Albert Breer on Russell Wilson’s GREAT LEGACY, Caleb’s MADDEN 27 Cover, STEELERS Defense

The paradigm changed and the numbers bear it out.

All right.

Welcome in to Sport for Thursday, June 4th.

We are now a few days removed from a lot of activity on June 1st with AJ Brown becoming a Patriot and Miles Garrett becoming a Los Angeles Ram.

We're gonna move off those topics on to a couple of other things that have come across my desk over the last couple of days and we are going to start.

With the retirement of Russell Wilson.

Now, he released a video that basically showed his gratitude to football and a lot of people that have poured into him.

I don't think he officially used the word retirement in the video, but the implication there is that he is closing the book on his NFL playing career and now looking forward to his career as a TV analyst working for CBS Sports.

So first of all, congratulations to Russell Wilson.

On a pretty incredible career, and I can just tell you from my perspective, what I remember hearing about Russell Wilson, all the way back in the spring of, of, uh, 2012.

Pete Carroll was going into his third year.

Um, they hadn't quite broken through yet, but they had this team that was building talent and all these young, really gifted guys, and the one thing that they hadn't answered yet was the quarterback position.

And they had thrown darts at that dartboard.

They brought back Matt Hasselbeck for a year in 2010.

At the same time they traded for Charlie Whitehurst from the Tennessee Titans, had high hopes for him.

Um, that didn't work out.

They bring Tavaris Jackson in in 2011.

Um, they try to make it work with him.

2012, they bring in Matt Flynn from the Green Bay Packers, and that was considered another one of these Packer backups.

And if you want to go back through history, there are a ton of them.

Guys like Aaron Brooks and Mark Brunnell.

Um, you know, all these guys that have come out of that system, um, and become great quarterbacks.

Hasselbeck himself was one of them.

The Flynn thing doesn't really work out.

And, you know, in that spring, coming out of the draft, I remember hearing out of their rookie minicamp the weekend after the draft, this Russell Wilson kid is gonna compete with Flynn for the job, and this guy's gonna really push him.

And then by the time he got to the full squad, mandatory minicamp in June, it was, this is on, like Russell Wilson has got the inside track for this job.

So, um, the Seahawks, the revelation of what Russell Wilson could be became clear very, very quickly for them.

Um, and here we are 14 years later and what he became.

Um, he made 10 Pro Bowls as a Seattle Seahawk, Pretty incredible.

He won a Super Bowl, he went to 2 Super Bowls, he was the trigger man.

Um, I think for one of the more talented teams of his era, maybe the most talented team of his era, and what was around him, um, just a phenomenal, phenomenal young group that John Schneider and Pete Carroll were able to put together there, and you can rattle off the names and there are gonna be some guys that wind up in Canton, whether it's Richard Sherman.

Earl Thomas, Cam Chancellor, Bobby Wagner, uh, Michael Bennett, Cliff Averil, uh, you know, on the offensive side of the ball.

Russell Okun was an important piece of those teams.

They had Percy Harvin for a short time, that didn't really work out, but Doug Baldwin, Marshawn Lynch, obviously a huge piece.

So you're gonna have some of those guys that are gonna wind up being, um, Hall of Famers.

Um, Russell Wilson certainly has a case, it's gonna be something that's going to be discussed.

I think part of your Hall of Fame case though is your impact on football and that's what I want to focus on here because I think this is a really cool piece of the puzzle.

Now, I went back and I looked all the way back to quarterbacks drafted since 2000.

And when I was looking at the top half of the first round, there were some guys, bottom half of the first round that slipped in, but I was, when I was looking at the top half of the first round from 2000 to 2012, when Russell Wilson was drafted, I found just one quarterback who was under 6'2 that went in the first round.

That was Michael Vick, who was an absolute outlier, freak athlete.

Anybody who can remember as old as I am, um, what Michael Vick was in college, like this was a different dude.

Um, really, at that point, I don't think we've ever seen an athlete like that playing that position.

And so, for a guy who was under 6'2 to go in the top half of the first round at the quarterback position was the rarest of the rare.

Never happens, right?

And it took, again, the freak of all freaks to make it happen.

And so, you know, those 1st 13 draft cycles of the, of the millennium, um, we had really solid evidence that this stuff just like you have to have a certain Threshold physically.

Um, and part of that was, you have to cross that threshold physically, and part of that physical threshold was having the height and, and being 6'2.

And then Russell Wilson comes in his first year, he's a revelation.

They were a serious Super Bowl contender when he was a rookie in large part because he acclimated so quickly.

They win a Super Bowl in his second year, and his 3rd year, they're back in the Super Bowl.

We all know how that ended, but, um, just a phenomenal run his 1st 3 years.

And I think maybe his biggest impact, and I, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention Drew Brees is a big part of this because Drew Brees is a big part of this, but I think with Brees, Brees was seen as an outlier too.

Like this doesn't happen very often, that you're gonna have a quarterback that looks like Drew Brees looks, that's gonna be able to make it at that level.

Then Russell Wilson comes along and now it's like, OK, you can win at the highest level.

2 Super Bowl quarterbacks, those two guys won their Super Bowls within a 4-year.

Period, right?

Like, so Drew Brees does it the 2009 season, um, Russell Wilson does it in the 2013 season, and the paradigm changed, and the numbers bear it out.

And so to kind of illustrate the point, we can look at the draft , right?

And so I said there were zero first-round quarterbacks.

Um, that were the zero top half of the first-round quarterbacks that were under 6'2 from 2000 to 2012.

Well, if you look at the numbers since then, there have been no less than 7, and 5 of those 7 were the first overall pick.

You had Baker Mayfield in 2018 going first overall.

You had Kyler Murray in 2019 going first overall.

You had Tuatungavaloa going fifth overall in 2020.

You have Caleb Williams going first overall in 2024, Cam Ward going first overall in 2025, and then this year, Ty Simpson.

Going 13th overall.

And then on top of that, you had guys that were well under the 6-foot mark going in the 1st round.

Again, that's something that was unheard of.

Johnny Manziel would be a good example of that going 22nd overall in 2014.

And so, if you want to talk about the impact that Russell Wilson had on football and the difference that he made.

There, there it is right there.

The difference that he made is that he caused the NFL to look at the quarterback position a little bit differently.

I put him in tandem with Drew Brees, as far as doing that, and opened the door for guys who maybe 2030 years ago, wouldn't have been first-round picks going at the very top of the draft.

And part of this, of course, is, is, is what college is feeding the pros.

You don't have much control over that if you're the NFL.

Um, you know, but it's also like the, the, the , the, the, the kids who are coming into college that are under 6'2.

Now, maybe the big-time college programs, look at those guys as having a better chance to actually make it as quarterbacks at the highest level because of what Drew Brees and Russell Wilson were able to accomplish.

So, that to me is real impact across the sport, and it's something that Russell Wilson's gonna take with them when they consider.

For him for induction into the Pro Football Hall of Fame.

And it's something personally he can take with him as an impact that he made on football that I think is very, very profound.

All right, our second topic, we have our Madden cover athlete.

I'm a big fan of Madden, been a big fan of Madden and the college football game too, uh, since I was a little kid.

I, I, my experience with the EA Madden series goes all the way back.

I think.

To when I was in middle school.

Um, I remember in high school being excited when Madden '96 and my Mad 97 came out.

I still remember, uh, Mad '96, if you played with the Packers, or would have been Mad '97 when after they won the Super Bowl.

Mad '97, if you played with the Packers and you had Antonio Freeman lined up in the slot, you ran this little corner route, you ran like the flag route.

Um, that was unstoppable.

Um, so my, my institutional knowledge of Madness is pretty deep.

We have our cover athlete.

It's gonna be Caleb Williams.

And I think this is really interesting, just in that the paradigm has now shifted and the paradigm has shifted for the Chicago Bears, where last year, They went through a lot and Ben Johnson deserves a ton of credit.

He ran a very difficult training camp.

He didn't care what anyone on the outside said.

He knew that Caleb and the offense weren't going to look great at first because he was feeding them through a fire hose, and lo and behold, you know, we see a team that is able to win the NFC North.

I don't think many people saw that coming.

And was able to go toe to toe with the Rams team that I think was probably the 2nd-best team in football last year.

And Caleb , the steps that he was able to take were monumental.

Um, this year, you know, I think what they're looking for is him to play within the offense a little bit better, maybe be more efficient.

And we heard it from his quarterbacks coach, JT Barrett, a couple of weeks ago where he said, we want him to do the simple stuff, uh, more efficiently.

We want to make it easier on him.

And what he means by that, and I can still remember this takes me back to sitting down with Brian Dayball, when he had Josh Allen going into Josh Allen's 2nd year, he made a cut-up of, of Tom Brady, um, for Josh Allen, it was all the layup throws.

And he had Josh Allen go through that, look at it and say like, look how many layups he's taking.

I think that's what they're looking to do with Caleb Williams.

Take the layups, take the easy stuff.

So there's a football aspect of it where he should be better.

But I do think that this is a little bit of a different thing now, where Chicago is always a tough place to play.

It's a very tough football market.

The paradigm for Caleb Williams and the Bears now changes.

Now they have expectations.

Now, this isn't a magic carpet ride anymore.

Now you're looking at it and you're saying there's a sense of Emergency and that they're in this window where they've got the quarterback on a rookie contract.

Now we're gonna look at it when we get to training camp.

It's like, how the hell are they gonna figure out the left tackle spot ?

We're gonna figure that out there, but is it Braxton Jones?

Is it Jedrick Wills, Ozzie Trapelo still a way off, ways off, right, from coming back from that really bad knee injury he had.

Um, how are they gonna make it work opposite Montez Sweat on that defensive line?

Do they have enough on the edge?

These questions were being asked before, but now it's on a higher level because you feel like there's more on the line and being on the cover of Madden is a part of that, is that now there are expectations.

And so now when you go on that winning streak, that's expected.

Now, when you lose a few games in a row, that hits a little harder.

And that's something that's a subtle thing as teams kind of come up.

It's something the commanders dealt with last year, um, with the season they put together with Jaden Daniels, um, as, as a rookie, and that they were able to get to the NFC championship game, it all kind of came crashing down last year.

And it was a different.

for them in 25 than it was in 24.

Same thing goes for the Chicago Bears.

This is a signal of it.

So that would be my takeaway from seeing him on the cover of Madden.

And by the way, I do think that to a certain level, that same dynamic exists with the Jacksonville Jaguars and with the New England Patriots with how those teams played under new coaches last year as well.

Finally, our third topic, the Steelers.

Take care of another one of their own, Nick Herbig, 4-year, $100 million contract or up to $100 million contract.

We'll see the particulars on that.

Uh, but this was really a fascinating one to me because they've already invested in TJ Watt.

They just re-upped TJ Watt at $41 million per year in new money.

They had paid Alex Highsmith.

This has caused an issue with Alex Highsmith where he feels like he should be paid since he's starting over Nick Herbig.

And they have a 4th-round pick from last year, and Jack Sawyer, who played a lot as a rookie.

So, they're investing big into the edge position, and your nickel looks, you can get all those guys on the field at the same time.

You know, my big takeaway from this is, A, what does it mean for Alex Highsmith, and B, what does it mean for TJ Watt.

Um, with Alex Highsmith, doesn't mean he's back at the table looking for a correction to his deal.

His deal is about 17 million per.

Um, so you can very easily make the argument here, I need to be paid more as a starting player than Nick Herbeck is is being played as a guy who is a rotational guy.

And then what does it mean for TJ Watt going forward?

And that to me is really interesting because I have talked to people who felt like last year, and again, TJ Watt's a little older, has dealt with, dealt with some injuries.

But they felt like game planning for the Steelers' defense.

Alex Highsmith was a little bit more of a problem than TJ Watts.

So, again, it's really good to be as stocked as they are at a premium position and the Steelers are well stocked now on the edge, no question about it.

They've stocked their corner position, of course, Jalen Ramsey coming back, Jimel Dean coming in, um, It's just how does this have an effect on everyone else.

And certainly, I think that her big contract will have some sort of effect on how Alex Highsmith approaches things from a business perspective, and then it could have an effect on the future of TJ Watt cause this sure does feel like you're preparing for life after TJ Watt when you sign a guy like this.

to a long-term contract.

All right, I appreciate you guys coming out a little busier week than maybe some of you anticipated, but that's what we're here for.

As always, happy to answer any of your questions, field any of your comments down below here on the YouTube page, or you can get to me on my social media at Albert Arbreer on Facebook, at Albert_Breer on Instagram, at Albert Breer on Twitter.

We will see you guys next week.