 you know, oxygen heels, that's proven, right? So I believe in that. I think the PRP stuff, there's some credibility to it. Stem cells, that's a whole, that's a whole shit show. Are you doing that there too? Really? I'm not doing that there, but I mean, I've been involved with stem cell research since I was, I fresh out of college when I was playing basketball in Sweden. I actually worked with the Dr. Wiedner as the pioneer in stem cell research. He was the one that first used fetal tissue for stem cell research. And so ironically, and his dad, this is Lundi University, his dad was a preacher, an ordained minister, and they literally were fighting each other because, you know, from an abortionist perspective, and this is when Bush put the moratorium on stem cell research because they were using induced abortions for the fetal tissue. Oh, I didn't know that, yeah. Did you know that, Sal? Yeah. Oh, wow. There was this crazy, yeah. So there's this crazy debate and then the pioneer of this shit was like literally fighting with his dad based on a theological theory. So that's where I was fascinated because I, you know, I had a background in bioethics. So I got to study under this guy while I was hooping over there. Oh, no shit. So I've been involved in that shit. And now stem cell is like over soul? I mean, I feel like sometimes it's overhyped. Is it legit? Or is it mostly like, eh, maybe? What do you think about cord blood? You know, I know somebody that was involved in that. Yeah, I mean, I like anything from the beginning, right? I mean, that's kind of intuitively, that's what you think. In terms of the context of athletes and injury for what I am involved with, I would say that there's certainly a medical marketing now for all kinds of different stem cells. I mean, there's this bullshit about freezing, you know, the frozen stem cells are gonna work. I don't think that's gonna work. There's a theory on being able to pull from your hip, your own stem cells and injecting that. There are some physicians that say that. I don't necessarily believe in that one. I think it's gotta be nascent. And that's why, you know, I think the fetal tissue makes sense for me. But again, I'm not a scientist. I'm just trying to research this. You're a good person though. This is a great place to even start too because you're around professional athletes and you have been now for well over a decade. What are some of the things that have impressed you the most with like speaking to recovery and rehab? I would say honestly, stem cell is big, PRP is big, hyperbaric recovery, hyperbaric oxygen is huge. I think hyperbarics is one of the most misunderstood things in Western medicine. Western medicine is so slow to predict anything, right? They don't wanna ratify anything for years. And yet, and if you talk to a traditional orthopedic surgeon for hyperbaric therapy, they go, oh yeah, yeah, that heals the diabetic's foot. It's for wound healing, right? But they don't go, they're not taught to go any further than that. And when you start doing the research, when I've seen clinically, when I see a ball player who's a linebacker with the Niners busted his ankle, I mean, third degree sprain would have been out for six to eight weeks at a minimum. And the thing was ballooned. He goes into the, I call it the tank, he goes into the oxygen chamber. That thing has reduced the first session that things reduced by 40%. He's back on the field in two weeks. He was in a contract year, probably made him $15 million. Wow. So that's something that I've seen and I believe in. Yeah, I used to train a lot of doctors and surgeons and I would ask them questions like what are the, what would be the top three things you would do if you had a cancer that was terminal? There was no traditional methods or whatever hyperbaric chamber always came up because of its effects on cancer. Which is fascinating because there's a debate about that because obviously when you think oxygen heals, you question whether, oh shoot, does that feed the cancer? But from what of research I see, that is not true and it does in fact attack it. Yeah, oxygen kills cancer cells from what I've read. So it's like one of the things you could do that's not chemo or conventional treatment. So it's really interesting. Now what are the methods they're using in Panama in terms of stem cell? I know that that's sort of the mecca now for the new wave of stem cell. What I understand, again, this goes back to US legislation and that's a whole nother conversation. I don't necessarily want to get into today but from what I understand, one of the reasons why stem cell research in the United States is so slow is because the FDA has jurisdiction on anything that's harbored. I mean, anything that you can't store these cells, for example, right? And so if you can't do that, you're limited as to what you're allowed to do scientifically. And so Panama, or we hear about athletes going to Germany to get the shot, the quote unquote shot and things like that. It has everything to do with US legislation on this topic more than anything else. So that's all I really know about that. Interesting. Now talking about athletes, recovery, how many of these athletes are that you see are doing the right things and how many of them, because this is what I've ran into. And I've ran into this hanging out with you before, meeting some of these pro athletes. And what I was seeing, this was just maybe five, six years ago, I think when you and I were hanging out and I won't roll any professional athletes on the bus, but a lot of them tend to- Not yet anyway. Yeah. Hire their, yeah. Anybody have a drink? Yeah. We'll get a little further this conversation. You know, a lot of them tend to hire their best friend who went and got certified as a personal trainer. Yeah. You know, how common is that with these multi-million dollar athletes and how many of them are actually investing like the LeBron James is going out and spending millions of dollars a year on hiring all the experts? It's limited. It's limited. It's funny. I think I just heard an article about LeBron James eating a bunch of pancakes and all that as part of his fuel, but that's a whole other conversation. In terms of, you know, it's as an athlete and coming up through, literally through childhood, you're such a talent, right? And you're so used to whatever you practice is your habit. So if you're gonna eat McDonald's or if you're just gonna hang around or just work out every once in a while, that's kind of what you're used to. A lot of these guys are so athletic. They're so gifted that they're not, they don't train themselves to even consider things like the way you're talking about to increase the opportunity for them to even better. Still today though, I feel like that's what it was two decades ago when we were all fucking kids, but I feel like it's, we now see cryotherapy, we see hyperbaric chamber, we see all these things now and you're hearing about more and more people. I feel like, and maybe this is me and my own little bubble because I'm around professionals all the time that are talking about topics like this, is it really still that small of a percentage or taking advantage or really taking their diet to the next level and their rehab and all that and the recovery? I think what you really tap into is disruption of culture, which takes a long fucking time. If you, let's be honest, the majority of athletes in the NFL are African-American, right? If you look at the culture, if you look at the type of food that they were quote unquote raised on. Grandma, she cooks fried chicken, she cooks, it's the Kool-Aid, it's high sugar content things. These are things that they're used to. So it's not only recognizing from a professional perspective that you need to get better and really take a look at your health and diet. It's more embedded in your culture. It's like, what smells good when I go to grandma's house? It's the fried chicken. Well, what do I crave? Fried chicken. I mean, and look at Marshawn Lynch, you know that quote about, oh, you gotta take care, take care of y'all's chicken or something like that. I mean, these are things that are embedded in your culture, right? And so it's deeper than just recognizing that you need to feel your body differently. I would also imagine that if you're at that level of an athlete, because I've met a lot, I've worked with athletes and I know that there's a bit of a superstition. Like, I don't like to change these socks every time I wear them, I win. So now you got this diet, you've been eating it a particular way, you've crushed in high school, crushed in college, became a pro. I don't wanna change nothing. It's not broken, I'm crushing. Is there a little bit of that mentality? There's a hundred percent of that mentality. I mean, if you speak to any athlete, if a running back has a hundred yard game, he's going to do the exact same thing. Ritual is critical. Don't wash his underwear. Ritual is critical. Every NFL athlete that I know of has a specific ritual before the night before a game. As an example, there's a receiver that I represent every night before a game and they all have to go to the hotel, a team hotel before the game, obviously to try not get in trouble. He gets a double scoop ice cream sundae and then a pizza right before midnight and that's what he does. And the team provides it, the team provides it. I mean, that's what he does. You know what though? Here's the thing. You don't wanna mess with someone's mental state either. If you've done that for years. That's a good point. Well, that's gotta be the, how do you juggle that, right? How do you juggle? And then how does someone like you as an agent who's in between who's like trying to tell him like, hey man, if we took this diet thing a little bit more serious, maybe we... And look at that, right? We're going to your, going to what you say. There's a difference between like, look, if he's winning, I don't care what you do whatever you did last night. Like, keep going. There's, I have a story and this is where we probably start getting in trouble and start getting edited, but I don't really care. I have a great story about Pablo Sandoval. So Pablo Sandoval, World Series MVP, third base in the Giants. We're a, we have a birthday party and just my luck, the Giants are playing Miami. So, and he's like, Poppy, you know, you had to come to my birthday and I'm like, great Poppy, that's like a thousand miles away. I don't wanna go. He's like, yes, you're going. And so at the time I was working with him. So yes, I was going. And we, I mean, we got down. We had a great birthday. It was a good time. And I looked at the watch and it was four in the morning and then five in the morning. And then at some point I'm like, dude, we gotta, we gotta get back to your hotel. You know? He's gotta gain the next day. Yeah. Oh man. Or the day of. Day of, yeah, literally. So, so we're literally, we're in a car and my palms start sweating because the last thing I wanna do, it's one thing for like, Pablo to walk in there. Yeah. It is what it is, right? He's maybe gets in trouble, maybe doesn't. But for me and Pablo to be seen, the optics of that for a team to see me, that's not good. That's not good for business. You know? That's not good. You allowed this. Yeah, right. So all I'm hoping is that I pop out of the car, give him a dab and we're out. Yeah. Hop out of the car, give him a dab. There's fucking Bruce Bochie smoking a cigarette. Saying, Jesus Christ, Pablo. Yeah. Yeah. And it's just like the worst possible scenario. Oh my God. How do you play? Yeah. Hit a donger, went yard that night, went yard that night, had a great game, which goes to my point. It's like, look, sometimes, you know, you don't know what it is, but Lawrence Taylor used to show up all fucked up before the game, all night doing whatever he was doing and then ball the fuck out. Yeah. I don't know. My first story is a Dennis Rodman like that too. Oh yeah. So yeah, like major playoff games and just killing it after a full party. And Liz, be honest, when you're dealing with that level of performance, what's more crucial and critical to manage? Mental state or nutrition? Honestly. Be honest, right? At that point, yeah. At that point. At such high level, yeah. Nutrition and taking care of the body, that is a, that's the long game. That's something that you play for weeks and months and years of consistency and you don't see the real benefits until months and years later, where when you're talking about the moment, you know, the night I get the phone call, you know, what you have him eat that night is really not gonna make a fucking huge difference. No, and especially if you get them out of their routine, spook them a little bit, like, oh shit, I didn't do my normal pizza at midnight or whatever. Then they play and they suck, never again. They're never gonna do what you told them again. They're gonna go back to their pizza. I gotta talk to you. Yeah, I gotta talk to you about, you know, the Raiders moving to Las Vegas and like what kind of potential things you see happening in terms of like from an agent perspective, from a manager perspective, like how are they gonna be able to control or like keep, you know, the team together? Oh man, that's a loaded question. I mean, it's something that they're concerned about. It's something we're all concerned about. Look, Vegas, I mean, here's another tidbit on a story. I had a kid out of San Jose State receiver, I'll limit it to there because I've represented a couple of receivers from San Jose State, so that's okay. Kid was a drafted, a draft guy, got his signing bonus. Told me that he wanted to go to Vegas. I said, okay, that's fine. Sunday night, I get a phone call. A, I need a, you know, I need a, can I get like 10, like 10 what? 10 racks, 10 racks. You just got your SB, your signing bonus. Man, it's been a weekend. The guy blew through his signing bonus throughout the weekend. Now in other areas, in other places in the country, that would be crazy, right? In Vegas, you can easily do 300 grand or 400 grand in a weekend, like very easily. Your boys are in town, there's 25 people. You got the pool party, you got, well, Friday night, you got a table service, right? That's probably at least 10 or 15 grand. Then you got the pool party Saturday. Don't forget about the pool party. That's 20 grand. Then you got, take everybody, eat. That's another 10 grand. Then you want to go big Saturday night. So that's the 40 grand table, because that's extra bottles. And then you gamble a little bit, you know? And lose track. It's not that hard. Yeah, isn't that the main reason why they have avoided sports teams there for so long? Isn't that part of the reason why? Is that true? Yeah, I mean, my whole theory on that is that there's two, they see the league sees two major opportunities the next, you know, 20 to 30 years to make money. Number one, we didn't gambling. We didn't gambling. This was all, don't think that this just came up overnight. I had a, there was a competition, there was an arm wrestling competition. I don't remember if you guys remember this type of thing, but there's a thing where NFO players would compete against NFO players and then be guided by professional arm wrestlers. What? Yeah. So there was a thing on CBS last year. I forget the name of it, but it was on CBS. And so I got called, asked if I could seed any of the players and they were offering some good money for this, right? And so I had about five or six guys go down there. We spent a week in Vegas, which was a disaster. I will never spend another week in Vegas. Two days is my limit. Two days is my limit. We were having 42 for breakfast. It got bad, you know? But what happened was these guys all got paid. CBS ran the production and they got a call from the NFL saying they're gonna find every player that participated in the arm wrestling tournament because it was held on a property, a casino property. And they did not want them affiliated with casinos. Oh, wow. Interesting. Yeah, yeah. But what happened is even funnier. So what happened is CBS is a major partner, right? And CBS goes, whoa, whoa, whoa, we're gonna show this. And no, no, we're not gonna do that. Finds went away. Oh, just went away. Finds went away. Interesting. So back to your point with Vegas and the Raiders and what's going on. Look, I mean, come on, the negotiated CBA right now, there's some stories about the CBA, you know, being negotiator right now, the union's trying to negotiate with ownership right now. And right now sponsorships are allowed with casinos for teams, for stadiums, right? Why aren't coaches and players allowed to acquire sponsorship? Oh, wow. It's still illegal, I wonder why? Because the league sees gambling again and cannabis as two opportunities to make a lot of money in the next 20 or 30 years. Is there a potential like conflict? Like, okay, if the player, yeah, was sports betting, could throw a game or something like that, or is that not really an issue? Well, I mean, I've personally, you know, when I was playing at Northwestern, when I played football at Northwestern University, every year the FBI would come in and talk with us. And the reason is, the reason is we had a former teammate that accidentally fumbled against Ohio State. He got 10 years. What? We had a ball player, missed a couple of free throws, he got three years. And so after that, Shietown, I mean, come on, Shietown. How can they prove that? Well, when you're- It's convenient when it just moves over the line. Go check out Northwestern Ohio State, I think it was 94. Wow, it must have been real obvious. We were at the goal line. We're at the goal line, and there's no way that you fumbled that ball. It just coughs it. Yeah, you don't fumble that ball, one guy. You don't do that. No. Especially when it's right on the Vegas line, right? Yeah. Oh yeah, you start looking at that. So the FBI would always come and address, like, hey, here's the deal, and here's how deep it goes. You can't tell your friends how practice went, okay? If they're asking you how, you know, at that time, Darnell Autry was a running back, if he's hurt, you can't tell them that he's hurt. That's insider information, of course. That's insider information. So it's pervasive and goes to your point. Sure, is there an insensible conflict? Yeah, but I mean, come on. If the teams, dude, have you heard what's going on in that stadium with the Raiders? No. Oh, man. I mean, it's gonna be- I know they have like a jail on site. Well, they just smoke, yeah. What I hear is there's, you know those buttons you can press and the glass kind of flashes so you can't see into the suites. Yeah, yeah. They have those things, they have stripper pools. No, they don't. That's what I'm hearing. That's what I'm hearing. Can you gamble there? You should be able to gamble there if you're in a suite, right? Oh my God. You might be able to, because there's no tailgating, the whole thing about the league is they're trying to get people to come into the stadium quicker, right? Because he's sell more beer and he's sell all that stuff. So anything to get them into the stadium more, that's why, you know, the Chicago Bears, for example, are one of the first teams that banned tailgating and everybody has pissed off about it. Well, why are they banning that? They want them in the stadium? Absolutely, 100%. So now there's talk that you might be able to stay the night before in the stadium. You don't know, what time are the gates gonna open? We don't know, it's Vegas, it's always open. Dude. This sound like Biff. You remember from the Back to the Future? Oh yeah. It sounds like one of his ideas. Yeah, it does. I drove by that stadium. It's crazy. It looks sick. Have you guys seen it? Yes, it looks sick. It's all blacked out and everything. That's crazy. It's insane and if it's successful and they do what you're talking about, that could potentially set a standard, wouldn't you say? It will. That's what their plan is. That's what I would say. Wow. So what were you saying about weed in the NFL? What's the deal there? Yeah, let's talk about it. You know, it's troubling to me because right now, as it stands, the union is negotiating against the owners for a new collective bargaining group to extend the labor peace agreement, right? And one of the main topics is cannabis. And right now, if you look at what MLB did, they ratified cannabis completely, right? They took it off the banned substance list. And that's where it should be, by the way. In fact, the only argument that I can make for cannabis to be on a banned substance list if you can argue that it's performance enhancing. Maybe, maybe, but nothing but that. So right now, the way that owners have negotiated is like, look, okay, the way it works today is that players only get tested one time for cannabis. And ironically, you guys could guess the date it actually actually start getting tested. 420. No, they don't. I swear to God. I swear to God, that's the beginning of the day because the league year starts in March and it's a message to the players like, hey, if you're smoking, just fucking stop for like a couple weeks while you get tested and then you can go free. Which makes it even more crazy as to why any player would test positive for cannabis. It's like, dude. Just six, like, mind you, like, okay, 420 is when you start and you still have to get summoned to take the test. So what happens is when you get your pink slip, like, hey, you gotta go piss. It's like the winning lottery ticket that these guys have. They are so excited. Cause then they can finally start blazing again. Fuck yeah. Fuck yeah. So that's how it goes right now. So it starts at 420, when you get tested, you're good to go for the entire year. And guys still get caught. Guys still get caught. And then what happens is if they get caught, the first offense, the team doesn't get notified. The team doesn't get notified, but they have to be put in what's called the program, which is awful. You have to go to like almost like an AA version, you know? You have a counselor you have to visit. We have to piss all the time. You're fucked. You're fucked. And then it's when you test twice and you get suspended, well, then you're just complete. You're kind of a moron at that point. It's weird because cannabis has some really interesting anti-inflammatory effects on the brain and football, obviously it's starting to get a little bit of a bad rap with CTE. Cannabis actually is not, theoretically, from what the studies I've seen, could be a great way to prevent those kinds of issues. So a player playing a game, getting battered, blazing up afterwards, might actually be a good thing. A hundred percent. And this is where the union is today with the owner. So that's how it is as of right now. What they're negotiating right now, what's on the term sheet, is that the amount, the timeframe for testing, it's still gonna be 420, but it's limited to two weeks. Because right now, that's when they can start testing. Sometimes guys don't get tested till September, right? So they limited to two weeks, and they increase the number of nanograms you can have of THC in your system from like 30 to 150. If that makes, I don't know about that nanogram stuff, but that's what they used to measure it, I guess, is a litmus. We'll go with that. And it's a P test. Yeah, it's a piss test. So, but this is bullshit. I mean, look, the MLB eradicates it. NBA has always been seen it differently. And to what you say, look, there's neurologists out there, there's a whole lot of studies, these cannabinoids, the Terps, whatever you wanna say, literally can help with brain injury. And I gotta tell you, whether it's college football, high school football, the pros, the amount of pain that football creates is insane. And for a guy to be, I have so many friends that are still hooked on, the Vicodin, right? It's Vicodin, Vicodin, Vicodin, you never can kick it. Like I would much rather promote the positive effects of a plant and pain management through something like that than synthetic fucking opium. Oh, totally. And if you're right in terms of the performance, I mean, I remember when Nick Diaz got in trouble for smoking weed and I'm like, man, he should get another award. If he won that fight while he was high, I feel like not only do you get the money, but you get a bonus. That's amazing, yeah. Wow, you were stoned and you won. Or Newcombe, what is it? Who's the guy that pitched on LSD? Was it Newcombe? Oh, God. Right? I mean, that should be an extra. You should get an extra, don't you? Yeah, that was back in the 80s when they were all, okay. It is not easy. So what's going on right now with the players? You sent me, you tagged me in an Instagram post. One of the Steelers was ranting on his Instagram story. Yeah, bouncy. Yeah, dude. Yeah, what's going on right now? So it's complicated, but this is what's going on. So you have these political, you have political will at hand. On the one hand, you got the NFL, right? And they just want to grind the players. They always tend to win. The NFL always tends to win against the union. And partly the reason is because there hasn't been an unseating of a union member in years, in years. There's never been a vote to unseat what's going on. And so what you see is a comfort level between, this is my opinion, a comfort level between the Players Association ownership to where I don't think they're in a position to fight like they're supposed to fight and negotiate. I think it's become too comfortable. And you'll see that if you look at Troy Vincent and look that guy up later on, Troy was the guy who started with the NFLPA and now he's with the NFL. So there's a clear example of, well, wait a second, how does that work? And so I think there's a mass, but the issue is education. There's a mass discontent between players and what the union is negotiating right now. So there's no rule against that. There's no rule against going from one to the other. I mean, that's like somebody, being the CEO of a major pharmaceutical company and then going and being ahead on the FDA. Yeah. Yeah, it's something like something doesn't smell right but there's nothing illegal about that. It's kind of like when it's a prosecutor for years and years, prospects and all of a sudden he flips himself and becomes the best defense attorney out there and it's similar shit. Wow, very interesting. So how long have you represented players for? So I've been licensed since 2003, 2004. How does one do that? Like how do you even start in that field? I mean, it seems like such a, especially if you're a sports fanatic and fan, I feel like and you're not a player. You watch Jerry Maguire, that's it. It looks like, oh my God, that would be like the next best thing to being a pro athlete or maybe even better would be to do that. How the hell do you even get into that? So I think there's two routes. I personally, I mean, my story is, I think unique in that I never wanted, I never wanted to be an agent. I never wanted to be a sports agent. I mean, going through, I was blessed enough to have a great college experience. We had to, you know, the Rose Bowl was there, the Citrus Bowl, we got our assets kicked by Peyton Manning but we had some successful, some successful athletes there and they got drafted really, really high and the way it worked for me is that a couple of my former teammates literally called me and was like, look, we don't like, you know, we don't like our agent, we don't trust them or a couple of other teammates come in and say, hey, can you get me in the league? I know that you live right next to Steve Mariucci because at the time this one, Mooch was coaching the Niners and for me, it was a joke. I'm like, yeah, I'll call Mooch. Like, I don't care. So I call Mooch and talk about, hey, a couple of my friends are really good and they should get in a camp and there was this awkward silence on the phone. And I've always been cool with Mooch, like great guy. There was this awkward silence on the phone and he goes, are you fucking calling me about getting some fucking players in my fucking camp? And this is a guy where he's always been nice to me. Like my brother went to school with Adam, one of his kids. Like you offended him? Yeah, and I'm like, oh fuck, like I'm sorry. Like what, he's like, no, no, I'm sorry. He's like, I deal with fucking agents all the time and I'm sorry. Like he backed up. He's like, you don't know the fuck you're talking about. I can tell. But he's like, let me tell you how this, it works, there's only, I have a limited fucking roster going in a camp. Like we spend hours trying to figure out how we're gonna get the most competitive camp out there. And so for you to just call and have a couple players. I have my buddies go asshole. Well, by the way, I haven't played in two years. He's like, it's fucking no, it's a fucking no. He goes, but, he goes, but if you wanna try to get him on Arena Team, this is when the Arena Team is really good. Like Saber Cards were awesome for a number of years. Look, if they get on on Arena Team, I'll take a look at him next year. And so actually I called the Saber Cards and I called the Chicago Rush long story short. They both get on a team. Now Moot still didn't ever let him in a camp. But what happened with the Saber Cards is I got introduced through my former roommate and teammate Kevin Buck to Rashid Davis. Rashid ended up playing with the Chicago Bears for seven years. He just, he bawled out, didn't have an agent. I happened to be there. He saw I was cool and that's how it started. So that's how I broke into it was through pure accident. Wow. Nice. Pure accident. What makes an agent a good agent versus an agent that's that shit? Like what makes you good? Yeah. There's, there's And are you really good? I mean, I still don't know it. Jury still out. I said, so the way this whole thing started, I didn't tell the guys this. So I'm, I'm watching XFL. XFL just, just started up, right? So I'm watching that. And our mutual friend Marquette King, I met Marquette through Wynn. It was one of his athletes they represents. Now I know Marquette just came off of, some of the best NFL. I mean, he's one of the better pun, he was one of the better punters in the league, the last couple of years. Top five. Yeah. Now I see him on XFL. So I sit in a text message. This guy. What's happening to you? No, I say, are you that shitty of an agent? Yeah. And I get this fucking rant. And then it's squeezing out of him. You do XFL. They don't call the NFL for nothing. There's a lot of L's in the NFL. Let me tell you. Well, we could talk about the Marquette. Yeah. We'll get there in a minute. What makes you a good agent? I think if you had to create some sort of litmus test, obviously number one is like, what kind of contracts you'd be negotiated. And not necessarily that you negotiate the top contracts is when you've been put in a really shitty situation, how did you fare? And I think that that would be the best way to judge what a good agent is. Give me an example of that. When have you been put in a situation and you probably saved the guy or gave him some air? Sure, sure. I don't know if you guys follow a lot of college football or not, but Chris Brown, it was a really, really good running back. Iowa University of Colorado played for the Titans for five years and then the Houston Texans for a couple of years, so eight year back. He was on the Heisman Watch list. That year, Larry Johnson was the only running back that got drafted ahead of him, right? And so he was having a tremendous career with the Titans. He had had 1,100 yards in like 11 games, hurt his toe. And in the NFL, it's literally what have you done for me lately? It doesn't matter if you got 1,000 yards last year. If you're not in a contract here, it doesn't fucking matter. It doesn't matter. And so as a young agent, I literally, this was kind of like first big name. He's a starting running back. He's the first big name I could do a deal with. And so we get to the free agent opportunity. He had hurt his toe, it was got like 800 yards. And I literally called the Titans thinking I'm gonna do maybe a 14 to 15 million guaranteed type of contract where it's maybe looks like 40 million in the media type shit. And they go, when, he's an 850 back. I mean, he's run of the mill. Like we're not gonna offer any big money here. And I go, oh man, this isn't good. And so I let Kristen like, hey, what's the offer at? And I said, well, it's like 300 grand a sign and 700 a play, it's a million bucks. And he goes, oh, hell no, uh-uh, I'm not doing that. And so when I started calling around the league, the issue was there was an injury prone concern because of the injury. And so in that context, you have to do a prove it deal. You have to show that you're healthy and that you can maintain yourself for 16 games. Now as an athlete, you don't wanna hear that. As a running back, who by the way was, you know, back in the day when John Madden put you on the horse trailer, he was on there. I mean, as a hot running back just a year before, he's not trying to hear that. So I got put in a really shitty situation. And now he's thinking, well, dude, you're young, maybe just don't know what you're doing. And so this went on to where, you know, it got to the point where you never wanna do a deal after the draft as an agent, a free agent deal. You never wanna do that because you never know in that war room and a blink of eye, they could say, hey, you know what? We like that other running back fuck, you know, fuck Chris. And so we're getting towards that point. And I knew that you can't do a deal after that. So I said, Chris, we gotta do this deal. Like no other team is out there. Okay, I'm promise you. No, we're not doing it. And this is the circumstances. Coach Fisher was a USC guy. You had Norm Chow, who was a USC guy. At the time you had Reggie Bush and Linda White over at SC, right? And so I was kind of worried. I'm like, Chris, you know, they're offering you this, but you never know what's gonna happen after that. Well, yeah, it's fine. After the draft, when they don't draft a running back, we're gonna do a deal. I'm like, all right. So sure enough, draft day comes, boom, Linda White drafted by the Tennessee Titans. Like, oh, the worst possible scenario, all right? So guess what? I call them to do that 300 signs, 700. Now they're like, yeah, see you later. I'm interested. You, go fuck yourself. Yeah, yeah, no crickets. I don't get any calls. And at this point, Chris starts blowing them up. And I'm like, what are they saying? What are they saying? And I'm saying, ah, they're thinking about it. So I would call this- Meanwhile, sweat and bullets. Yeah, cross my eyes and tease and all that. I would call this a bad situation, right? It's a shitty situation. And so luckily at the time, so remember I said I had Rashid Davis who was with Chicago Bears. That GM at the time had built, I built a friendship with. And he was helping, he was guiding me as to what to do. And in fact, every once in a while, he'd helped me as to, you know, perhaps they were looking at this young kid over here that there's no name college. You might want to take a look at that. So you develop relationships and administrationships throughout the league. That's how it goes. And so I call, I start drinking. I'm not gonna lie. I was like, I was like, dude, I'm gonna lose Chris Brown. I'm gonna lose my opportunity to like show that I know what I'm doing. And so I call him and I go, look, this sucks. I don't know what to do. He's like, what's your problem? I'm like, well, the Titans don't want Chris. Nobody wants Chris. He's like, oh, he's like what, he needs to go. I'm like, no, they don't want them anymore. And he's like, okay, all right. Well, give me a call in a week if you don't hear anything. And at the time, thank God, within that week, Lindell White came to camp and he was like three bills. He was fat. Oh, shit. He was fat and he couldn't pick up the offense, couldn't pick up the blocks. And so I get a call from the Titans and go, hey, we'll do that deal. And so it could be for the, I call Chris like, hey, they're gonna do that 300, you know, fuck that. He doesn't want it. Yeah, fuck that. I'm like, oh my God. So now I'm on my, you know, fifth martini of the day. And I call the GM over there with my friend and I go, they don't want it. He's like, he's got to do that deal. I'm like, what does he want? And I'm like, he wants more money. He's like, okay. He's like, I don't really like the Titans either. I'm like, okay. He's like, all right, this is what we're gonna do. I'm gonna do this for you, but you owe me. Like, okay, please tell me, like do tell. So he's like, here's what you're gonna do. I'll give you permission to speak with the media. Okay, I don't know who you know, but you're gonna have to find someone. And I will give you permission to let me know that we're interested in Chris. And we're gonna visit Chris. Oh, that's gonna get his values looking like. And what I'm gonna do is I'm gonna call over there because I hate that MF over there. And I'm just gonna kick under the tires. I'm just gonna see how he is as a person. And it's like, when you never know, like maybe I'll change my mind, I'm not sure. But I'll tell you what, my mind's gonna be made Sunday night. It's Thursday, good luck. So I call Chris, go, hey, here's the deal. Like, you know, they say they're gonna visit you. It's not real. I'm gonna speak to some people in the media. I'm not necessarily sure it's real, but just know that this is the only shot that I can do to try to pick up this contract and move the money. And so my friend calls over there. I call Tennessee, what do they want? They go literally like, okay, when, what do they want? I mean, what are they gonna offer? Two million? Two million? Like, come on. I'm like, yeah, well, I mean, Chris wants to be in Tennessee. But yeah, I mean, look, it's a good system over there. And I mean, yeah, at least two. Like that's fair, one year, two, not one year, one. And sure enough, in the meantime, I get a call from Chris going, dude, Chicago's interested in me. It's on ESPN. I'm like, are you fucking kidding me? I told you that I was gonna do that. But the media is so powerful. That literally like, the heat thinks. So I had to remind him like, dude, no. That wasn't real. No, no. And let's do this deal. By the way, the Titan just raised the deal. Almost a million, it was 1.85 or something like that. We ended up settling on. But so there's an example, then we got the deal done. So there's an example of me making a difference. It's like walking into a bar with your attractive female friends. It's so that other women think that you're more attractive. I've never had to do that. I don't know. It's a common strategy for some of us. It's a common strategy for some of us. It's a common strategy. It's a very, very common strategy. I would think too, you, what is the, what is the probably the scariest moment for you as an agent where, because I would think hanging out, and I've been with you plenty of times hanging out with athletes, what has been the scariest moment for you where you may have lost everything you've built for yourself because you're fucking hanging out with these guys? Because I know that you've probably been real close a few times. Yeah, yeah. I mean, I would say, fuck. Do you guys remember Pablo Sandoval and the whole Santa Cruz issue? Like the, I don't know if you guys remember this, but here's how it went. And I'll speak to this and hopefully it'll work out. But so Pablo injures his hamate, breaks his hamate bone, which is a very common injury in baseball players because it's the bottom of the bat. You just break that thing off. So he was rehabbing and he was doing a great job. And so right before he got back on to, you know, he was rehabbing, I forget, in Fresno or something like that. We came back to, we kind of celebrated that he's healthy again. And this is on there, by the way, this was an even year. So it was a World Series, the year he won the World Series MVP, but this is prior. And so we decided that my mom had a great little spot at Seascape up in Aptos, right, a little beach house. So I'm like, man, let's just hang out and have fun because after this, you're back on the grind. So cool. So I actually let my mom, we're gonna go up there and hang out. He's like, cool, you know, enjoy it. We go there and let's just say, shit went down. There was, you know, there was some partying and one thing led to another and not to get into too many details, but. Yeah, that's real vague. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Let's just say, let me start. Let's just imagine what kind of party are we imagining here. We imagine like a birthday party for a bunch of 13 year olds. Yeah, yeah, yeah. This is like a. No, it was, we were getting down like Charlie Brown. Yeah. And that's fine, that's okay. And so the next day it's eight in the morning and what I would do, and I don't care because we don't have that place anymore. So I'll tell you guys, I mean, what I would do because it was kind of like a hotel, it's a hotel condo. So you can literally order room service. It was awesome. It was awesome. You order room service, but you own it, right? So what I would do instead of doing the dishes, I would take a garbage bag and I would just throw the dishes, throw whatever road, whatever, just throw it and just throw it in the trash because they'd be reset. So I'm hung over. It's eight in the morning. I want to make sure that Pablo gets to practice and all that shit. So I'm with this garbage bag and there's like, it's like a robe and dishes and clothes, like just towels and evidence basically. Think about the office and shit. That was a nice way of saying that like, basically all the evidence got in the trash bag. All DNA, everything in California. Dude, I fuck, I walk out, I walk out and two guys, like not in uniform, just two dudes like, are you 44? You know, are you like, yeah, yeah. He's like, what is that? I'm like, it's just trash. I'm going to throw trash away. Like, and here's the rules on, you know, once you throw something in the garbage, it's no longer yours, right? So, you know, they can take a look. Well, they took a look and there was robes. There was towels, like, did anything go on over here? We'd like to talk to you. Yeah, I'm like, what are you talking about? He's like, talk to you. Well, is Pablo Sandoval on there? I'm like, yeah, like, what's the problem? He's like, look, no big deal. I'm officer so-and-so. Oh, yeah. I'm officer so-and-so. We just like, he to come down to the, we just want you to come down to Santa Cruz and the police department. We just want to have a quick conversation. No one's in trouble. Nothing's going on. Is it like a dead hooker? Yeah, I haven't had that problem yet, but. So I'm, my heart's starting to skip. And now, like, yeah, the optics of me having, you know, now in hindsight, it's like, oh, like, fuck, right? Yeah. And so I come back and I'm like, Pablo, I think his brothers are too. I can't remember. It's like, dude, did anything like happen that was like, not okay last night? Everything cool? No, no, we're good. We're good. I'm like, all right, well, apparently we're not because there's two police officers out here. Now they're asking us to come down to the police station and we should probably go. Like, we'll probably go and I'll have time to figure this out. So I'm driving, I am freaking out. I'm texting at the time, he's a judge now, but at the time, one of the top criminal defense attorneys around. And I'm texting 911 like, call me. Well, this dude, this attorney, he's in a murder trial. He's in a murder trial defending this guy. He looks at his phone and goes, judge, you know, give me a second. I say, when, what's going on? Like I'm in the middle of a murder trial. I'm like, dude, this is what's going on. We're traveling with Pablo Sandoval. We're traveling to the police station. I don't know the fuck's going on, but you need to get here. He's like, okay, he goes back, goes to the judge, judge. I'm sorry, you're a Giants fan. He's, yeah, I don't know exactly what's going on, but my friend never does this and he needs me right now. So he calls us, you know, puts a pause on the murder trial and shoots up there and goes, dude, do not say a fucking word, right? So we go to police station and we start right there and I go, you know what? And he's like, dude, just say you gotta go. Say you'll do it tomorrow. So we go there and the police are down there and I go, you know what? Pablo has to get to practice. We're not being arrested. And so why don't we just do this tomorrow? You know, if there's an issue, we're like, we can handle it. And the dude goes, he goes, he looks at me, he's like, well, you're fine. He's like, but if he leaves, we do happen to arrest him and we're being cool with you right now. So either you come in and talk with us or we'll arrest him right now, which is not gonna be good for anybody. Oh wow. Oh no. So I go, oh fuck. So at this point, my heart is, by the way, I'm hungover. I probably had like two hours sleep. My mouth is dry. I'm like, what are we doing? So I'm like, okay, well, let's go. So as we're walking up, I'm telling Pablo like, do not say a word. I don't know what happened. And you, you know, whatever happened, just don't say anything. And so my career is flashing in between my, you know. Yeah, 100%. By 11 o'clock, it was 8 a.m. By 11 o'clock, we're three hours there. The attorney hadn't got there yet. I, you know, now it's, you know, my partner is going, hey, Sabian's blown up. My for the fuck is Pablo. And now the media is like, what, you know, what the start like, what's going on? I forget what, there's always like this one. There's always one media person that is like, I don't know if they're like part of the CIA. I don't know how it works, but there's always one. Yeah. And sure enough, there was one person from, I think it was from the Merck, probably the Merck, that had a beat on this thing, that something was going on. They didn't know what was going on, but something was going on. So finally, we were, my attorney, the attorney comes and he goes, look, you know, Pablo, did anything happen that was not okay? Like you need to tell us. And mind you, Pablo was going, everything, you know, I didn't do anything. I didn't, I didn't do anything. And finally I was like, Pablo, it's okay. If you, you know, did something, but we need to know right now, if something happened. Yeah. You know, he goes, maybe I go, fuck, fuck. So, so at that point it's like, look, you know, mind it, I don't know. Like Pablo, ostensibly, you know, this traditionally, there's a lot of money grabs out there with athletes. So regardless of what happened, you know, at the end of the day, I, there's not it. There's not a, there's not a bad bone in Pablo's body. I mean, he's a fun, loving, happy guy. But in the context of what was going on, this ain't good. This ain't good. And so what we agreed to that day was I am the one that got interrogated and Pablo got interrogated a little bit. And then a whole investigation went through and he got cleared. But that was a really, really, really tough situation. The tougher situation is by four o'clock I was done and we had to actually, we had to sneak Pablo out the back door, go in a different car, get him going because there was a couple of media out there. Well, that night I go to visit my mom and she goes, how's Santa Cruz? How was seascape? And literally the news is flashing that Pablo Sandoval gets accused of sexual assault, he's on the team. I jump in front of the team and go, oh, everything was great. Everything was cool. Because she knows you were with him, right? Yeah, yeah. So not only was I like, saw my career flashing in front of my eyes, I also see my, I don't want my mom at it. I mean, you can do anything. You get your mom at it, that ain't good. How big of a percentage of your job would you say is managing that kind of shit versus signing? 90? Well, think about it. How often does a contract come up, man? I mean, in the NFL, you got four years till you do your first, your second real deal, right? The rest of the time you're just like, okay. You're managing, you're managing. And yeah, and it's, like I said, NFL, L's, you know, because the story's going on. Well, talk to me a little bit about, you know, one of the, I think if I recall, one of the reasons why you were introducing me to Marquette King back then was, I had already started building a social media presence. I obviously am not a professional athlete or famous by any means, but yet I was starting to create this, this brand around my Instagram. And I think I remember you trying to get him to like put pieces together. Like you need to be thinking about this. How much of your job now has kind of switched into that at helping these guys with their social media and stuff? You know, it's, it's interesting with Marquette, you know, Marquette is a really, really talented individual. I mean, he's talented athletically and musically, he's not skilled yet, but he's extremely talented, right? I mean, he is, he's special. But I think Marquette really was a pioneer in this stuff for me because literally we would spend, I remember spending an hour and a half on designing one fucking tweet that he would put. We would argue back and forth as to how to present it, what to talk about, how to do it. He would, but he would be meticulous about this and be on the phone with me for literally an hour discussing how exactly he should tweet this. And it would be little things like this. We'd have a, we'd have a maybe a smart comment or something that interesting politically, but he'd go, oh, that's not, that's not, that's too smart. People won't get it, people won't get it. And so we would, we literally, we'd dumb it down. And we'd have this, there was this process. And so I would say, yeah, I would say 70% or a majority of my time is dedicated towards understanding and branding, which is part of it, branding the athlete effectively. Now, how many drunken tweets have you saved? Have I saved? Yeah, like if somebody had posted, he was about to post something and then they'd screen it through you. There's companies out there that approached me all the time going, hey, we have this software where any athlete tweet goes through you first. You gotta go through you first, huh? Yes. And there has to be a thing. Yeah, and there's no, that's like asking, you know, Marquette to put parental controls on his, on his, you know, on his video or something like it. He's not going to do that. No athlete is going to do, they're going to say fuck off. How big of an issue is it with these athletes where you have these fans or these, you know, these female fans who want to trap them or get them caught in a bad situation so that they can capitalize? Like, is that something that you have to really watch out for? Oh, absolutely. Absolutely. And depending on the, you know, it's funny, women in general, the concept of groupies, I mean, it's real. And let me tell you how deep this goes. There are what I consider, what I label as professional groupies and how I define a professional groupie is this. Not only do they understand where the money is, whether it's, you know, MLB, MBA, NFL, which is usually how it goes, right? I mean, it's usually golf, right? I mean, they know, they not only know what sport has the most money, they can tell you who starts, who doesn't start, who's in a contract here, who isn't in a contract here. Oh, they're targeting. There is an entire groupie culture that exists that target these guys. So yeah, it's serious. And how do they play the game? How do they try and trap these guys? What's the deal? Well, how does any woman trap any man? I mean, I think that, no, literally, I mean, it's close and glamour. I would imagine if it's got a cult like falling like that and they're almost organized and that's smart about it. They're even smart about their tactics. And I think that's what Sal's alluding to like. Yeah, like how do you even get close to a guy? I mean, obviously so many people are around him. Like how do you get his attention? How do they get close to him in the first place? Sure, sure. So I mean, it's the looks, it's Instagram. It's the looks. I mean, there's agents, I don't employ this tactic, but there's agents out there, for example, that hire hot chicks to go into these guys, these collegiate guys Instagram, hey, what's up? Oh, and try and sabotage them and then so they could get back to sabotage or get their attention. It's hey, what's up? You know, I'm from, I'm from, I'm from Michigan, you're from Michigan. Yeah. What's up? Hey, by the way, boom, boom, boom. I mean, so it's the same thing. Social media is a platform for a lot of things, a lot of things. And this direct messaging is it's opportunity for growth and business in every possible sector you can imagine, including the groupie sector. Wow. And I mean, it's got to be scary. I mean, I'm a 41 year old man. I understand how this works, but you've got these are a lot of these guys are kids. 20 something years old, all of a sudden they get all this money and attention. You're getting all these girls contact. It's like, I mean, what kind of conversations are you having with them? Are you trying to educate them? Like, hey man, here's the deal. You got to be careful, dude. Yes, you educate as much as you can, but it's kind of like people ask about athletes and money. I just was talking with somebody about, but that context and the NFL and the NFL, Pia, I've done a great job trying to educate. But that's more recent, right? But yeah, but you have to still the point is you have to be ready to listen. And at two years point at 21 22, they're not listening to a lot. They're driven by other tendencies, right? And so they're not, they're not trying to listen. Well, Marquette's an example of that, right? I mean, after I posted that, I actually had a bunch of people dropping in my DMs. We're like, I don't know why the Raiders got rid of them. Why did the Broncos get rid of them? And then you had that conversation with me. So what happened at the first, what happened to the Raiders? Cause he was doing great for them. What happened? So there was a change of a regime. So the Reggie McKenzie was the GM who's, it was a, I thought a great GM. I thought the former coach was a good coach, but for whatever reason, Mark, the owner of the team decided that he wanted to change regimes, right? And so in comes, in comes Gruden, in comes John Gruden. And John Gruden was, was ready to take things back old school. He wants all, you know, he wants, he wanted soldiers. He wanted people that would listen to him and go his way or the highway. And so what he did is he researched and obviously Marquette and the concept of what Gruden wanted as a elite connected group was completely different. Marquette kind of symbolizes creativity and disruption, right? And as a coach, you don't necessarily, if you're an old school coach, you do not want those elements on a team. And so he was already kind of on traveling a little bit on thin ice, not only because he was a little disruptive, but even, I mean, look, he was getting penalties on the field for dancing, right? And so as a coach, it's not necessarily that he was getting, that he was dancing on the field. It was getting penalties for dancing. So he saw it as a potential liability. Number one, number two, what happened is he, you know, Gruden did his research. He has a long history with the Oakland Raiders and as all of you know, the NFL is quite a good old boys network, right? There's not a lot, it's a very tight knit ecosystem. And so I think, you know, at first glance, especially when I was a true advocate for Marquette, it was like, you know, I was really concerned, but what he did is he did his research and he spoke to not only coaches that were already there or certain people that were gonna remain in the organization and asked about Marquette, but he went all the way down to the little people. And I think one of the issues that Marquette has, he didn't always treat everyone nicely. He had a little bit of an asshole component to him, not unlike, you know, Barry Bonds in a sense. Like, you know, if you had too many cleats in your bag, you know, he was gonna yell at the equipment manager. If your balls were, you know, if they had some new balls of their brushing, getting ready for him to kick, he didn't like those balls, he kicked it over the fence. And I think what happened was Coach Gruden spoke to those people as well and came up with the new opinion that, hey, you know what? I'm not dealing with this. Yeah, I'm not dealing with this. And I'm not trying to throw, mind you, I'm not trying to throw shade on Marquette. Everybody has their thing, but from Gruden's perspective, based on his research, that's why he made that decision. Well, that's an employee, isn't it? So he sends him over to Denver. Yeah. Well, he doesn't send him. Let me talk about that. Gruden's old school too. That sucked. Because I didn't think, look, Marquette, the day he got released, so the special teams coach was this Italian dude, and then he's got Gruden who has a, propensity to be seen as angry, right? So the day that he's supposed to report, and because he's a new coach, he can report, the players have to report two weeks earlier when you have a new coach. So he reports to OTAs, and he has Limaccello for the new Italian special teams coach, and he grabbed a box of Snickers for Gruden in the event that he gets hangry. So this shows the personality of Marquette, right? I mean, he's a fun-loving, good dude for the most part, right? And so he goes up, and it's like, hey guys, and Mackenzie goes, hey, come here. He's like, you're not, we're gonna let you go. I'm gonna let you go today. That's how he told him? Yeah. And I didn't think he was gonna be like, he had a great season. He had a great season. Yeah, he had a great year, and so I get this call, it's Marquette like, hey, Raiders will let me go. And I'm like, what? And I'm probably, I think I'm in L.A. at the time, I was, I mean, I knew and there was a time when you can, like May and April, May you can relax, especially after the draft, but the problem was I wasn't prepared for Marquette to get released. Like I just, it didn't, I didn't cross my mind. And everybody had kind of done their due diligence on punters, and so you can't release him at a time when he was being released. It's not a good time for a player to get released. So they kind of screwed him. Like at least if they were released him in free agency in March or February and March, then I could have got him on another team. Oh wow. All of a sudden I'm like, oh man, here's another bad situation. Right. Here's a bad situation. And so, and man, those are some tough days for Marquette. I mean, because he was, he was depressed. I was depressed. I remember that. Yeah, because look, I called, I called the Vikings, now we're not interested. Philly, maybe, but it would be a minimum deal. So like maybe 800, he was scheduled to make, I think three and a half that year. Oh wow. So it's like, dude, and Philly, and then New York was like, yeah, we're interested. And Marquette's like, fuck that, I'm not going to fucking New York. And it's because of the weather. And as a punter, you don't necessarily be in New York. And so I sat there and I'm like, dude, you have to go to either Philly or New York. That's the only people that are off from the minimum deal. He goes, no. And I had a friend of mine who's a business advisor of mine and goes, hey, call Denver. Call Denver. I'm like, I don't know, man. They're not calling me. I never, as an agent, you're not supposed to blink. You know, you're not really supposed to blink, but he's not called Denver. So I called Denver and I was like, look, you know, we have an interesting situation here. You guys have a rival. You have, this guy's a weapon. Can you imagine him in Denver? And I always started thinking about it going, can you imagine Marquette King in Denver? That would be pretty good. And so we lucked out. I, we did a deal that, I think it was like three for seven or eight, which was great at that time for the circumstance. When the only other offer on the table was 800. One year for 800. Yeah. Put him in a great situation. Dude, that's like the punters Mecca, kicker or punter Mecca. You want to get a ball fly. Yeah. Dude. So I think that we have a huge win here, right? Yeah. No, no, it was the most unhappy, horrible year for Marquette, predominantly because he just didn't get along with the special teams coach. And they disagreed. And what do you disagree on in punting? Well, this is only a couple of things you do. Yeah. So get in between those poles. Yeah. So from Marquette's perspective, this is from a specialist, professional punters perspective. Number one, he had him kicking awkwardly. He wanted him to kick like a 45 degree trick kick. Oh, he was trying to change the way he kicked. So he was trying to change the way he kicked. So that was pissed me off too in his defense, right? And quite frankly, that's what ended up getting hurt. And he attributes it to the coach attempting to change his kicking style, which may or may not be the case. But the fact is that he did get hurt. And that was true. And to his defense, for the first couple weeks of, he approached things the right way. When he complained to me every fucking day that he hated Denver, and I was like, why? Because I don't get along with the special teams. I'm like, look, just call a meeting with your coach and the head coach. So he did. He did to me, hey, guys, I just want to punt the way I punt. I don't like this way. They said, fine. And then the next day, the coach is being a dick again. And so if the coach said punt 50 yards, Marquette would punt 70 yards. If the coach said punt 30 yards, Marquette would punch five yards. Pure disruption. And his unhappiness, he was also, by the way, healing from the right. He had just got a Raiders tattoo, right? Oh, no. Just got a Raiders tattoo. Oh, no. So you can imagine, he's a human being. He was hurt. Like, he was thrown. Well, yeah, you have a top five season. Doesn't make any sense to you. It doesn't make sense to you. In hindsight, sure, what could I have done better, all that. But overall, like I said, he's a genuine good human being. And he felt really sideswiped. He loved the Raiders. He still loves the Raiders, right? And so psychologically, he was dealing with grief. And he didn't know how to express himself more. The only way it came out through rebellion. So he gets in fights with the coach. And then, no way. I get to call. Can you tell Marquette to get off his fucking skateboard? Because on social, going back to social media, he was rebelling through two things. He was actually healing from embracing music. So all he would do in Denver is go to the recording studio and try to work on his new craft, right? And the number two is he'd skateboard to piss the team off. And they're like, that's a liability. So they're not happy about it. Well, not only liability. They just made a $7 million fucking investment. They don't want to see the punter break his, like do it in the off season if you have to do it. What are you doing at a fucking skating party? Call Roddy in your face. Do something else. Yeah, you don't do that. So lessons learned by Marquette King and why in the XFL. Number one, if the coach has punt 50 yards, you punt 50 yards. If LA is pissed off that you're on a skateboard, throw away the fucking skateboard. And so that's why I think he's matured. I think he's learned a lot. Now, did this break up your guys' relationship? Well, sure. He gets cut. I work with them. And he's thinking the next season, the next free agent, you're someone to just pick them up. Now, back up, though, how does he get cut with a contract like that? Sure, so you can release injured. So you can have an injury. You can have an injury settlement agreement. And so they just wanted them out of there. They wanted them out. And this is how it worked, actually. They could have made them stay there. They could have made them stay there and rehab in Denver. Well, that's the last fucking place that Marquette wanted to hang out with a team he didn't at the time, a coaches he didn't get along with, and a place he didn't like. And so that's how it worked. And string his money along versus just cash him out. Like cash him out, let him go. Now, does that public? Do you know how much they cashed him out for that? So the way it works in the NFL is you have a one time, if you're a NFL vet and you make the first week of the roster, your money for that year is guaranteed. Oh, OK. So we just exercised that injury guarantee option. Oh, OK. Oh, very interesting. And I know one person that hasn't made the XFL and that is Colin Kaepernick. Do you have, I know that there's other agents out there. And you must have a communication between other agents and information about how things transpired. Is there any insights in terms of his relationship to NFL, XFL, all that kind of stuff? Are we going down there? Yes, dude. For sure. It's probably one of the hottest times. I want to know, OK. All right, so let me preface it with this. Let me preface it with this. I'm just going to keep it real. And I'm going to share my perspective on this thing. But I will say at the end of the day, what Kaepernick has come to symbolize is something totally different than what transpired and what the purpose was originally. Oh, really? Interesting. OK. And that's what I hold a lot of belief. So one of the reasons this is such a hot topic, like races, race is electric, right? And there's a lot of issues that we do with race. And for calling to ultimately embrace the role, great. Now, how it fucking started is what kind of pisses me off, because this is my perspective. Because I had a couple of guys on the team of that, that you're the Niners. So here's my perspective. Kaepernick is it's clear, number one, that he may not be the elite thrower that people thought he was. One of the main reasons why he did so well that first year when he was balling, I think they thought, well, they lose the Baltimore in that Super Bowl. One of the reasons is coaches didn't know what to key on. And so, for example, as a quarterback, if you can't throw, you'll put nine in the box and cover the run, right? But with Kaepernick, because he was such a good athlete, he could run. I mean, he's a four or five guy. They didn't know what to do, and that's what confused him. They didn't know if they could fix it on the run or fix it on the pass. So once they reviewed the tape and realized that he really didn't read defenses, and he keyed on maybe one guy, that's when his... They figured him out. Yeah, and that's what happens. Look, with a lot of guys, what will tend to happen is they'll key off tendencies, and if you're a good enough and a lead enough athlete, you work on whatever they're keying on and fix that and make yourself even better. That's an example, Michael Vick, right? Michael Vick came out. They weren't ready for him. He fucking destroyed the first year. There's a whole new thing. Defenses started to key in on it, spy him more, and then it changed, but then he still elevated as it ended. And to your point, so Crabture used to be the benefit of Kaepernick. That's the only person he keyed on. Back there, that's a perfect example of Vick. Back in the day, it was Algae Crumpler. Algae Crumpler, I remember his tight end would ball. It's because he would only key off Algae Crumpler. And so once you realized that, they started shutting him down. And let's just say that, look, Kaap didn't always have the best relationship with the receivers and all that because of this scenario. He didn't, he wasn't throwing accurately, right? So there was disruption. And then that coach comes in, Kaepernick is not doing well. And so he gets benched. He gets benched as the starter. And for Blaine Gabbard, I like, come on, like, come on. Like, look, Blaine, sure he's a great guy, not an elite quarterback, right? But now he gets benched. Okay, so now the first game he sits on the bench, right? And then the second game is like, kinda when he starts, when he does this kneeling, okay? So look, understanding all that context, now you make the decision as to what really transpired. Right, am I a disgruntled fucking player who is crying because I'm fucking sitting on the bench or am I really about this movement? Yeah, you find a different purpose or whatever a different way to end. Yeah, exactly. And so that's what I personally, I'm not saying it's this or that. I think it's this and that, with this being more disgruntled player, right? And to the point, I think that Trump, Trump has a whole thing against the NFL. I mean, shit, he won an antitrust suit for $1 against the NFL. He hates, you know. So he's got personal shit with the NFL, but I think what was brilliant with Trump is that he took advantage of what happened, but I don't wanna get too off point. The point is, he's disgruntled and then he kneels and I don't think he necessarily even knew at that moment exactly what he was kneeling for and in context, I think that his girlfriend at the time was kind of a social rights activist, right? And I think there was discussion and dialogue. And I think personally, it was more driven, it was never about, you know, against America or anything like that. I think that was bullshit. That was lost in translation. Oh yeah, both sides played it to their, oh, he's against the troops. Oh no, they're not against them. That's fucked up. And then true story behind that, and this is a little bit of irony is, I believe, I was told that he actually spoke with an army ranger about doing it. He actually was concerned. Yeah, he was concerned. I heard that too. I heard that he talked to it before he did it. He took and talked to it. Yeah, he talked to a ranger before and they said no. Yeah, because the ranger, what the ranger said was, actually, if one of our men get taken down, the family kneels during the funeral, something like that. So he's like actually- But that's also what they fight for. You know, our military fights to preserve our liberty to be able to do shit like that. So that actually, that's not against the soldiers, it's actually, hey, that's what we fight for. Yeah, and so to his credit, look, from Cap's perspective, he did his due diligence and he spoke with someone in the armed forces, and from his perspective, this was not a fuck you to the flag. It was actually an issue of respect. And so he kneeled out of respect saying, look, there's a problem. Now, personally, I think he was more driven towards police brutality and racism there than any sort of true statement against the United States of America. But as you said, I mean, this was taken advantage of politically and Trump with his skeletons and claws against the NFL really took some heat. And then, have you heard of a, what is it, a victim of circumstance? Or a victim of circumstance? There's a victim. Well, I call Cap a victor of circumstance, right? Because what happened was nothing that he could predict. What happened is it did start an entire nation's dialogue into racial issues in the United States and the First Amendment, all that stuff, right? It took and ran. I don't believe Kaepernick ever would have predicted that it came to be what it is today. Now, from your perspective, at this point, he's being benched. They figured him out. His nickname was Mr. Achilles, actually, for the receivers. Okay, so his career maybe not looking so good. He does that stunt, blows up, signs a huge deal with Nike. Do you think he made more money doing that? Or do you think he lost money? Because of course now, he's having issues with getting signed or whatever. Do you think that was a smart move business-wide, considering he's got the big deal with Nike? Or do you think it was a bad move? That's a great question on a number of different levels. Number one, I don't believe playing in the NFL is necessarily healthy for you. And as a quarterback. That's smart, yeah, sure. Look, there's a lot of players that, like, those hits will change you. Like, those hits will change you. And every year, if you've ever played football, and for me, I can only speak to my collegiate days, which I was known much more for keeping the team GPA. He can plays on the field, but I will tell you, I will tell you that every year in the beginning of camp, you get that one hit where your soul is shaking and you decide whether you're gonna play that year. Sure, yeah. So in that sense, interesting career move. And I'm not sure that he left a lot of money on the table. I just don't know. I'd have to research and see what exactly the deal with Nike. But quite frankly, he wasn't being my outfit because look what he's positioned himself as now, or look what's how he's been positioned. He's taken advantage of, and I don't mean that negatively, but he's embraced, like I said before, he's embraced a role as a symbol for racial discontent. Yeah, I mean, I was just gonna say, theoretically, football, dangerous, I'm getting benched to, I'm gonna protest, I'm gonna be this symbol. All I have to do is talk about particularly getting signed by Nike, Nike makes a shit ton of money off this whole deal. It's almost, you could almost look at it and be like, that was a smart move. Maybe he didn't realize it, but it turned out. 100%. Right now at the time, he's also having trouble getting signed and all that stuff, but maybe it doesn't make that big of a difference because I think he's still making a ton of money. That's a really good point. Yeah, but he's gotta be good enough to at least play in the XFL and they're not even looking at it. That's where I'm confused. It's all the controversy, dude, because think of all the shit that's coming along with him. I'm always probably asking for too much money, that's kind of what I heard. Well, so to your point, so number one, he sees himself as a starter. That was the whole issue with the Niners, that was the issue with the other teams at first. A lot of people, I have friends that are like, this is such bullshit, he would have been a starter on any other team. No, absolutely, I don't believe it. And I don't believe it based on his mechanics and how he throws. Well, not only that, yeah, you have firsthand experience. You're representing the guys that are catching the ball from him. Yeah. And they're, what'd you say his nickname was? Mr. Achilles. Mr. Achilles. Yeah, that's hilarious. Now, do players ever negotiate deals without agents? And is that a problem? Is that an issue? Richard Sherman does that, right? Yeah, yeah, so that, so I can speak to that. Richard, so someone in Richard Sherman's position, Dante Colpepper, I think was kind of the first player to kind of promote the fact that he was doing his own deals. If you're an elite athlete and you're a free agent deal, and if you're an elite in your position and you've had a good year, what have you done for me lately? You had a good year? There's really not a lot of rocket science to do in your deal. Sure. Because what you're doing, you're measuring statistics and you're taking a look at the top five players receiving that type of money in your position and saying, I want the most or I'm top five, top 10. Easy shit. So in that context, speaking of Richard Sherman, I think it makes sense. Like he doesn't have to. Really, it's that easy, isn't it? He can just compare himself to all his peers. Yeah, for the most part, if you're, again, if you're in that situation where people want you and you've had a good season and there's not a lot to it, there's not a lot to it, but not having an agent, I always go to make sure you define what that means. What does an agent mean for you? If it's, no, contract advisor, I don't need a lot of people to advise me on my contract, then that's one thing. If it's, I don't need an agent, then tell me what the fucking agent does because from my perspective, I do a lot and I take pride in making sure I put that person, that athlete in the best position to succeed, both socially, financially, physically, mentally, all that. What a great way to articulate. You get fucked up with them all the time and you just make sure they don't get in trouble. That's what that is. Yeah, yeah, pretty much, pretty much, yeah. That's 90% of your job, you already said that. And as we know, that doesn't always work. Well, that makes a lot of sense. Again, you're dealing with young kids who are exceptional athletes, but I mean, inexperienced with life and everything else, and you're dealing with big contracts, you're dealing with really, really smart people, you're dealing with teams and the people that negotiate for those teams and they do that shit for a living and coming from someone who's done sales for as long as I have, you walk into a sales negotiation and you don't know what you're doing, they're gonna fuck you. You're not gonna know what's going on, so having someone experienced makes a lot of sense. Yeah, absolutely. Is that happening a lot? Are there a lot of players that aren't represented and they're getting fucked in deals or is there a lot of bad agents too that don't get good deals? I think it goes back to education and what the agents are telling them. It's expectations. So there's a lot of athletes out there, even elite players right now in free agent contractors that I've reached out to me, and not necessarily, unfortunately not necessarily to sign up, but they respect me, I'm respectable enough to where I keep it real with them and so I have a reputation of at least keeping it real and what happens, what agents get into trouble with is setting expectations to such a point where they fall short of those reputation and it really piss off the player. And so that's where it's a visceral discontent when the player's being told one thing and being promised $100 million and the best contract offer out there is a million, that's a problem. And so their response to that is fuck the agents, fuck that, I don't need it. Sure, sure. So being honest has got to be a big part of what we do. What's the name of the famous agent, dude? The guy that gets everybody the fucking huge. Rosenhaus? Yes. Yeah, I got to fight with that dude once. Okay, so tell me that, what is the difference? Yeah, well, go ahead. I do want to hear that, too. I do want to hear that. Well, I want you to talk about it right here because what I want to know is what makes a guy to that crazy level? What separates you and him? Number one, he's married to the game and he promotes that, right? So there's this, he's done a fascinating job of promoting himself as being laser sharp and athlete representation only. Athlete representation is his life. He doesn't want to do anything else. He's done a good job there. Number two, he works his ass off and grinds. Like he's out in the parking lot and telling players they should be getting more money and he's out there working, you know? Still what? Oh yeah, he's still, dude, he's got minions all over the place now. You know, his team Rosenhaus, there's minions everywhere. And so he's done a great job of branding himself, you know? And all it takes is one elite guy, really, and you do a good deal with them and the players come in droves. And that's what tends to happen now. It's like the CAAs of the world. Like, you know, they've done a great job of branding themselves. CAA is one of the top sports agencies or athlete and talent agencies out there. And what they've done is they've set up almost a franchise type model, right? CAA is the brand and then they hire, I think maybe they have 25 or 30 NFL agents now under their hub. And that agent can say, I'm with CAA. And not a lot of, look, a lot of these guys are coming from a socially economically depressed background. They didn't go to class. They don't necessarily care. They could, I mean, almost all of them have some measure of intelligence, but at the same time, they just eat the brand. They eat the brand. And so that's what happens. So Rosenhaus has done a great job of branding himself in a certain way. So why'd you get in a fight with him? A fucker. So he goes back to Chris Brown. So that running back I was talking about with Tennessee, he, I mean, Chris was, he was, he should have made, you know, a lot of money. Of course he got hurt that year, but in his year where he was balling. So Zach Peller was a lineman. Obviously the running back tried to poach your guy, right? Yeah, the running backs are very close with linemen. All agents know that, right? So if you have a lineman, so what he would do is Pillar would put his Rosenhaus on the speakerphone and Rosenhaus and Chris would be sitting next to his teammate and Rosenhaus would be spitting game to Chris. Chris, your agent doesn't know what he's doing. And meanwhile, you know, Chris was like, shark's nipping up my toes when, I don't know, I'm thinking about going to the shark. They'll call him the shark because his nickname is the shark, right? Oh wow. So I fucking, I get live, I call, so I call Rosenhaus. I'm like, motherfucker, if I ever hear you fucking talk through Zach Pillar to talk to Chris, I'm gonna beat your ass the next time we're at the Comi because everybody, I have to go to the Comi tomorrow. Everybody goes to the Comi, it's a horrible experience, but all the agents are there, right? And so dude, if you ever, like if you ever talk to me, I'm gonna beat you up. Well, and he goes, well, I don't mean to break up a happy home. I'm not a home wrecker. I'm like, damn right, you're not a home wrecker. So, you know, it didn't get physical, but that's okay. Yeah. Sorry to disappoint you. The Comi sucks. I've always wanted to go, dude. Is it boring or what? What's the deal? It is so bad. First of all, it's in fucking Indianapolis, which in the winter it's just freezing cold. I don't like cold. So I don't like cold. So I don't like being cold. Number two, if you talk about the most concentrated area of testosterone, all male-driven testosterone for like four to six days, it's the NFO combine. Really? I mean, well, yeah, everybody's competitive. Look, as an agent, you have to be competitive. You're, look, there's only 1,900. So a top agent, top 10% agent has three clients, right? There's 1,900 players and there's like 2,000 agents. There's license agents that don't have players. There's stuff all the time. Is there certain areas on the field or anything you guys are all fighting for to get access or anything like that? Not at the combine, but it used to be a lot worse because there used to be absolutely no tampering rules at all and nothing established. So you'd see fistfights all the time with other agents because they're trying to steal the guys. Yeah, it gets crazy. I can imagine. Wow, that's insane. Well, you're talking about millions of dollars that someone sucks at. I mean, he plucks a Chris Brown out of your pocket like that. Yeah, I made a good money with Chris. Yeah, that's bread on the table. And agents typically get paid a percentage of I'm assuming the contracts that they sign. So they're, your success is directly tied to the success of your client. Absolutely. And it's guided by the collective bargaining agreement. So an NFL agent on the player contract side, you can make anywhere from one to 3%. But then on marketing, it depends. I think the market is around 10 to 15. You can charge as much as you want. What do you mean on marketing? Like explain that. So you distinguish agency from the contract, the player contract, the actual negotiated contract you have with the team with marketing deals. Oh, I see. Distinguish that. You get a percentage with the team, and then there's a greater percentage with marketing. Oh, interesting. Very interesting. So when we see like the ticker come up on ESPN and we see someone just signed for a $50 million deal, can we guesstimate like what the agent's probably making off of that? Well, no, not based on the ticker. Because you have to look at what the guaranteed money was. Oh, OK, that matters more. Yeah, because a lot of the agents, once you're seasoned, you, a couple things. You develop a great relationship with the media because of some of the stories that I talked about. And you also negotiate. You try to have a decent relationship with the teams, although it doesn't always work out, because what they'll do is they'll pad the contract so you look good in the media. So yeah, it might have been a $50 million deal, but it was $10 million guaranteed. It was a five-year deal, and there's no fucking way that player's seen the last three or four years of that deal. Oh, wow. No fucking way. Is that common? Yes. Why? I don't understand. Is it because they traded, heard? I mean, all the above? All the above. So from a team's perspective, happy employee. Happy employee, they think they can grab the $50 million. It's competitive because you want to continue to try to get that contract money. From the agent's perspective, you want to provide the perception that you did this monster deal. And so it's a lot about that. Oh, wow. Yeah, that's really interesting. So then, OK, so let's say it is a $10 million guarantee or whatever, or you said they won't see the last three, four years. What would that look like in the hands of the agent? Well, in terms of what they're gathered, so 3% of $10 million, so $300 million. So $300 million, is that right? Oh, that's not bad. Yeah, that's not a bad big deal, though. Right, and for an agent, is that up front money for you right away? Or do you have to get that over his contract? That's interesting. So signing bonus, any guaranteed money, the general rule is when the player gets paid, you can bill, right? So guaranteed money, like a signing bonus, you can bill immediately. And then during the season, players get paid 17 weeks over the year. Unfortunately, I wish it could be like 34 or 52. I think it would help them. But right now, they get all paid within the season. So you can bill as long as they get the money. OK, and is it common for you to do that, to like stretch it out, to help a player out, or? I tend to try to bill in December. Actually, just one bill. Oh, wow. Yeah, yeah. Oh, nice. Yeah. Good shit, dude. Very interesting, dude. Yeah, fascinating. Very, very interesting. Yeah, good time hanging out. A lot of fun on this party. Some good stories. We'll see how much of it we can air. Good catching up, bro. Yeah, thank you, man.