Episode Transcript
[00:00:00] Speaker A: And now it's the time you've been waiting for. You're in the mix with film producer Jason Slack, aka the talk of the Town. Now, the 40 vision films man himself, the owner of the Jason Slack brand. The place to be is here on the Vision live network. And now, let's get it in. Welcome to the Slack and Talk pod.
[00:00:32] Speaker B: Welcome to the Slackers talk podcast, aka the Talk of the Town. Now I'm your host, film producer Jason Slack, and this is season number four. And on today's show, we got an episode you do not want to miss. So without a doubt, let's get it in.
[00:00:58] Speaker A: Welcome to the Sports Core network, the new number one in sport.
[00:01:20] Speaker B: Just to start off today's show, I know there's going to be some people out there that's listening that say, well, I said this last year, and to a certain extent, you know what I did?
I was very excited. We got Aaron Rodgers last year.
I told you a million times about how this was my first time having a quarterback and all that good stuff. And it turned out that on the very first drive of the season, he got hurt. And we then learned that he tore his ACL and he will miss the rest of the season. So I only got a chance to see Aaron Rodgers for four plays the whole summer and the whole entire time I was talking about him, and we only got a chance to see him for four plays. That is true. That happened.
I was very down.
I felt like we was cursed. I felt like it's just not meant to be for us to have a good quarterback, you know what I'm saying? I'm watching all these other teams like Green Bay, who we made the trade with, by the way.
They had Bret Fal for 20 years.
Then when he left, Aaron Rogers took over. They had him for 20 years.
Jordan love places Aaron Rogers last year and he not only makes it to the playoffs, but he just ran all over the Dallas Cowboys like it was nothing.
That's two hall of Fame quarterbacks, back to back years that gave you well over 35 years, a great quarterback play.
And then a young guy who last year looked like he's well on his way to another 15.
I'm watching teams like that and then I'm saying to myself, man, I can't get one for one year.
So like a true fan, like a lawyer soldier that I am. Of course, man, I'm a jet fan for life.
Never seen a championship since I've been living.
We haven't made the playoffs in 13 years.
And I'm still a fan. That's lawyer. That's the only way I know how to beat.
I'm not LeBron James. I don't go from team to team.
I'm a loyal person and that's what I teach and that's what I stand on. Loyalty. Good or bad. If it's all bad, it's all bad. If it's all good, it's all good.
But I was excited.
Even with him being on the team and not playing, being on the sidelines, I was still excited even though I couldn't see him.
You know, we struggled. We didn't make the, you know, Robert Salah, our know who I'm a fan of and Joe Douglas, I'm also a fan of. I feel like he's the best general manager that we ever had. And even when we first got him, I felt that way. His very first year I felt that way and I stayed with him. I stayed with him and today I feel like he's the greatest general manager of all time. And we're going to get into that and I know it's a bold statement, man, and I'm getting ahead of myself. I'm just happy. But he's definitely, I could probably say, the greatest general manager we ever had and we're going to talk about that in a minute.
And Robert Salah, I like know he's a defensive guy.
As far as like watching football, I'm a defensive guy. You know what I'm saying? When I play football, I like playing corner safety.
I like a great defensive line that could stop somebody at the 1 yd line.
I like having a shutdown corner first with Darrell Reevis and now we have sauce Gardner.
And overall this feels like all the pieces are coming together.
Now, first, before I get into why I'm excited, let me address something because I know somebody's going to say, well, I said the same thing last year and we keep on saying the same thing and it seems like we're winners in the offseason, but then when we get on the field, it's a different story. Things of that nature. So let me address something.
First and foremost, before we get into anything, I'm going to say that the season depends on Aaron Rodgers health. And this is something that I should have said last year. Last season, you know what I'm saying? I should have definitely made this clear last season. It all depends on Aaron Rodgers.
If he plays, we're know we go to another level hands down.
We have that middle of the pack offense to go along with an elite defense.
Even saying that, right. Even saying that we have some insurance now, just in case that he goes down, something that we again should have had last year.
We now have Tyrod Taylor, which happens to be, I could say, my favorite backup quarterback for years, and he has never played with the jets, but I admire Tyrod Taylor.
He's old now, so he's past the idea of being a starter in this league. But when he was younger, I always viewed him as a starter. For some unknown reason. He would always show out and do the job wherever he went. But it was this. He went to a team that had other plans, man. They felt like they had another franchise guy waiting in the wings or they had their sight sets on somebody in the draft, and he was just always passed over. But he would always put up numbers and show out wherever he went, man, wherever he went.
And that's the first thing about Joe Douglas. He realized Aaron Rogers is 40 years old and we needed a backup. He realized that that's the first thing in no particular order, but that's the first thing that I like about him. That's the first thing that makes this feel different, this franchise.
Talking about the jets is so bad that I've been sitting here for years talking about how we don't have a franchise quarterback or good quarterback play.
We're so bad that we have never had.
Well, of course, if you don't have a good starting quarterback, you're not going to have a good backup either. Because if the backup was any good, he'll be the starter, you know what I'm saying? If that makes any sense. So it's not that we haven't even had a backup quarterback for some reason. We've been a franchise that just believe that our backup quarterback should be somebody off of the street.
Either the backup quarterback has to be off the street, somebody that's out the league, or is it somebody that's way past a prime? Somebody who had their best year at quarterback eight years ago?
Like Flacco. Even though I like Flacco. I like Flacco. I like Flacco. I felt like they should have bought him. They should have kept know. I think we'd have kept him. We would have been better off.
But your backup quarterback shouldn't be somebody who already passed their best years or somebody out the league or journeyman.
You can actually draft a quarterback man in the second or third round and have him sit, you know what I'm saying?
Your backup quarterback could be somebody. If he ever comes in a game you feel good about, like, this could be something. This could be the start of something.
I hate to say it, but New England witnessed that with Tom Brady.
There were so many people that started out off the know.
Steve Young was a backup hall of famer.
It's possible to have somebody good as a backup.
That's something that we never had. That's what makes this year coming up feel different.
In the past, we would have a season, and the fan base, ESPN or any sports commentators will come away being able to identify with what went wrong with the jets, whether it was quarterback play, whether they need a second wide receiver opposite Garrett Wilson, whether it was the blocking up front. Everybody could be able to identify what we need and what was the problem.
Everybody in the past, everybody except for the general manager.
It seemed like even with the problems, the general manager would go and do something else. We would try to overstack another position in hopes that that position is so great that this weakness over here would be ignored.
Even though, like, little simple, silly stuff.
This year feels different because our general manager identified the problems.
He knew what the problems was, and he actually went out and he addressed them. Not just one of them, but almost all of them.
And to put the icing on the cake, he did it before the NFL draft is here. He did it before the NFL draft has arrived.
Do you know how many general managers that we have ever had, where we're going into the draft with three major holes to fill? Free agency is over. People don't got cut.
Training camp will be here before you know it. Rookie OTAs and all that good stuff, and we still have like three or four holes to fill.
Joe Douglas actually addressed all these holes before free agency, before the draft. Excuse me.
Which in turn give us the flexibility of being able to. We don't have to pick a certain player now. We don't have to target a certain position. We don't go into round one with everybody knowing, oh, they got to take offensive lineman or they got to take a receiver. We go into the draft being able to pick any player that we feel is good from any position.
That's called flexibility.
He has provided that.
And the biggest thing, the biggest thing, the biggest thing in the world that makes this upcoming year feel different for the first time. I'm 43 years old for the first time in my life.
I've seen all the jets all season, man. I've seen the jets sign this player. I've seen them target this player.
I've seen Kirk Cousins use us for leverage to get more money out of Minnesota. Pretend like he's going to play here or want to play here so he could get more money out of Minnesota.
I've seen. I can't think his name, Anthony Barr sign here and then change his mind later on and go back to another team.
So I've seen the disrespect.
Odell Beckham last year driving up his know, I've seen the disrespect, like people coming out publicly and saying they don't want to play for the jets and all that.
For the first time in my life as a Jet fan, have I seen players that sign with the jets that actually take a pay cut, like just to be here.
Like lower, lower their salary cap so they can sign other players, so we can go and get what we need to make this championship run.
Players come in free agents, sign contracts based off of incentives just to play with Aaron Rodgers because they feel like we have something special here.
Not a contract that's friendly toward them, the player, but a contract that's friendly toward the team because they understand the vision, the mission. They see something special going on here.
Never have I seen like people actually want to play with the jets until Tyrone Smith, until Mike Williams.
Tyrone Smith from Dallas, the offensive tackle who's a first ballot hall of Fame player, one of the best offensive linemen, one of the best left tackles in the league every year, taking incentive laden deal to sign with the jets because he sees the vision.
Mike Williams coming out and saying that he want to play with Aaron Rodgers and he want to play next to Garrett Wilson.
It reminds him of playing next to Keenan Allen. For those of y'all that want to ask me, like, why do I feel this year is any different?
Or we say the same thing each year.
This is what makes it different. We have never seen nothing like that before.
Somebody signed for incentives to play with the jets because of our quarterback.
We have never seen that before. We have never felt that before.
A disappointing season last year, but we won seven games. We went seven and ten basically without Aaron Rodgers and with the worst quarterback play in the league.
If you give me Aaron Rogers, if you add Aaron Rogers to an already seven win team, I got to believe we can get four or five more wins. I got to. I have to believe. I have to believe we can.
We have a backup quarterback now.
Talent has got better. The offensive line has got much better.
And the thing about know trading for Morgan Moses, signing John Simpson, signing Tyrone Smith, signing Mike Williams, all these know, you would think even in the know we have loaded up in free agency before.
We have loaded up, and then we're stuck with some big contracts the next year. We can't do anything now because we splurged this year. We went out and did all we did this year, so we stuck next year.
The beauty of it, the beauty of having a general manager that knows what he's doing, you can splurge and bring people in and you know what? But you know what the gravy on top is. We're not stuck with any contracts.
Morgan Moses, one year. Tyrone Smith, one year. Mike Williams, one year.
Even Lazard, Alan Lazard, who bombed, know, we're just stuck with him for one more year and then we can get out from under that contract.
We're not stuck four or five years down the line with somebody who did absolutely nothing. These are all contracts we can get out of.
The only downside is he's moving a lot of dead money around.
And once you start doing that, it could be tricky.
That's one thing.
And the only thing that stop us from spending or having anything from here on out is actually a good thing because there are four draft picks in the 2022 draft that he hit on, and those guys are eventually, those guys are going to have to be paid. That's sauce Gardner. That's Garrett Wilson.
That's brief hall and divas avenger Jermaine Johnson. It's a great thing. That's another thing that I have never seen. I've never seen us come away with four great players in one draft for years. It would seem like we would get an okay play in the first round and that's it.
We don't know nobody else.
We came away with four starters in one draft. That was a first.
But I have to believe that adding Aaron Rodgers to a seven win team will get you four or five more wins. Man, I got to believe it. And I may have mentioned this before, but just in case I didn't, here it is again for the people that like to bring up the fact that Aaron Rogers is 40 years old, two things. They like to bring up the fact that he's 40 years old, and then they like to bring up his stats from his last season in Green Bay. So let's start with the 40 year old thing first. Let's start off with 40 years old first.
The thing that a lot of people forget is that, yeah, he's 40 years old, no doubt, but he sat behind Bret Favre for four years.
He hasn't been playing in the NFL since he got drafted. He sat on the bench for four years behind Bret Favre.
So his 40 years old is not the same as somebody who necessarily came in the league and started playing from day one. If you feel what I'm saying.
There's definitely two or three years of good football still left in him.
And I've never heard that being brought up before. Strange. Nobody has ever pointed that out. He sat for four years. He hasn't been playing the whole time. He sat for four years. Four years is a long time. A long time. A long time.
That's the first thing. Second, his stats from his last season in Green Bay. I believe he's still due for 3000 yards.
And he had 20 something touchdowns.
He had at least ten more touchdowns than he did picks.
Those stats, more than.
Those stats are more than five times of what we had the last two years.
Not two times, not three times or four. I'm talking about five times.
We haven't had anybody sniff 2000 yards.
This is how low we go.
So when you talk about numbers, it depends on what team you're talking about. Now, if he puts up those kind of numbers in Kansas City. Yeah, Kansas City fans could laugh. Of course Baltimore fans could probably laugh. They got Lamar to jet fans bring it. That's the best we ever. 3000 yards. What a quarterback could do that.
That's the best that we ever had by far.
Us. All we need is middle of the pack quarterback play. That's all we need.
All we need.
We still have money to spend. We still got the draft coming up.
This feels different. This feels different, man. This feels different.
If Aaron Rodgers has to miss a game or two, we have a quarterback that can win some games.
We still have meaningful football to play.
If Aaron Rodgers goes out, we don't feel like the season is over. We have a quarterback that a backup and tyrod Taylor that can win some games this year. Just feels know we get in players that we need to get. We get in players that provide a role and fill holes.
We're getting people that want to be here. There's people that's taking pay cuts for us to go out and find more talent. There's people taking incentive laden deals to play with our quarterback. That's unheard of.
This year just feels different.
And for anybody that ever doubted Joe Douglas, I don't care what the record a there's, there's parts to this. You gotta have a not he has nothing to do with injuries. You know what I'm saying? Everybody has a role. Everybody plays a know it's a machine and you think of a machine. All parts of the machine have to work for that machine to go.
But you can't put this on Joe Douglas, man. You got to put some respect on his name.
This feels different.
This feels like something that we never had. It feels like we're on to something big, and I'm glad to be a part of it, man. I can't wait for the draft, and I can't wait for the season. If we won seven games last year and we are adding all these people, including Aaron Rodgers, I think the AFCE need to look out.
That's my take, and I'm sticking to it. Thank y'all for listening to this special edition of the slackest talk podcast sports cornetwork crossover show. It's been a pleasure. Can't wait to do it again. Y'all be safe.
