ESPN's Seth Wickersham talks with Athlon Sports' Doug Farrar about his Caleb Williams story, and why NFL teams don't always understand how to develop young quarterbacks.
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00:00You know, years ago, I was getting drinks with a longtime team president, and we were talking about just kind of NFL teams and, you know, the decision making and how things are operated.
00:16And we were talking about how we think of NFL teams is these huge Fortune 500 companies when, in fact, they're kind of mom and pop shops for the most part.
00:26And he said, billion dollar lemonade stands. And I was like, what? And he was like, they're billion dollar lemonade stands.
00:35He goes, huge decisions are made, you know, multimillion dollar decisions are made with almost no thought sometimes.
00:44And I was done to hear that. And I did thank him for giving me the title of a future book.
00:49Oh, yeah. But I thought about it a lot within the context of Caleb and Carlo and their kind of process leading up to the draft, because Carl knew and he's an astute, sophisticated businessman.
01:06And he knew that. As good as his son is, that his success as a pro quarterback would largely be determined by who picked him.
01:20And we like to think that these things don't matter, that great quarterbacks can transcend everything.
01:25But that's not the case. And this is the real life. And he didn't want his son to end up like Alex Smith, for instance, who had so much turnover during his first, you know, five, six years in the NFL that, you know, it's amazing that he came out OK on the other end.
01:43And so once it was clear that the Bears were probably going to have the first pick, I mean, he did tell me that, you know, the Chicago is where quarterbacks go to die.
01:53And for a 75 year quarterback curse at this point, since Sid Luckman's in times, it's been that long.
02:00Absolutely. And I think that, you know, he spent the better part of a year looking for ways for any way to try to give his son agency over his future employer.
02:11It's really hard. And, you know, he didn't find any. And so it was kind of we can talk about that process from there.
02:19But like, you know, from the macro process, it's just a huge factor.
02:23I mean, Bryce Young having so many coaches in such a short a period of time, it's like you have no chance.
02:30It's hard enough if everything works out well for you.
02:34And if you have that kind of turnover and that kind of dysfunction and so many bad hires, it's almost impossible.
02:41You know, you know, and I agree with everybody.
02:49But that's the goal.
02:50We'll keep somewhere in the middle.
02:51So let's go.
02:51You know, we're talking about the goal.
02:52Okay.
02:52We're telling you one day.
02:53You know, we saw the goal.
02:55I mean, our goal.
02:56It's just a good point.
02:57Good point.
02:58It's kind of like something, you know?
02:59You know, my goal isn't.
03:01I mean, it's probably a good point, you know.
03:05It's this taco that was true and there are things that we can use it.