stuff that we do.

Speaker 4 (50:30):
We do.

Speaker 1 (50:31):
It's your owner.

Speaker 4 (50:32):
Owners are very very very good to us. So and
so she had three nights and I didn't. I didn't
get to go to one. And it was packed twenty
people in it every night. I joke around, I could
have made millions of dollars selling that sweet. I would
have gotten fired for doing that. But but so we

(50:54):
had people from all over the country coming.

Speaker 1 (50:56):
Uh, you know, friends, family are like just people knew
that the Lights have a sweet and.

Speaker 4 (51:01):
Their family all Blair's friends and you know our my friends,
my family and and my daughter and Blair went all
three nights I think. And anyway, so yes, it's Taylor
Swift has been talked about in our family for quite
a while. So but recently when before the you know,

(51:21):
it came out that Kelsey, there was the rumors.

Speaker 1 (51:23):
We don't know what they are, whatever it is, Well,
there was rumors.

Speaker 4 (51:26):
For a little while before she showed up at the
at the first game there last week. I asked my daughter,
I said, hey, did you hear that you know, Taylor
Swift and Travis Kelsey might be a thing. And she said, Dad,
stay out of her private life. Would you want someone
talking about your private life?

Speaker 1 (51:44):
And I was like, okay, how old is your daughter?
What's her name?

Speaker 4 (51:47):
And how old is she? Zoe? She's Twelve's just defending
Taylor Swift to the end of the day. So I said, well,
I think you and your friends would talk about you
because that's different. That's different.

Speaker 1 (51:59):
That's dad. That is so good. Twelve years old, number
one story everywhere. NBC shot to it ten times. That's
not an exaggeration. But Zoe is defending the private life
of Taylor Swift and Dad, why don't you back off?

Speaker 4 (52:13):
So hey, I know better now we're not talking about
our private life.

Speaker 1 (52:17):
I love that. So good your career. We've done the
story time with you on Good Morning Football. But for
the listeners of this podcast, you said you mentioned seven
years with the Patriots. Who are some of the colleagues
you had. If you were to look around the league
now and say, well, this guy's there, this guy's there,
obviously Belichick is at the top of that that family tree.

(52:38):
But when you look around and it doesn't have to
be current guys, could be former guys too. Who are
some of the people that you were rubbing elbows with
and you know, grunting it out as a as a
scout at the lowest level than moving your way up
at that Patriots Franchise's.

Speaker 4 (52:51):
There's a lot, you know, at the Patriots, we had
the scouting assistant was could have been anything.

Speaker 1 (53:00):
That that track Coot did the job in tail just.

Speaker 4 (53:04):
Getting coffee and making copies, you know, the whole thing.
And I wasn't a scouting assistant there. I started off
with the Dolphins as a scout assistant. By the time
I got to the Patriots, I was an area of scout.
But we would still work together closely with the scouting assistants.
You had Josh McDaniels who went on to become you know,
obviously he's the head coach of the Raiders right now,
Nick Cassario, who is now you know, GM of the Texans.

(53:29):
We had Matt Russell there. I mean I could go
on and on. There's Mike Disner was a scouting assistant
now the CEO running the Lions, running the Lions. So
and then I was fortunate to work for the Eagles
where we had you know, worked alongside Howie Roseman and
Ryan Grigson, and I mean we had there's quite a
few very talented young people at that time.

Speaker 1 (53:52):
And and the Belichick relationship obviously was was strong, and
you went on did your thing in Arizona, then eventually
got to the Buccaneers as the GM Belichick as you
look at the history of the game, obviously as dude
as one of the greatest head coaches of all time.
In recent weeks, people are kind of knocked some of
the player personnels, but when you were on the player

(54:13):
personnel side, Belichick was pretty much a savant with that
stuff too, right.

Speaker 4 (54:16):
Oh, yeah, I've learned so much from him. He's He's incredible.
It's I wish people, I mean, they have an idea
that he's pretty damn good. I mean, he is best
of all time. But if they were inside the walls
there on a for as long as a lot of
us have worked with them, it would it would blow
their mind just the detail that he has just with

(54:38):
everything that he does.

Speaker 1 (54:40):
Was there a particular story or memory you have if
you're at a family event or you're at a dinner
and someone says, give me a good Belichick story, what's
the one you go to?

Speaker 4 (54:47):
You know, I was just actually talking about this with
with my wife. So one time. You have a lot
of conversations with Bill when you work with him, but
there's those one personal ones that you remember. And had
me in his office. It was at the time I
was interviewing with the Bears to be the general manager.
This is twenty eleven. So I was going in to

(55:09):
be for an interview and he was talking to me,
kind of prepping me a little bit, and he said,
you know, when you get a general manager's job at
some point, which you will, you're gonna think you haven't
made You think you're making a lot of money, and
you're set, he could. But then all of a sudden,
you're gonna get a call from your wife that she
needs new window treatments, and you don't realize how much

(55:32):
window treatments cost. Okay, and then so the money isn't
it's not as big as you expect it to be
because everything that everything else goes up too. And then
we get the job here in Tampa and we get
our house and then I get a text from my wife, Hey,
you're going to see something go through the American Express.

(55:52):
I got window treatments.

Speaker 1 (55:55):
Work for the example is exactly exactly what happened. Yeah,
that is so good. I love that. What about the
same for Brady? Someone says, give me your best Brady story.
Is it you was at the parade him throwing a
Lombardi or is there a story that we might not know?

Speaker 4 (56:10):
Well, so the whole time. The day that we signed him,
I called him and said, because we're not COVID so
we couldn't have him here. But I said, hey, there's
one thing I need you to that you don't know
about me. Is I'm a better beer chugger than you are.
I'm totally out. Ever since I was a young age,
can chuck a beer. I can check a beer beer.

(56:32):
Never met somebody that could chuck one faster? And he
goes no, he said, no, I got you. I swear
to God, I'm better than you. He said, all right,
if we win the Super Bowl, let's have a chug off.
So we were gonna have this whole thing. It was
gonna be sponsored by a beer, certain sponsor and all
that stuff. And he backed out. He backed out, and
I said, he goes, well, I was afraid to lose it.

Speaker 1 (56:53):
Yes, he doesn't want to lose.

Speaker 4 (56:55):
He didn't want to lose Tom Brady.

Speaker 1 (56:58):
So we'll give you the win there with the technicality
that it never happened. Okay, that's fine. I texted you
a lot, and it's never really about the football stuff
so much. It's more just about family and how everything's going.
And I've known you for a long time. I also
know you are very very particular on game day. Players
of course, lay out their clothes, what they're gonna wear,

(57:19):
they do a prayer, they do their own pre game retation.
A general manager on game day, you have your superstitions.
Can you share with the listeners and the viewers at
home the Jason like game day experience?

Speaker 4 (57:30):
Now, they're stupid, they're stupid. First of all, I know superstitions.
They're stupid. It's uh. But you know, I have a
certain pair of shoes that kind of have to wear
that like this. These parents had something to do with
that last win. You know, it's just stupid, nort It's

(57:52):
gotta be a new pair every year. You kind of
retire the other ones. Yeah, and then so when we're
when I pull so when I come to the game,
they have a spot for the head coach, the general
manager and all the owners under the stadium. And I
can't have a dirty car under the stadium because people
are walking by it. So I have to go to
a certain car wash on the way. Then I have

(58:13):
to stop at the wah wah and you know what
a wa Tampa floor several wah wahs.

Speaker 1 (58:18):
Now, really, I thought that was just a Philly thing.

Speaker 4 (58:20):
No, there's there's one here. I have to get a
certain I have to get a diet of half and
half iced tea, lemonade, and I have to have this
eggs this sizzley sandwich, I mean, and then it's like
goes on and on. So it's I have a lot
of go on.

Speaker 1 (58:38):
I thought, more. Okay, so you go from the shoes
to the car. Then when you when you get to
the stadium, what's the routine? Like, I do you do
one lap? Do you listen to a certain song? Like
where are we at?

Speaker 5 (58:47):
I do?

Speaker 4 (58:48):
I go through lap, through the locker room, Then I
go sit in my wife's sweep for a little bit
and watch the pregame show. And then I go back
down to the field and do the whole thing. But
the biggest one I've left out I've omitted here is
the week of the game. I have to at least
one night on the way home, stop at this dive
bar it's called the press box, and I have to

(59:08):
play one round of golden tea golf, just with let's
go with with a few of my buddies that are
always in there, and I have to play one round
of golden tea golf. Otherwise the whole week goes to
So that's.

Speaker 1 (59:22):
Do you have the high score you?

Speaker 4 (59:24):
Oh no, I'm constantly trying. I have won one week,
that was it? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Speaker 1 (59:30):
So it's called the press box. And if you're a
Buccaneers fan looking to kind of bend the ear of
the general manager, your best bet is to just go
to the press box Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday. You're
one in five chance you're going to see Jason Knight.

Speaker 4 (59:44):
It's not long either. It won't be long. It's just
one round of golden tea.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
One round gold Are the wings good at the press phenomenal? Phenomenal,
phenomen what a commercial?

Speaker 4 (59:53):
Yeah yeah, I won't get anything there though, by the way,
I've mentioned this before, Walter the owner has never given
me a free beer.

Speaker 1 (01:00:02):
And I assume you're keeping the press box open with
that frequency before we close. It's so early, it's like
it's early bye week. It kind of started off the
podcast with it, but like it is one of the
stories of the league that here the Bucks are this
team that some people peg to be in a total
rebuild and yet top of the division, feeling good, relatively healthy.

(01:00:26):
What's the state of the nation here as we head
towards the buy and you get one of these brief
weekends off and then you hit the road and you
guys have to get back in business. You're wearing the
creamsicles obviously when you first play the Lions when you
get back, which is so cool. But then it's a
long stretch and it's a long season. But can you
take a moment to just enjoy this thing?

Speaker 4 (01:00:42):
I mean, I'd be lying if I said no. Yeah,
of course, and I mean there's nothing better and going
into a buy after you won, so yeah, I got
to be honest with you usually have the twenty four
hour rule, but if you're going to the bye week,
you can have a few extra days, so it's but
it's one game at a time. After this, I mean,
we haven't won anything yet, so it's but feeling good
about where we're at. Feel like we're going to be

(01:01:04):
pretty healthy coming out.

Speaker 1 (01:01:05):
Can I tell you something. When I was a kid,
my dad and I used to do this cool tradition
where like every football season, I was allowed to buy
a new jersey. And this is back in the eighties
and the nineties where it wasn't like you just go
on fanatics dot Com and pick any player and you could.
It would be a thing you'd have to go in
our mall. It was a place called going to the Game,
and it was like a you know, like a Champs

(01:01:27):
or one of these stores. It was the Freehold Raceway Mall, Freehold,
New Jersey, and it was the ninety seven season, I
want to say, maybe ninety sixties, and it was the
year where Warren Sap and Derek Brooks were both drafted,
so I might be even it might be man longer
for that. And in going to the game, they had
a creamsicle You're gonna love this player creamsicle Hardy Nickerson jersey.

(01:01:48):
Oh yeah, And I bought that jersey as my jersey
that year, and I would wear that to school every Monday,
even though the Buccaneers were not great that season. And
this is before they went to the Pewter and you
had this like slick cool jersey and the creamsicle was
the jersey and I would get mocked for it because
the Bucks weren't great, But I love that gle you
guys warm. When Josh Freeman was the quarterback for a

(01:02:09):
couple of Coffee there, I remember they had the they
would do the throwbacks, it's coming back. Does the creamsicle
jersey mean anything to you as it predated your time?
And do you realize like what nostalgia comes along with
that creamsicle jersey and that logo of the pirate with
the with the eye patch and the whole deal creamsicles?

(01:02:30):
Am I making too big of a deal here going
down memory?

Speaker 4 (01:02:32):
L No, not at all? Are you kidding me? This
is uh, we've been looking forward to this forever. I mean,
we've got creamsicle stuff coming out of our ears at
our house right now, and it's uh is that right? Oh? Yeah? Everybody?

Speaker 1 (01:02:45):
What's the what's the play? Because like Doug Williams was
wearing the Creamsicles in seventy nine and Leroy Salmon. But like,
who's the player when you think of the Creamsicle Bucks,
who's the player.

Speaker 4 (01:02:52):
That you think? Yeah? So, I mean, yeah, here we go.
It's yeah, it's it's super exciting. It's gonna be a
lot of fun. It's gonna be it's gonna be awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:03:02):
Okay, too much for me. I think I want to
go down like Eric Rhett and start talking about all
these guys and Trent Dilferd. But you're not looking to
We're living in the current, Peter, not in the past.

Speaker 4 (01:03:11):
Let's go.

Speaker 1 (01:03:12):
That's it. I might want a Vita Vea throwback I got.
I might need a Vitavea creamsicle and rocking on Good
Morning Football. Who can I talk to at the Bucks
to get one of those mates? Do you have any
hookups or no? Is Walter at the bar able to
hook me up? I don't.

Speaker 4 (01:03:24):
We'll see what we can do here.

Speaker 1 (01:03:26):
Walter at the press box and I are gonna be
the only two Vita Vea Creamsicle jersey. Whereas, uh, Jason Light,
I have taken way too much of your time during
the season. A general manager, what you guys have built
as a collective in that front office is nothing short
of incredible. The Buccaneers are one of the most consistent
teams in the NFL, and you guys just churn out
draft picks that are playing on Sundays with very few

(01:03:46):
bus and very few failures. I appreciate your time, dude.
Good luck the rest of the way.

Speaker 4 (01:03:50):
I appreciate it.

Speaker 1 (01:03:52):
Have fun as always, Now we will, Thanks dude. That's
Jason Light. Tambay Buccaneers their bye week and they come
back there we're in creamsicles playing the Lions. Thanks Jason.
I love Jason Light. I mean, that's a great inview.

(01:04:12):
That's what we want to do with this podcast. We
want to get an opportunity to speak to the guys
who make the decisions and when you could tell stories
about Belichick, Brady right up to Baker Mayfield. But also
ten years is the gm is. A lot of these
guys have two years, three years to do it. They
probably get two quarterbacks. This is a guy who you know,
went from Jamis to the Brady to now Baker Mayfield

(01:04:33):
and they're winning. So Aaron, I love that stuff.

Speaker 3 (01:04:36):
Yeah, I also don't feel like I get a ton
of You don't often hear a GM just flat out
say God, I hate the Saints, and so that was
the most important win to me, was beating the Saints.

Speaker 1 (01:04:48):
How candid it was great. There was something to that
interview where I felt like, you know, Bye Week is
a little different than if you start off. I mean,
we got them at the perfect time. Yeah, yeah, three
and one. Bye Week is like if you're in a circle,
like an in season GM guest, that's it. I doubt
we'll get many others because these guys are so tight
lipped and such on eggshells for week to week. But
I knew this was the sweet spot, so we got

(01:05:08):
Jason Knight. I started the podcast talking about my amazing Sunday,
but I have to close the loop on something we
mentioned last week. I was invited as a special guest
to a Broadway show last Thursday night, and Aaron, as
my fellow fan of the Great White Way, my fellow
Thespian supporter, I went. I brought my lovely wife, Erica,

(01:05:34):
and we went to the Melissa Etheridge one woman show
titled My Window. It premiered Thursday night. It is in
the middle of Times Square and my review is thus
it was awesome. I loved it. Basically Melissa, whose life
I don't really know all the details too. She's a
fan of the Chiefs. She's been on Good Morning Football

(01:05:56):
about a dozen times. She sends me a direct message says,
I have a Broadway show coming out. I knew she
was off Broadway for a little bit telling my life story.
Do you and your wife want to come? I said yes,
and I will be honest. Thursday night football, well, ninety
nine percent of the country was watching the first half
of Alliance Packers wand I was busy singing I'm the

(01:06:19):
only one. Yeah, I mean it was amazing. So Etherge
comes out and this is my recommendation to anybody coming
through New York City or they have it. It's a
rock concert, but it's also like her personal story, and
it tells the story. She's a small town girl from
a small town in Kansas and her only dream ever
was to play guitar and be in a rock band.
And back then when she was born in the sixties,

(01:06:41):
that was not common for a female to do that.
By the age of twelve, Melissa was playing in dive
bars and parts of bands with thirty and forty year olds,
she was this phenom on the guitar. She comes out
of the closet and her mother says she can't agree
with that decision, and that severs or really hampers her

(01:07:02):
relationship with her mother. But her father, who has a
ton of grace, says, I've got your back no matter
what you just as long as you're happy. She moves
to Los Angeles, where she chases this dream to be
a rock star, which she says, it's the same dream
that ten thousand other people who moved to Los Angeles has,
And sure enough she ends up playing bars and gets

(01:07:24):
one gig after another to finally be able to perform
as an act. And she falls in love with a
very famous Hollywood actor. You can google this. She doesn't
mention it in the show. Of Course, I did a
very famous Hollywood actor's wife, and they have this torrid romance.
And this woman leaves a very famous Hollywood actor for

(01:07:45):
Melissa Etheridge, and they live in the Hollywood Hills together
and they start this life together, and then sure enough
soon comes great stardom, and she has this really poignant
moment where she's like, all I ever wanted to be
was rich and famous, and then once I got to
that point, I realized that meant nothing, and that fame

(01:08:05):
and that wealth and all that stuff was pretty hollow
and empty. And I'm on the road three hundred days
out of the year, and I'm doing European tours and
I'm away from my kids. Like she sings songs throughout Aaron,
this is not Broadway dot Com, this is not theater mania,
but my review is a very solid should go see

(01:08:26):
on the Melissa Ethrid Show. I wouldn't say you need
to fly in for it tomorrow. This isn't gonna be
the craze that is Hamilton. I'm not gonna say that
you must, you know, see it the first week. But
if you want to laugh, cry, dance a little bit
and you know, hear some great music and then just
see it and just a wonderful performance from Melissa, I

(01:08:46):
would advise going to see my Window on Broadway. Your
thoughts on my you know, Hollywood slash Broadway.

Speaker 3 (01:08:54):
Review, I think you probably could have delivered it a
little better. I think, you know, maybe a little better
lighting next time you do it. Yeah, no, no, I
think I love the theater as well. My parents both
from the theater, and I also love that there has
been this influx with Broadway with these kind of they're
not just the jukebox musical. It's the artist doing the song.

(01:09:17):
So it's not just come see us do a bunch
of Michael Jackson songs, which I'm sure is in I
haven't seen.

Speaker 1 (01:09:23):
Apparently that show is awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:09:24):
Yeah, yeah, I haven't seen it.

Speaker 1 (01:09:25):
But you want to get the football link to this.
The GM of the Seahawks, John Schneider, is a friend
and he texted me on Thursday that his wife, Tracy's
in town. He's like, what's a good restaurant in the
theater district? She's seeing the MJ Show, And sure enough,
we want to do two reviews. I want to she
freaking loved it and the MJ Show, which is a
story about Michael Jackson but obviously it's not him singing

(01:09:46):
no Longer with Us, but it's the Michael Jackson story
through that. But apparently that's awesome and worth seeing. But
what's the other one? Merrily, and there's another one, Mellowy Roll,
which is supposed to be great again Broadway reviews on
a football podcast. But Melissa Etherich, are you a fan
of the music, Like I only knew three or four songs,
and that's one an insult to meliss I knew come

(01:10:07):
to my window. I knew I'm the only one, and
I knew what are the beginning songs were?

Speaker 3 (01:10:12):
I mean, those are the two I know. Like, for
whatever reason, I think she was not something that my
dad played as much. Like there he was a Bonnie
Raid guy. So I have a lot of Bonnie Raid
stuff in my child.

Speaker 1 (01:10:23):
Let's give them something to talk about. Yeah, yeah, yeah,
she was great. So here's this awkward moment for me again. Me, me, Me,
this is becoming like a diary. I apologize. I got
there on time with my wife. It's pouring rain out
of the will call. It's Thursday night, I mean torrential rain.
We go to the will call. The woman at the

(01:10:43):
will calls like, I don't if your tickets. I'm like,
my wife got all dressed up. We came to the theater.
I'm like, damn, all right, let's leave. And then she's like, well,
it's your name. I'm like it's Peter Shugger. She's like,
we don't have you. I'm like, all right, great, I've
gone like sheepishly gonna go back on the two train
back to Brooklyn, like literally like just embarrassed, mortified that
this happened. And then out of nowhere, someone's like, wait,
are you with the press? I'm like, kind of, I'm

(01:11:05):
not covering it, like I don't I don't work for Playbill,
but like, yes I am, I'm with the press.

Speaker 3 (01:11:10):
Peter Schrager of Broadway World dot com.

Speaker 1 (01:11:12):
Broadway World dot com, here's my request to all the
listeners and to you guys. Go to a site called
theatermania dot com. Theatermania dot com click on the Melissa
Ethridge Show. Are you doing it right now? Aaron? What
I didn't realize was yes, I'm with the press, but
I was an invited guest. I don't know what was

(01:11:35):
going on in this situation, like I blacked out, but
I wasn't supposed to be all doing this, Aaron. They
asked me to walk the red carpet, and I said, yes,
Can you go through the list you have it up
yet the red carpet pictures. Can you go through the
lists of the names, some of the bigger ones for

(01:11:56):
and then the last picture and what this person is
wearing first? Give it the who hosted the Tonys this year.

Speaker 3 (01:12:01):
Do you know the name of the person who hosted
the Tonys?

Speaker 1 (01:12:04):
Guess who was the on that red carpet? From Melissa
Sophia Bush? Is there Bush? Gina Gershawn, who I grew
up obviously loving for her many roles. Who else? Wait?

Speaker 3 (01:12:16):
Who is this in a white tea and a blue
button down? Peter Schrager right there?

Speaker 1 (01:12:23):
You should have seen the confused looks of who the
fuck is this guy? From the theater Press. My wife
was like, I'm not walking Please, come on me, please,
I'm not walking that. We just got done. We got umbrella.
I got an umbrella in my hands. It's so ray.
I'm wearing Honestly, I'm wearing a pair of jeans called Goodfellow,
which is the jeans you get at Target, but for
my size, they're the most comfortable. So I've got Good

(01:12:45):
Fellow jeans, a white T shirt and it ain't a
James Person T shirt. We're talking like old navy white
T shirt and a blue button down from j Crew
that is open button down. And I walked the red carpet,
and sure enough, the next day I'm tagged in a
million Broadway articles that I walked the red carpet. But
like I always say, it's not about me, not about

(01:13:05):
me at all.

Speaker 3 (01:13:07):
I mean, you look good. You got a really good smile,
and I would never have guessed that you had. Five
minutes before this been turned away at the ticket counter,
turned it away and told that you did not have
a ticket.

Speaker 1 (01:13:20):
This is New York City in a nutshell. If you
can make it here, you can make it anywhere. I
walk off the subway, I'm getting drenched. I got splashed
by a taxi. I'm soaking wet. My wife is furious.
That she's not furious, but my wife is a little
confused that we don't have tickets. After we lugged out
in this rainy day and we left our son and
our six month old daughter to go see this show.
And then within a flash, I'm on the red carpet

(01:13:41):
with Ariannadbos, who was the star of West Side Story
and who hosted the Tony's Life Can Happen That fast?

Speaker 3 (01:13:47):
Aaron, Yeah, a pair of good New York stories today.
I like that a lot.

Speaker 1 (01:13:51):
We got it from Jeremy Strong to JB. Smooth to
Ariana Debos, and I barely even mentioned the name Taylor
Swift Aaron. Thank you to you, the viewers and the listeners.
Thank you. We're having fun doing this on behalf of
Jason English, who is here with iHeart Jason Kleinman, who
works on the amazing social clips and the digital stuff,

(01:14:13):
the folks out west, the people here. Thanks to everybody
for listening to the Season with Peter Schrager and of
course our guests Jason Light Till next week. Let's hope
it's jbsmooth, but I wouldn't bank on it these things.
If you don't press save on the screen grab of
the QR Code company business card from the manager, you

(01:14:34):
don't get a chance to have the guests on the
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