Coffee, Chaos, and Nico Harrison: The Break Room (Ep. 9)

Welcome back to Misery Sports Co the only company where the stock’s always falling. The employees are overworked and the only benefits we get are moral victories. That’s right. We’re your CEOs of suffering. Your CEOs of heartbreak. I’m Trevor and I’m Zach. And here at Misery Sports Co we don’t win games. We win therapy sessions. Thankfully insurance helps us cover the tab. Every week we clock in, check the balance sheet of pain and see how our favorite teams manage to emotionally bankrupt us again. But before we punch our time cards, let’s give a shout out to our first sponsor, Trevor. Who do you got? This portion of the Misery Sports Company podcast is brought to you by Jeb’s mobile staircases. There was a Jeb sent over a clip, but it’s tough to make out, so I’m just going to try and read the transcript. Yeehaw! You gotta escape from somewhere up high and you can’t get down. Let me come bring one of these here staircases and we’ll get you out of there. Maybe you done made the worst trade in sports history, and then felt a little all shucks about it, and didn’t want people seeing your embarrassed behind walking back to the tunnel. Well, how about I roll this thing over, let me carve out a little section of that wall and we’ll get you out of there all safe and sound. You deserve it. That’s Jeb’s mobile staircases. Well done. I can’t believe he. I can’t believe he did that. He literally got Nico Harrison, got a staircase to run away from the fans. It’s insane. And you can see where they cut out a piece of wall so that, like, right by his seat so that they could put it there and he could escape. It’s absolutely insane. Wow. Let him live. All right. Let’s head to the earnings report where we review the week that was team by team and lost by loss. I’ll start with our earnings report this week. And I’m here to say Stocks are up for the Tennessee Titans. Woo woo. Because all right it was our bye week. And there’s no losers in bye week. But there were some extra winners. I want to share what Easton Friese on Twitter shared. Why this was such a great bye week for the Titans. So we didn’t win or lose, so that’s great. Uh, we’re already at the point of the season where even when we win, it’s like, ooh, is that gonna hurt us in the long run? But, uh, the Saints are now two and eight because they won. Great. The Jets are now two and two and seven. With the win, the Dolphins are three and seven with a win. Uh, the Ravens won, which sounds weird to root for, but if they make the playoffs, then our conditional pick with them moves up so randomly we we would love to see them make the playoffs. And the the biggest reason why this was such a great week is mercifully, the Titans did not have to play. So it was it was a great week. Everything’s breaking right for us. We might get Big Jeff Simmons back this week against the Texans which would be great to see him play. We’ve talked so much about him here at MSC. Big fans of his uh he’s going to be huge for resetting the culture when we get a new coach back. Uh, luxurious. Sneed might have got indicted. Don’t worry about it. Don’t look into it. It’s totally fine. Everything’s great. And, uh, things are looking up for the Titans. I will say, uh, it’s either five hundred for sports or five hundred and six sports I always get. I always get it wrong. But it’s the map of TV coverage for all of the games. And you log on to this website and it gives a nice, beautiful map. We’ll put it up at our. We’ll link to it at our website Misery Sports. Com and you can see which markets are getting which games. So you would think Tennessee would be stuck with the Titans. You would think this correct. Yeah. Well that’s no longer the case because we’ve lost the eastern and western portions of the state. Our team is so bad that the games aren’t even on in Tennessee anymore, and they’re not on in like Northern Alabama, like the really close surrounding parts of the country. Not on there. They’ve they’ve gone to other things. And so it was interesting reading the posts. People, uh, lots of people chimed in and said, like, part of why I became a Titans fan was they’re always on, like people growing up in northern Alabama, folks growing up in Memphis. The Titans were always on, and these were back in like two and fourteen seasons like. And we they, we still got fans through those seasons just from exposure. And so it’s really it’s really sad to see that we’re at the point where we’re so bad that they’re not even putting us on in like the whole state, but that’s brutal. Yeah. That’s brutal. Uh, real quick, we’re going to talk so much more about this in the break room this week. But, uh, checking in with the Mavericks, it finally happened. I mentioned we mentioned it briefly in the last sponsorship, but Nico Harrison, the general manager of the Dallas Mavericks, the man responsible for the Luka Doncic trade, is now gone. Hallelujah. He is gone. So very excited about that. More to come. And the Dallas Stars checking in with them. Watch out now. Stars are on a nice little three game win streak. And we’ve got points in ten of the last eleven games. That’s good enough for second in the West behind the hated Colorado Avalanche. So overall, just a fantastic sports weekend. Shout out to the Buckeyes. Thanks for that too. It was it was a great time over here. How about you Zach. What do you got? That’s awesome. Yeah. No, it was the complete opposite over here. Um. We’ll go, you know, quickly before we hit the main course, but, uh, blue jackets. They lost, uh, for the last five. Not looking so great. Oh, my gosh, did you see the last one against the Oilers? It just it’s brutal. It’s so bad. It’s so bad. Yeah. Um, the Cleveland Cavaliers just had a brutal loss to the Miami Heat. Um I don’t know if you saw that one. Donovan Mitchell hit a ridiculous three. It was so great. Absurd zero point four seconds left. You you just you let them shoot a ridiculous three with zero point four seconds left. No one guarded the basket. They had a back a back door, wide open lob. It’s the only play that could beat you. Yeah. In that scenario, you just you just park the bus, right? You put like two or three guys down under the basket and I’m putting everybody there. You can do whatever you want in oh point four seconds. Trevor. Like the only thing that is a lob on top of that Darius Garland are all star point guard. Is Reinjured. He injured the same exact toe that kept him out all of last season. He got surgery. He rehabbed all the way up until this point winning the game. He’s out I don’t know. He may not ever play another legitimate game of basketball because that toe is just it’s lingering like for years at this point. Gosh, all of that pales in comparison to the New York Jets and the Cleveland Browns. So that game of football was played this Sunday. And I just want to read you some stats. Um, the New York Jets went three for eleven on third down. They had twelve first downs to the Cleveland Browns twenty three. One hundred and sixty nine total yards of offense, forty two yards of passing. Trevor. How the fuck did the New York Jets score twenty seven points? And how what was the total yardage? Seven one hundred and sixty nine. We gave up not only a kickoff return for a touchdown, but a punt return for a touchdown. So here’s where we get to some of my tweets. We’re just going to you know, I’ll keep one for the the mail room. But since our special teams coach Bubba Ventrone has taken over as a special teams coordinator in twenty twenty three, the Browns are the only team in the NFL that has allowed three touchdowns on kick and punt returns. No other team in the NFL has allowed more than three total return touchdowns during that time frame. I love that we doubled up. I mean, I, I sent this to you this week too. This is from Rich Cimini. How unlikely was the Jets twenty seven to twenty win against the Browns? Since nineteen fifty, teams have won two hundred and twenty five straight games when holding opponents to one hundred and seventy five or fewer yards and not turning the ball over. The Browns were the first team to lose in that span. Oh my gosh. And I feel like every single year I have one of these tweets with ridiculous stats. I could pull it up from almost any year. And you know, I’m dead on the inside, so it’s not going to negative. But when I think about it, it’s just the same movie over and over. We try different things, we bring in rookies. Dillon Gabriel is not it. Kevin Stefanski, for whatever reason, will not get to Cheddar Sanders. He just he hardly acknowledges him. He keeps putting Dillon Gabriel in. Dillon Gabriel is five nine on a good day and he can’t see the field. He can’t check down, he can’t throw the ball. And so here we are again. We are in the same exact spot we are every single year. Oh man, I feel you on that. Like the tweets about how impressively bad the outcome was, because that has been my experience also with the Titans. You know, we’ll get to the end of the season and no team has ever had this few yards or has been able to, you know, win this few games when doing this, blah, blah, blah. And it’s it’s almost if it weren’t so sad and like you said, we’re both dead inside, so, like, it’s almost impressive, right? To be this good at being bad, right? It is almost statistically impossible to have this level of just awful play. Yep. Um, I just I just don’t understand it. And I’d be okay. Like, we’re fine with losing games if you’re the the lesser team. But in this scenario, with those stats, one hundred and sixty nine yards in the game that we gave up and they scored twenty seven, it’s insane man. It’s absolutely insane. So that was my week. Thank you for bringing it up and asking me. And we keep going every week with these earnings reports. And every week I question myself and what we’re doing. So we literally signed up for this. Nobody’s making us do this. That’s right. But it’s content, baby. It’s content and it’s endless. Absolutely endless. Well, our stock prices plummeting, investor confidence nonexistent. But we still have sponsors, so we’ll kick it off. And over to our next sponsor. This next segment is brought to you by Draymond Green and Jordan Poole. Practice brawl memorabilia, framed glove prints, itinerary of fisticuffs and limited edition wall art titled When Leadership Hits Back only for true fans of workplace productivity. I’m doing this because I want to lead you. Why won’t you let me lead you? It’s insane. His takes have been kind of nuts lately. I know we’re going to get into everything with the Mavs, but Draymond Green has been putting out some spicy takes about everything going on with the Dallas Mavericks. And I’m not saying it’s like Kendrick Perkins level bad but we’re getting there. Draymond. So like I don’t know do some reflecting yeah especially for an active player. But let him live I mean he uh he’s got some ideas and thoughts and he’s putting it out there. He’s got some ideas. He’s got some ideas. Well let’s check the inbox. That’s right folks, it’s time for the mail room. So what did we dig out of the tweets from the bottom of the mail room floor? What have you got for us, Zach? I am going to have a little blast from the past. So the New York Giants fired their head coach, Brian Daboll, which we’ll get into in the break room. But on top of that, we have a new starting quarterback Trevor, for the New York Football Giants. And it is none other than my boy. Oh yeah Winston time to eat that W. So I’m going to share. I mean, there’s so many tweets from when he played for the Cleveland Browns last year. Uh, just super entertaining. We were still terrible, but he threw the ball. He threw the ball forward. Sometimes it was to the other team, you know. But he threw the ball. Yeah. And I just wanted to, uh, give Jameis a little shout out with this tweet from at Steelers too. He says when was the moment you knew the Steelers were going to lose. And there was nothing you could do about it? This was mine. And I’ll preface by saying this was the Browns and the Steelers last year in a snow game. You have said you don’t become a brown until you beat the Steelers. What will it take tonight? The horse is prepared for battle. The victory comes from the Lord. So I’m depending on the Lord. Is that the message to the team? One play at a time. That’s the message. Weather conditions tonight we’re expecting winds up to fifteen miles per hour in a wintry mix. How will that impact your ability to throw the ball? I am so happy and grateful that the Lord has blessed me to play in some small to be in true football weather in Cleveland, Ohio at Huntington Bank field today to give him the glory. It’s a beautiful day. Oh, it feels like you played in the AFC North. It is. It’s magical. Thank you. Oh my gosh I love him so much. And you know when she was hearing it she was like hell yeah. This is so great. She was in heaven. And this is this is a southern boy. Like they had him miked up. He had, like, not been in snow like this before. So, like, he was like a kid. He was having the time of his life during the game. You couldn’t even see the field by the second half. I mean, it was just a complete whiteout with the snow. Um, and he led us to a victory. So thank you, James. God bless you. I hope you do well with the giants. Let it fly. Yeah. What do you think about the game today? The horses are ready for battle. I’m sorry. What? What is that? Yeah. You’re losing me a little bit, buddy. Oh, that’s so good. I love him so much. Alright, Trevor, what else did you find in the mailroom? Well, lots and lots and lots of content around the firing of Nico Harrison. Just endless content. Funny tweets from the past. Uh, people, you know, digging up tweets of folks defending Nico and saying time will tell and all sorts of stuff. Um, but it was really summed up one of my favorite people to listen to TK Fleming, uh, at Teal Tone Turtle on Twitter. Just, I thought, summed it up really nice and said to, you know, Nico Harrison, congrats on winning your little power play. All it cost you was your job and your entire future in the sport. That’s all it costs. Like you won. Is that it? Congrats. But, like, uh, you know what? What what did it cost you? Kind of. Everything reminds me of the the Thanos gif. It cost you everything, but I guess, I don’t know, you did what you did. Uh, but, uh, a little bit about me. This is so my actual, uh, entry. Uh, in winner this week, Texas Tech had a really big football game over the weekend where they hosted BYU, I think. Right. That was who they played. Yeah, really big game. Uh, it was a top ten match up and out in Lubbock. There’s not a lot to do. And so Texas Tech is like life. And I lived in Texas for. twelve ish years, twelve, fifteen years. And it was fun as an outsider to see all of the hate that the Texas teams have for one another. But there’s nothing quite as uniting as laughing at and dunking on Texas A&M. It’s just really like it brings everybody together, and I’m gonna kind of make it a mission of this podcast to, like, shed some light on that, because I know a lot of A&M fans, and I think they would love to distance from some of the really weird, bizarre crap with their team. But it’s tradition and people love it. So, uh, in response to somebody tweeting like, uh, it was kind of a panorama of the Texas Tech stadium and, you know, they said something snarky like, wow, this looks great, but like, where’s the rest of it? Because maybe it’s not as high and big as other stadiums. Uh, so somebody clapped back at that A&M fan and said, every time I think about the Aggies, I’m like, they could be cool, but they worship stuff like this. And this is, uh, one of their yell leaders in a white polo and denim overalls that are way too tight. I would kindly invite everybody to visit Missouri Sportskeeda.com to see this. Uh, it’s really something to behold, but the audio is quality enough to where I am going to share it. Ever loving compound complex Fightin Texas Aggie. That’s some real little brother energy Fightin Texas Aggie. There’s nothing more disgusting than burnt orange. Okay, so, like, just to set the scene, it’s really short, so I’m going to play it again to set the scene. There’s a whole bunch of people that come to midnight yell the day before the game. And so like, there’s a ton of students that come to the stadium and they all do the chants. And then there’s these yell leaders in these overalls and they lead all this stuff. So I’m just going to play it one more time. And this is not a joke. Like it’s not something everybody laughs at. This is like, yeah, let’s get amped for the game. Ever loving, compound complex fightin Texas Aggie. That’s some real little brother energy Fightin Texas Aggie. There’s nothing more disgusting than burnt orange. Wow. So, like, really picked a winner there. I just yeah, it’s it’s really, really something. It’s really something. So I’m going to shed more light on that. Stay tuned to Misery Sports Co because I’m going to share in the misery. I know there’s a lot of Aggies out there that’s like, you know, if we could get rid of that stuff, that’s great. But you can’t shake your history. You know you can’t shake your history. Between that and the Texas Tech, I swear there are at least two if not three videos of the Texas Tech guys ringing the bell. And they’re just going way too hard at it. And it just it just is a bad look when they’re ringing the bell with their hand real hard. I mean, between between tech and A&M, we got some stuff going on. It’s so great. Yeah, absolutely. Oh, man. Well, that’s it for the mail room. Let’s see who our next sponsor is. What do you got, Trevor? This portion of the Missouri Sports Company is brought to you by non-alcoholic beer for fans of miserable teams. Look, just just switch now. You’re you’re not going to last long at this rate. No non-alcoholic beer. Thank you. Non-alcoholic beer. Trying to save the livers of all of our shareholders, and there’s good stuff out there. If I could just say, but it is time to enter the office of moral victories and Handouts, some employees of the week. All right. Well, my employee of the week, I’m actually going to stick with the Browns because there are some bright spots. So I’m going to give it out to Carson Swearinger. So he is our rookie linebacker. We drafted him I think it was in the third round. Absolute stud. Um, he was supposed to be out for a month with a high ankle sprain. He came back after two weeks. He had ten tackles against the Jets. He’s on pace for somewhere around like one hundred and forty to one hundred and fifty tackles this year. Um, he’s just a monster. He’s going to be an absolute stud as long as he stays healthy. Um, someone that we can build around. So thank you, Carson, for coming back. I mean, yeah, for a two and six team now. Two and seven. I give you props for coming in, showing up, working hard. Thank you. Carson. Thanks, Carson. We see you. We appreciate you. Well, my employee of the week. Obviously not going to be a Tennessee titan. Uh, I would give it to the whole team just for not losing this week and taking it easy. But I am going to go with Jason Robertson, a left winger on the Dallas Stars. He had the game tying goal for the stars against Ottawa, who we covered here at Misery Sports Co recently. Zach had us on a deep dive with the Ottawa Senators. Jason Robertson had not scored in nine games, and this was a forward who had one hundred and nine points in twenty twenty two. He had eighty last the last two years. Very productive forward, been nine games. So he broke the slump. Uh, and he busted the slump in Ottawa for the Dallas Stars. It had been since twenty sixteen since the Dallas Stars won in Ottawa. Uh, the stars tweeted out something that that showed the last time that they won. Wyatt Johnston, our rising star forward, was thirteen years old. So it’s it’s been quite a while. So shout out to robo for helping us get it done. And uh, right in that streak out helping us get the win. Thanks, robo. Well done. Promotions all around. Just no raises. We’re going to get a word from our next sponsor. This segment’s going to be brought to you by coach Kevin Stefanski, quote unquote. We’ll look at everything consulting when you lose twenty seven to twenty and still plan to stick with the quarterback. We’ll evaluate the whole roster tomorrow because changing nothing is still a strategy. Thank you so much, Coach Stefanski. I hate you, but he’s going to look at everything. He says it every I’m Trevor every single press conference. We just got. We just gotta look at everything. We just gotta do better. You know, I it starts with me and it’s the team. Just shut your freaking mouth. Yeah, just speak some truth or don’t say anything. Our team sucks. Dylan Gabriel sucks. He’s a he’s a rookie. I mean, let’s give him that. But come on, Coach Stefanski, do better. We have our version of, uh. We’re going to look at everything, which is we need to coach better. We need to play better. That is the Titans speak for the last. I don’t know how long it became a running joke with Vrabel. Like he wasn’t going to give us a lot. And then when Callahan started saying it it was like oh my gosh it’s coach speak. Yep. It’s the worst. It is. Um, so we’re going to hop into the break room now. So typically we would do a deep dive. We would pick a team. this week. You know, with the events, the announcement of Nico Harrison’s firing, um, we thought it was appropriate to hop back into the break room and really cover that dynamic. Right? The firing of coaches, the firing of GM. Where do owners play in all of that? And so I wanted to start out first. We’ll get to GM’s right. And we’ll get to Nico and kind of, you know, pull back that onion. But starting with with head coaches Trevor, you know, we’ve seen a ton of coaches get fired recently Brian Daboll with the Giants. Callahan with the Titans Brian Kelly going into the college ranks James Franklin. People are dropping like flies. And it kind of goes to that hot seat culture. So I guess the question I have is, you know, are fans and media driving unrealistic expectations, or do you think that the timeline is typically fair with some of these coaches? Yeah, I do think that the expectations become unrealistic to be able to turn a team around as quickly as we expect them to do that. However, that seems to just kind of be in the state we’re in. We need results now. We need butts and seats now. We need social engagement with our posts and our highlights. Branding like it’s. I both agree that it’s unfair, but acknowledge that that is the state of things. So like it’s kind of a what are you going to do? But it’s not fair, right? It’s not fair to expect expect turnarounds as quickly as we’re seeing. No, but I think that there’s something to like having incremental improvements. Right. So when we think about the bottom of a league, right? Even outside of the Titans and the Browns, the Saints, the Giants who just let go of their coach like you just want to see signs of life and improvement and discipline. Like there’s things that you can control as a coach, and it’s not making the dumb mistakes. It’s running a competent team, just being able to like, call a play, get out of the huddle, gain some yards. And I just don’t I don’t see that you can give a coach a few years to try to build that from a structure perspective. But typically and especially in college now, like there’s a lot of pressure, like you said, to win at LSU, at Penn State. Like there’s less challenges than there are in the NFL. I feel like there’s more parity in the NFL, where LSU and Penn State, like you’ve got an advantage to be in the top ten, top fifteen, whether it’s nil, whether it’s just the history and tradition of your your team, your college, you’ve got an advantage in most cases. Yeah. That’s fair. And with and I don’t know if you get this too, but it seems like NBA coaches get have the longest leash. Maybe there’s an argument to be made with, um, uh, NFL teams a little bit. But if you’re just comparing like college and pros, like you could go in there and, uh, you know, say for an NBA team like, give me three years, that gives you two off seasons to get folks in here and develop. Uh, and you can see like, okay, you’ve you’ve got your benchmarks, like you said, notable progress along the way that you have to hit. But for a college coach with the portal with graduation, that three years is just so many moving pieces that it’s not like, hey, let me have a couple drafts and we’ll develop and like, I’ll make a couple, like, I’ll work with the GM and we’ll make some moves. Like, I feel like college now. You’re you’re overhauling such a huge portion of your roster with the rules on on them being able to move that it’s it’s less about like developing your vision and more about just becoming really good at squeezing the most out of players and being flexible with your game plan. Mhm. No, you’re absolutely right I completely agree. Um, and it leads me to another question too. It’s and it, it’s related to Nico a little bit. Um, it’s kind of that who’s, who’s really to blame. Right. So Nico, when you have someone that’s fired, you have someone that’s fired, you have a GM and a coach, right? And they should be working as a team. And this is really a professional setting. Right. But I do, you know, what are your opinions on blaming the coach versus blaming the GM. Is it always clear? Uh, it’s tough. It’s it’s tough. Um. I think a big part of when the coach is more to blame than the GM is when you start hearing the stories and the leaks and the quotes from the players themselves, like the coach is in charge of maintaining that locker room. And so if you if the stories are coming out and like, yes, even though we’re not winning, if you hear players talk about like trusting the process and you know we’re behind coach and coach puts us in a good position. Like you can kind of say, okay, maybe this is I have confidence in the coach that he’s trying and maybe it’s time to reevaluate the talent on this team. But I’ve been fans of teams where stuff starts coming out, and it’s very clear that the players cannot stand playing for this coach, which is fine when you’re winning, but when you start to lose, that can go south really quick. So in my mind it’s like when the players stop. Not trying, I think. I think players try most of the time. I don’t like the narrative of like, oh, they wanted it more. They stopped trying. Like, I really think that everybody wants it and they try. But when but when you can tell that there’s not a united front and they’re starting to fracture, like players complaining about this or thinking different stuff should be done, that’s a sign that the coach is not having a cohesive locker room and a team. And I think at that point it’s more fair to blame the coach versus looking at the GM talent wise. And I just want to be a fly on the wall, right? Because we’ve got Nico Harrison, the Dallas Mavericks general manager. We have Jason Kidd, the Dallas Mavericks head coach. And at some point someone made the final decision to trade Luka Doncic. Right. Did Jason Kidd have any idea? Number one. Number two, what was his reaction? Because in a lot of the press conferences, after he looked like a hostage that had just like he was gonna blink Morse code. Absolutely right. And so did he even know about it? Because Nico Harrison seems like a snake that would just not tell anybody except the owner and just execute it. I truly don’t know. And I, I also think back to and sorry to dig this out too, but when Mike Vrabel and the Tennessee Titans and whoever their GM was traded um Brown their wide receiver and and Derrick Henry at the time. Yeah. And so it’s like okay, at what point does a coach have the ability to just put their foot down and be like, we are not trading this star player. They’re too good. We will never like I can’t work with this. I just I don’t understand it. I know and there’s there’s draft day footage from the war room because, excuse me, A.J. Brown got traded the night of the draft. And so there is video of John Robinson, our GM, who had been. Uh, you know, after they made it, Patton Vrabel on the back or like nodding like, this is going to work. And Vrabel just stands up and does the old man like hike up your britches like I don’t think so. I think this is really bad and just kind of like, shakes his head and walks away a little bit. Clearly he was not on board and would not have traded A.J. Brown. That’s you know, we hear so much during the off season for teams that have hiring to do of who do you hire first, the coach or the GM. Do you hire them at the same time because it’s so important for them to be in lockstep? And that was the beginning. So that decision to trade A.J. Brown then plants in Mike Vrabel’s head, I got to get control of this roster because that was freaking nuts and I would have never done that. So now he’s positioning for more roster control. Well, that fractures the relationship between him and the front office. They’ve seen that not go so well. And so that decision was part one of like a very complicated path of them separating. So it is absolutely crucial that they work well together. And good teams do it well and teams are terrible with it. Or they just let Kevin Stefanski coach for six years and Andrew Berry’s super aligned with him. So they’re just going to keep collecting the check. Let him. Which leads me to my next question. Do you think that and you know it can apply to your teams or across leagues. Do you prefer the method of churning and burning coaches where you fire them every one to two years? Or do you prefer For riding out a coach for five to six years, trying to help, you know, support them, let them learn by the school of hard knocks. We’ll see. I want your answer on this because you’ve been through this, the Kevin Stefanski experience and you’ve been through. Who was the bald one? Oh, kitchens, I don’t want to talk about Freddy Kitchens. Trevor. Um, but I’m glad you mentioned that because I’ve lived through both. Right. So at the beginning, Jimmy Haslam, he ended up buying the Cleveland Browns. I don’t freaking know, maybe ten years ago at this point. And at first he was meddling. And we’ll get to owners in a little bit. So he was very hands on and he was churning and burning coaches. They were getting a year or two. Um, but it wasn’t working for him. He wasn’t having success. They weren’t building a culture. Um, there wasn’t that lockstep, like you said. And so he went the other way and he stuck with Kevin Stefanski. They talk about he analytics. Stefanski probably lets him in his meetings just so he feels like he’s part of the team. And now we’re stuck six years later with just mediocrity and hoping that we draft players that can elevate Kevin Stefanski instead of Kevin Stefanski elevating the team. Right. I think I’m leaning more towards churning and burning. I thought stability would be the way to go, but like, there’s not enough time in the NFL and you’re starting to see it again. I bring up mike Vrabel like he turned the Patriots around in one year. He got him playing disciplined. So I think you start churning and burning until you find the right coach who can put your players in the right position, who can instill a little bit of discipline. Like, I can’t tell you how many times Kevin Stefanski’s teams have had holdings just against the Jets. This I didn’t even include this in my recap. It was fourth and five with like a minute left and the defense jumped offsides and that was game. I’m not going to blame the defense because there were two special teams touchdowns, but like this happens every game. Trevor. Yeah. And at some point, you just have to cut bait and say, this ain’t working and start the process of building. You know, it might be two to three years, I think is the sweet spot. I don’t want someone every year. But it’s tricky. Well, like you said earlier, though, there should be benchmarks or, like, markers of progress. And if those aren’t being met, I’m fine with getting out of it. Like if I had to write out two more years of Brian Callahan, like, I’m sorry, that’s it would not be non-alcoholic beer, which we thank for sponsoring this segment. It it just wouldn’t be. It would be the brown drink and my liver would be shot. I just couldn’t do it. But I’m also reminded of the absolute chaos that is European soccer and their managers. They get rid of coaches like Changes in the wind. So like an example. So I follow Chelsea. Could I name five players right now. Of course not. Uh but I still cheer for them. Uh, we had in twenty three, uh, Mauricio Pochettino or Poch. So he was the manager for Tottenham for a while, spent a year at PSG and then came over to Chelsea and it was like, oh, this is going to be great. But it took a while for him to figure out what was going on and I thought we moved on. He lasted a year, like we moved on way too quick from him. Uh, I thought he really could have developed, but that is just the culture of the sport is you have to win now. Now, that probably has to do with the owner’s investing like billions of dollars on payroll because they pay soccer players something crazy over there. But I, I guess, you know, having gone through the POC stuff and having here, you know, hear and see you go through the the Browns experience. Um, I don’t know, I guess I’m in favor of burning through them and seeing what sticks. Uh, it also brings up the question of. And I’ll throw a random one in here. Let’s stay in the NFL. Would you rather have a head coach who is offensive or defensive minded? Neither. Trevor. I don’t even care what they coach at this point. I just need someone that instills discipline and toughness and accountability, like Kevin Stefanski in these press conferences. Just every again, every single time we’ll look at it, we’ll have to look at the tape. There’s no accountability. I don’t I don’t care if you’re an offense or defense. And honestly, I don’t even care that you call plays. I honestly prefer if you don’t. I mean, I’ve seen Mike Tomlin. He doesn’t call plays John Harbaugh with the Ravens. Everybody in my division who’s successful right doesn’t call plays. They just have great people around them. Yes. And it’s more about leadership and people buying into your vision than it is about X’s and O’s. At that point, yes. Um, now you will have coordinators get picked for head coach jobs or you will cycle through those. So that’s not nothing. But I completely agree. I would rather have a game and team manager, uh, and be able to hire. Really. And this is, this is a knock on Vrabel. He was not great at being able to hold his buddies who he hired for his coordinators to the fire and say, like, are you performing? He would always let them write it out the entire year. Uh, Todd Downing And, um, but I would, I would much rather. I would much rather have that. I’m totally with you. Yeah. And you’ll you’ll have Andy Reid. You’ll have Sean McVay. Like there’s some play callers who can do it all, but it’s few and far between. I mean I just nine times out of ten you’re just going to want somebody that’s that’s more of a just head coach CEO style leader at that point. Yes. Um, so jumping into the world of a general manager, and I’m going to open this up with a Nico question since we’re here, um, Nico Harrison traded Luka Doncic to the Los Angeles Lakers for Anthony Davis. Uh, I don’t even Max Christie. Okay? And a first round pick. Is this the worst trade in all of sports history? One hundred percent. And it’s not close. We also had to send a second round pick. We had to send a pick. pic. This man got hoodwinked and like, I almost think it might be a crime. Like, yeah, it seems predatory on the end of the Lakers to like, take advantage of a very narcissistic but seemingly very stupid man. Uh, to, to make this trade. I, I was thinking about this earlier today because I knew we were going to talk about it. So the night, uh, February eighth or ninth of this year, that night, I randomly woke up in the middle of the night. It was around three o’clock. I got a drink of water, went back to bed and thought, let me listen to a podcast while I fall asleep, turn on my phone. And the first podcast in my recent feeds is a mavs podcast, and it says, we discuss the Luka trade. And I thought, wow, this is like a really weird, not funny early April Fool’s joke. And then I read about it and I it was three a m I did not go back to sleep that night because it was so soul crushing and shocking. And I remember I texted you and a buddy of ours, Adam, and I said something to the extent of I quit basketball forever. And whatever you think made me do this, I promise you, it’s worse. Like whatever you think could have happened for me to be like, I quit basketball forever. I promise you, it’s worse. And then I just read tweets and stories and podcasts and clips and everything because. It’s just a catastrophic miscalculation on the part of, like, I almost don’t even everybody. Yes, I almost don’t even fault Nico at this point because he’s so far up his own ass that, like, he believes that he has to do what he thinks is right all the time and like, okay, that’s a person that does that fine. But the owner of the Mavericks who is now, it’s the Adelson family. Patrick Dumont is like the son in law. And so he’s kind of fallen bass ackwards into into being the the figure for this. How do you not realize that Luca gives you run over whatever you they want to move arenas which we’ll get into a separate time. I think that’s ridiculous. With Luka Doncic, you could just point somewhere on the map in Dallas and be like, we’re moving here. And people would be like, yeah, that makes sense. Like, okay, yeah, you are trading away the biggest key to financial investment and financial success. Forget the on the court product like wins and losses. That is financial success for you. That is jersey sales. That is butts and seats. That is merch. That is everything. The clips, the the whatever engagement you want. And he was like, you know what? Yeah, I, I think this is the right move. I think we should get. And can I now that we’re on Patrick Dumont real quick, can I play a quick clip of this genius for you? Oh, yeah. All right. Perfect. I just we we all should have known what was happening, uh, when it came to Patrick Dumont. So this is him talking about the Mavericks being in the finals the year before, and we should have known when he called it this, that we were in for it. All the right considerations. And I think for us, um, going into the trade deadline last year, we were not competitive. If you recall, we were not a playoff bound team, and we were able to do some things to reconstruct the roster and enable the team to become very competitive. And after the trade deadline last year, we actually had the best record in basketball, which was a big accomplishment. And we got to the championship games and we didn’t win. Who who calls the finals? The championship games. Who has ever said that? Yeah, someone. Someone who doesn’t know the sport. Trevor. So yes, that’s why I almost don’t even I don’t even fault Dumont or the ownership team because they have no idea what they’re doing. And so I my suspicion, I don’t know this. I hope that there’s a book written about this or a thirty for thirty, for sure. I suspect that the ownership team just trusted Nico and Nico had their ear. Oh, yeah, and he was like, hey, Lukas, a fatty. This man doesn’t practice. He drinks beer like he’s not going to get the job done. Anthony Davis has won a championship. He plays defense that’s going to win games. Yup. I am I am almost guaranteeing that Nico was kind of like Wormtongue in Lord of the rings and was like, we gotta get rid of Luca. Whispering in his ear, this will be good, sir. Yeah, that is that is one hundred percent what happened? Absolutely. And it was. Don’t you have a responsibility, though, when you buy a basketball team to, like, try and understand basketball? Like, isn’t that part of minor detail? You probably should. And I agree with you. There should have been a marketing team and I bet there was. That runs data and they’re like, hey, yes, like you said, Luca, buy like we get the most Luca sales on jerseys on social media. Luca is the one that everyone’s engaging with. Yes. Even you could talk about the product and you could talk about, you know, him being in shape or whatever. At the end of the day, like you said, he is the number one asset. And I think what, what GM’s and owners forget sometimes is fan loyalty one hundred percent, and fans want to buy into the city. They want to buy into the team and they want to buy into players. And so when a player buys a mansion in Dallas, is a top five player, has no intentions of moving? Nope. Okay, we can talk about again his conditioning. Whatever. The man’s playing basketball year round. He’s going to like Euro tournaments. He’s he’s just he’s giving it his all. Yep. Work with the guy. You are never going to get another player like him. I am so sorry for saying that. But like that’s it. And I don’t understand why GM’s and owners have to have it their way or the highway. Just work with him. It’s it’s so painful and the fans are the ones that have to suffer. Thank God he finally started to get it when the fans relentlessly chanted Fire Nico, we’re talking at sports games that had nothing to do with the Mavericks at SMU, football games at Dallas Stars. Games at Texas Ranger, games at FC Dallas games, fire Nico all the time. And it took until recently when he was finally like, oh gosh, the fans sure seem upset at this Nico guy. Maybe we should get him out of here. Of course it’s crazy. And in today’s day and age with professional sports, there’s not a lot of loyalty. Like I can tell you, ninety five percent of the players in Cleveland don’t want to be there. And so when you find somebody who’s a star player, I’m not saying that Donovan Mitchell is a Luca, but Donovan loves Cleveland. He’s giving it his all for the city. We’re extending him. We’re trying to build around him. You gotta do that. If you’re Dallas and I just like you said, one of the biggest Dirk’s Dirk was the model there. I mean and he’s close with Luca. You see him going to Laker games because he’s like, this is my guy. Like he was supposed to be. He was supposed to have a statue out by Dirk. It’s it’s just it’s devastating that like explaining it to my kids as they grow up. I’m going to be like, it wasn’t supposed to be like this. We were supposed to go watch Luca play for the Mavericks and go visit his statue one day. And it was all taken away because one person, one person, decided that he was smarter than everybody else, and he ruined it for absolutely everybody. And now he’s gone nine months later. Yeah. Gosh, that upsets me. So jumping into the third part of this right. Ownership. So we’ve covered coaches. We’ve covered GM’s. Now we’re going to cover owners. You get uh you get owners hands on. They want to be involved in everything. You get owners that are hands off. They kind of let everybody do whatever they want, which I’m assuming they did with Nico. Yup. What’s your preference on ownership by preference on ownership is. Is honestly Mark Cuban like. I just think that he was so great. And listen, this is not me saying Mark Cuban is a perfect owner or a perfect person. Not the case. Uh, but Mark Cuban was first and foremost a fan of the Dallas Mavericks, and he understood the connection that the players and the team had with fans in the city and wanted to grow, that he understood. Um, yes, he understood, like the product and how to build a brand and everything like that. But he knew what it was like to be a fan and to cheer for the team, and he wasn’t afraid to invest in it. And he learned over time it was painful. He learned how to get out of the way. Like, I don’t want Mark Cuban from like two thousand and five. I want Mark Cuban from twenty eleven on when he learned to. I just need to shut my mouth and let the players go, and I can still cheer for them. I think he finally found the perfect balance. I don’t want like a an owner that nobody’s heard of before. Um, I also don’t want the current Titans owner. Uh, Miss Amy is like, I don’t know, man. She’s around. Like, either be totally absent or be like, Mark Cuban, and she’s somewhere in the middle, and it’s really annoying. Um, but I, I just want to know that, like, the owner understands what it’s like to be a fan of the team, and. Yeah, and I don’t now I’m hearing, you know, we were in the championship games, you know, a year ago, like, shut up, dude. Like. And he said, Shaquille O’Neal has great work ethic. Yes, he listed Shaq in his little. Come on dude. The greats like Jordan, Kobe and I still play the clip. Oh gosh. Well, and Shaq readily admitted to rolling into a season out of shape. And it was just like the first half of the season was just him. Like trying to run off fifty pounds of fat one hundred percent. Which by the way, guess who also does that? Anthony Davis. So yeah, super fun. Super fun. What about you? What do you want to know? I I’m with you. Um. I’ve experienced it all. I think I want an owner that is going to spend money as well, which I’ve had. So Dan Gilbert with the Cleveland Cavaliers, he had, you know, some casinos. And he was always willing to spend, which I respect. And honestly I respect that what Jimmy Haslam as well like we’ve been bad, but he’s been willing to spend and we’ve been top five in the league in terms of spending money. It’s just like you said, I want someone who understands the fan base, who understands, you know, the suffering, that we’ve experienced, the misery. And really. Yeah. And we’ll just they will step in on big decisions like a Luca, like a Deshaun Watson. Um, and just help guide on those giant earth shaking decisions and kind of put their foot down and be like, no, this is best for the fans and the team, right? Yeah. Um, so that leads me to the the next discussion point. And it’s really around running a team like a business. Do you agree with that? What are your thoughts on that? It’s kind of that legacy versus profit kind of discussion. Um. It’s fine. I feel like this comes up more in baseball than it does other sports, because there’s so much variability in salary spending in baseball. So, like, you have these teams who. Are going all in and are spending several times over what other teams are. And so you’ll hear like teams like the Pirates who have schemes. And it’s like, well, why aren’t you going all in around this? What seems like a generational pitcher? Like you should go all in and it’s like, well, the owners aren’t making enough to be able to spend more on the players. And like from a business sense, like maybe that makes sense. I don’t know, I, you know, I, I’ve, I’ve no idea. But from a fan perspective it’s just painful to hear. Like, we’re not competitive because you’re worried about the bottom line of your billions of dollars. Like. Right. That just hurts. Yeah. And I, I was just looking. So like NFL team revenue right. So they’re starting to push I think it was last year the year before. They’re pushing like getting up to seven hundred million dollars a year for an NFL team. Yeah the NFL salary cap. So how much they they pay players per team is pushing about three hundred million. That’s less than half. So you’re making money. I don’t want to hear about your money. Yeah. Pay the players. You know, that should never be an issue. I the Jerry Jones stuff where he goes back and forth and it’s like, I don’t know if I can pay this guy and we’ll figure it out. And I only want to talk with him, not his agent. Yeah. Yeah. The Mike dude, you’re a billionaire Like you have oil money. Just stop. Right. Stop the nonsense. Stop trying to pinch people. Pay them. I don’t know, and you know what? I’ve heard more Cowboys fans come out recently. So Cowboys. Eagles, right. Big rivalry. They hate each other. And I think kind of everybody hates Philly fans in general. But I respect the team because like Howie Roseman knows when to make moves. So like if you look at their team like first of all their drafts are incredible. Like if you are a good defender from Georgia, you’re coming to the Eagles and you’re going to be amazing. So like the way they draft and the moves they make is already incredible. But when they have when they have folks to sign, like either they’re coming up as free agents or they need to extend somebody or they need to restructure a deal. They’re doing that in February and March and not waiting until we get to training camp. And you have people like Micah holding out. You have two other players that the Cowboys are unsure of. When are we gonna, you know, Daron Bland, when’s Daron Bland going to get paid and when’s this that and the other going to get paid like Howie Roseman takes care of that early on and like to to have a GM or a executive whatever the hell like to have somebody like that, um, that understands not just a business perspective, but like gaming it to where you’ve got the people signed when they need to be signed. Is is such a luxury not to drag that drama into camp. Like, how great would that be to have no distractions when you’re coming in like that? Sounds like the dream. Yeah, I don’t know even what that is. And I never will. We never. We never will. I think that, uh. That concludes the break room. We thank you for joining us in there. It’s, uh, you know, it’s something that we we sprinkle in, we try to mix it up, you know, we’ll get back to our deep dives next week. Um, but with that. Yeah, every, every week feels like HR is trying to discipline our fandom. And yet we keep showing up, clocking in to heartbreak like it’s our job because it is our job. Misery never sleeps. Well, that’s all for this week’s shift at Misery Sports Co. We’re the only thing consistent is the pain. Be sure to follow us on social. Send us your worst takes. Let us know which team ruined your week. That’s right, we are on Twitter. Com. Com I guess now for all those young folks it’s always Twitter misery sports co com uh, Spotify Amazon Apple YouTube. Now that one took a long time. You shout out to you for jumping through the hoops and getting us on YouTube and shout out to our listeners in the United Kingdom, in Brazil, we’re worldwide, baby. Shout out to you. We love you. Let us hear. I had to scan my face. Trevor for YouTube. That’s how that’s going to come back at some point. Oh no. Someone is going to frame me for something in the future. I didn’t know you had to do that. Yeah, they’re. You’re gonna be on some closed circuit television at some point. Looking real suspicious. Oh my God. We’ll be back next time with more laughs, more pain, and maybe, just maybe, another moral victory. Until then, clock out. Hydrate. And remember, misery loves company.