Jim Trotter Speaks on NFL’s Racist Practices & Combatting Discrimination

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Former NFL Network reporter and sports journalist Jim Trotter sits down with Rick Strom to discuss racism in the NFL on and off the field, the current state of sports journalism, and the future of equal representation in the media as a whole. Give us your thoughts in the comments below!

Rick Strom

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Hey everybody special guest here on tyt Sports this is a story that we have covered many times over and now I bring to you the man that is taking on the Behemoth that is the NFL and the NFL Network Jim trod uh Jim thank you so

Much for joining me I know we are limited with time here so let me just ask you this um I have seen how the uh lawsuit has stated that and I quote the NFL’s treatment of Mr Trotter is consistent with the documented history of silencing retaliating against and

Blackballing black men who speak out about such conduct you listed uh obviously you’re bringing the lawsuit so you’re involved but you have listed Colin Kaepernick deor Smith with the John Gruden emails race norming and Brian Flores those are some of the um well-known cases are there any other

Cases that you believe the NFL fan should know about this pattern of discriminatory practices well the pattern of behavior um is as old as the NFL itself I mean we can go back to the 1940s where there was uh 12 to 14e ban on black players in the

NFL um we can go to the fact that for many years blacks were not allowed to play the center position or the quarterback position or the middle linebacker position because it was thought they were thought to be thinking man positions we can fast forward to uh the early 2000s where Johnny Cochran and

Cyrus Mary threaten to bring a a a lawsuit against the NFL over discriminatory hiring practices as it relates to head coaches and then at that time um the NFL implemented the Roney Rule and that’s how we started to see more blacks being hired as head coaches

We can point out that there was not a black general manager in the NFL until the early 2000s um we can talk about the fact that there has never been a majority black owner in the NFL we can talk about at the league office um where one of their

Top Executives told me that there are only two black people among the top 11 Executives there I mean I could go on and on I think the numbers and the history speak for themselves as it relates to the NFL and the treatment of blacks and black men in particular

Certainly uh we covered the uh quote unquote Gentleman’s Agreement even though it certainly lacks the gentleman of that agreement with the Chicago bearss being from Chicago I think myself doing that piece was a shock to many in my inner circle and outside of who are Bears fans yet really don’t

Understand the history of what George how was involved with everyone knows him as Papa Bear they don’t know him about that dear relationship he had with someone like George Preston Marshall um another question is this kind of puzzled me during the summer protests post George Floyd I saw a report from Yahoo

Sports where essentially a lower level staffer within the NFL’s social media team per se put together a video with NFL players and they put out a PSA because it seems like the NFL was going to do nothing then we saw Roger Goodell in I’ll just say it it looks like his

Basement where he is on his outdated Dell computer with the camera where it looks like it’s in 480p saying we at the NFL believe black lives matter um Dave zyen a mentor of mine has interviewed Michael Bennett who has said yeah Roger gell believes black lives matter because

It benefits him only financially because of the product that they put out and our labor do you Mr trod believe that Roger Goodell believes that black lives matter oh I’m not going to try and get inside of Roger Goodell’s head I think that from a professional standpoint we

Have seen that he is paid to take bullets for the owners and that every decision that has been made um appears to be made from the mindset of how best to keep revenues flowing into the NFL so the thing that’s disappointing about that whole video and and what Roger Gale

Said at that time is that I will never forget Dr Harry Edwards the renowned um sociologists psychologists um and social activists who told me that when Colin Kaepernick first took a knee that he emailed Roger Goodell and that he basically told Roger Goodell um not to make Colin Kaepernick a martyr which is

Exactly what the NFL did and then Dr Edwards went on to say to me that he had warned Roger Goodell that something like this could happen when Roger first got into office so let’s go back to 2006 Roger is voted in as commissioner he reaches out to Dr Edwards and asks for a

Conversation to discuss the landscape of the NFL and what he was getting into the two of them then meet the following week according to Dr Edwards at a pre-season game in Oakland between the 49ers and the Raiders and they spend more than three hours in an owner Suite talking

About the state of the league and one of the things that Dr Edward says he told Roger Goodell was that the face of the league was changing and that it was becoming more black and that these players were not going to leave their communities at the locker room door and

That was something he was going to have to be prepared for well exactly 10 years later Colin Kaepernick took a knee and Roger Goodell and the NFL excuse me could not have been more caught off guard or unprepared for that moment as we saw and so for them to take

The position that they took um that demonstrating a silent demonstration uh was bad for business um and that you have people like Jerry Jones saying if one of his players takes a knee he would no longer be a cowboy then to come back a couple

Of years later and say we got it wrong well you only said that at a time where you felt you had cover from the rest of the country which was responding to the murder of George Floyd and all of a sudden we saw corporations trying to show that there

Was empathy and concern and whatnot for the black community and I would argue that since then things have kind of regressed to back to the mean so to speak so that whole thing never really sat well with me um but one thing that it did I believe is it show to the

Players that if they stand together particularly The prominent players I’m not just talking about the rank and file but the faces of the league if they stand together they can produce change in the NFL the question is simply is will they stand together on these issues

And that was one time that they did and we saw what happened we’ve also seen through Sports history that the one card at the end of the day Sans you know pre or post rather public statements trying to get players together what have you is the one card that athletes can play is

Withholding their labor to make change is it and you’ve worked in NFL Media Group you have been an esteemed journalist for a long time is it too much to ask for athletes to band together for a greater good allaha Colin Kaepernick being essentially blackballed from the league and demanding that he be

Signed to a team is it too much to ask is it too tall of a task maybe well I I think it’s an individual Choice obviously and I think what happens here which is not unlike um any business really is that people will try and protect their

Pocketbooks for the most part and that’s in any profession it’s not just the NFL it could be in the media business it could be in in whatever business you want to go into and people will try and protect their pocketbook because they have to earn a living and I get that but

The one thing I always say is that and and part of the reason that I brought my lawsuit is that when you are in a position to fight for change and you don’t then you have no reason to complain and you have no Foundation on which to stand to make any complaints

And so I think if if players feel strongly about something and again particularly the face of the leag the faces of the league and they feel change needs to be made um then they should stand together um to fight for that change was I disappointed that more

Players um did not stand with col when I say stand with Colin Kaepernick I mean support him in terms of of demonstrating in the same way a little bit but I think also Al part of that is and I had players say this to me if Colin were

Going to lead they needed him to be out front to lead and that was not the way that Colin did this Colin was more on his own in terms of doing things the way that he wanted to do it and he didn’t ask people to follow him in that way in

Fact players who spoke to him told me that when they ask him what do you want us to do he would not give them Direction in terms of of taking some sort of action he would simply thank them for their support so um again getting back to your point players have

That power if they so choose to use it unfortunately and I say unfortunately um many of them choose not to use it because it ultimately could affect their pocketbook but also believe this uh Rick that there is rarely progress without sacrifice and so at the

End of the day you have to ask yourself what are you willing to sacrifice for progress and for Change and for positive change and that’s an individual decision and for me at this moment in my life in my career with this lawsuit I felt I was

In a position to say you know what I can’t keep complaining about these things if I’m not willing to stand up and fight for them and that’s why I filed my lawsuit and we’ll see where it goes from here you have asked Roger Goodell in back-to-back Super Bowl press

Conferences about the lack of representation within The Newsroom you quoted James Baldwin who else are your would you say influences and mentors oh I think my influences are are long um you know obviously your parents my parents are influencers my family um but then when you get outside of that

That nuclear Circle um I think my professors at Howard University Sam yet Dr Lee Thorton they were people of conviction and character and and so when you are in that environment and when you were taught by these individuals um at least me I don’t want

To speak for anyone else for me it it it touched me very deeply in a way to say that there’s a right way and a wrong way to do things particularly in in this profession and I’ve tried I’m not perfect um but I’ve tried to always do

Things the right way and and that’s part of the reason that I’ve taken the stand that I that taken um in that I’m in a position I believe to speak out and therefore I am going to speak out in terms of NFL player protests how do you believe if there are

Any the NFL Media Group or even those above it who control the copy failed in portraying those protest well I don’t think it’s just the NFL Media Group I think it’s uh the media in general I think at times we allowed Colin Kaepernick’s message to be

Hijacked and we allowed the focus to be on everything but what those demonstrations were about um we made it about the military we made it about the flag we made it about freedom of speech all these other things when what Colin was protesting against was um the brutal brutalization of police towards black

People and people of color and I think in the media and I wrote a column about this one time and said uh particularly for black journalists um we have to young black journalists have to understand that the real power in this business is not necessarily in front of the camera or

With the pen the real power is in those glass offices in your office building where the editors um sit where the producers sit and where management sits and they make the determination of what stories are going to be covered how they’re going to be covered who is going

To cover them and when they’re going to be covered that’s the real power in terms of shaping a narrative and so I think it is it is incumbent upon us meaning black journalists to think about getting into those position um even more than getting in front of a camera or

Having the power of the pen and I put myself in that class too you know when I came out of out of college um there’s this ego Gra ification of seeing your name in print or seeing yourself on TV and it can be intoxicating and ultimately what you

Realize as you get older or what I realized as I got older is that that really wasn’t where the power was and that the power was with the people who I had to go to and say this is what I want to write and they had to sign off on it I

Am moved by your stance um personally I think a lot of people would not do what you did at those Super Bowl press conferences um I know a lot of people probably wouldn’t stand for the things that you were standing for because it would mean potentially sacrificing what was the moment where

You felt like you had to speak up and had to make it public uh the thing that most people don’t know is that I had been trying to address this issue internally for um in particular the last two years even before I first addressed Roger Goodale I had been bringing this up

Internally and then after I addressed him for the first time and saw that no one from the league office ever reached out to me to have a discussion about it no one from the Media Group ever reached out to me to have a discussion about it

Then I felt I really needed to push the issue internally which is what I did and so there are instances and and and we will get into all of this in trial and whatnot where I challenged the the leadership internally to do better and be better and and and to not be

Hypocritical and say that we are making progress as it relates to Dei and yet the data doesn’t reflect that so um the final straw for me where I really started to push it was during the pandemic when we had the zoom call um The Newsroom had a zoom call and there

Were over 40 plus people on it and there was a reporter from the news group who made the allegation that Buffalo Bills owner Terry Pula had made the comment regarding player activism that if blacks think it’s so bad here they should go back to Africa and see how bad it really

Is and so I challenged um our leadership to say what are we going to do about this and they told me that you know they needed to um speak to the reporter it was the first they were hearing about it and then they were going to not notify

The New York office about it and you know we would see what would happen from there well weeks turned into months and I was was asking every every week what are we doing what are we doing where are we at and I kept being told that New

York is aware of it and they’re investigating it and then ultimately I was told by my supervisor I got an answer for you and you’re not going to like it and he said um uh they said it’s an HR matter and that’s it and I said oh

We’re going to sweep it under the rug then he said I’m just telling you what I was told so that was when I really um was like whoa wait a minute what’s going on here you know um this is even worse than what I could imagine and then the

Emails came out from John Gruden to Bruce Allen and the language that was used to to talk about deor Smith you know a black man referring to him as having Mitchell in lips and I’m thinking how is it that John Gruden would feel so comfortable talking to a

Club president who is one step beneath an owner to use language like that and whatnot how it’s speaks to the culture within the NFL and so I said to them I want to go on air that day I was going to be on air to talk about um these

Gruden emails and I said I want to talk about a story that Jerry Jones what he said to me at the Hall of Fame game where I had pressed him on why owners have such a hard time hiring black people into decision-making positions and ultimately he said to me if blacks

Feel some kind of way they should buy their own team and hire who they want to hire and then I was told not to say it on air and th that along with Terry pugula um was the breaking point for me where I said we can’t keep covering these things

Up and I pushed even harder um and ultimately it led to me asking the commissioner again about how a year later after me bringing these issues to his attention nothing had changed and so the basis of my lawsuit is you have to go back to November of 2022 and I

Knew I had been ruffling some feathers by asking these questions and I had my agent reach out to the VP of talent Sandy Nunes and say um hey Jim’s contract’s coming up in March where are we at you know because my thing was hey if they’re not going to bring me back

Let me start getting ready to look for a new job and we were told no there’s no reason to think he won’t be brought back everyone loves them he’s got supporters in New York and La um what does he want to do and then there was the caveat butt

It might come with a pay trim because we’re having budget cuts so that’s November of 2022 let’s fast forward to the Super Bowl I asked Roger Goodell that question again three weeks later this same VP asked to meet with me and after an hour of small

Talk I’m then asked are you in alignment with the newsroom to which I said of course not I can’t be in alignment with a newsroom that has no black representation and then I was told well you know it’s tough to fight corporate headwinds sometimes you got to

Compromise and I said I feel like I’ve compromised an awful lot but I’m not going to compromise my Integrity um I said I want to be clear here are you now saying my contract’s not being renewed and I was told we don’t know it’s being discussed three

Weeks later it wasn’t renewed so what changed between November of 2022 when they knew they were going to be um budget cuts but we were told there’s no reason to think Jim won’t be brought back to now he’s not being brought back what changed between November of 2022

And March of 2023 other than me again pressing the commissioner on this issue that is certainly the question that we hope to have an answer to um I want to piggyback off your pigula comments here because I remember on Roland Martin Show he played a clip from

Eric Reed when he was in in those meetings early on of course with players Coalition and he said his quote in summary was Terry Pula made a comment about how he’s losing sponsors with his hockey team because he also owns the Buffalo Sabers he also overheard one of

The owners Governors rather saying that they needed a black face in order to help their cause Eric Reed then connected the dots and said that Malcolm Jenkins the former safety uh stopped protesting and there was a donation made to his charity there were other Charities that received donations as

Well was that the person that they needed as Malcolm gave uh many interviews there after that or was there potentially someone else that we are not seeing that Eric could have been talking about in terms of who made that comment about needing a black face to be the front of this thing yes

I believe it was on tapee someone recorded it and so it has been said or reported that it was Terry Pula who said it um so to my understanding so that’s the thing here is that people you know Terry can deny that he said this to this reporter and

What I find interesting is that if the NFL indeed investigated the allegation against Terry Pula by one of its own reporters and found that the allegation was not true and yet is still putting that reporter on the air something doesn’t balance out there why would you

Put someone on the air who has made a false statement again and a very serious false statement against an owner uh and if if what you found is that there is truth to what he said then why wasn’t Terry Pula disciplined publicly discipline those are two things

I would like to know um the other thing is that when Jerry Jones says that he didn’t I wasn’t accurate with what he said or something to that degree I don’t remember the exact quote um if you look at past behavior is it really that hard to believe that Jerry Jones actually said

That the same man who said that if a player took a knee he would no longer be a cowboy the same person as a young boy stood on the steps of of of a high school and in in Arkansas while um black students were verbally assaulted for trying to go to

School so I’m not it’s funny to me how people want to ignore uh past Behavior as we talk about these things but look you can believe what you want to believe and and I’m good with that all I know is that for me this simp simply wasn’t tolerable

Anymore it’s not acceptable and if the NFL really wanted to make change Rick it is not that hard for Roger Goodell or Deus Smith who’s the head PR or HR person to say you know what um we may have a hiring freeze but we can move positions around we can

Create openings where we need them and we feel that it is important for a newsroom that is covering a player popul which is 60 to 70% black to at least at the very least have one black manager in that Newsroom or have one black copy editor in that Newsroom or have one

Full-time black news assistant in that Newsroom because while I was there at the time that that I left none of those things existed I’m curious as you look back on your career which is one that I am fairly certain many journalists would love to have why did

You get into the space in the first place what did you feel that brought you to this career oh it was simple I Lov the game um but I also knew that I was never going to be good enough to play professionally and so as a teenager I

Asked myself what’s the way that I could stay close to the game that I love without actually playing it and one of the ways was writing about it and that’s how I got into this and then like with anything else as you get older you mature your values um the way you see

Things change and I began to see it not as a game but as a business which is what the NFL is it is not a game it is a business and therefore there are things about it um that can be distasteful and let’s just say that that that’s what what I am now

Addressing as you look back as well is there one story that you covered that sticks out to you as one of your favorites oh I don’t know about favorites that that that’s kind of like you know asking me which of my children are most um I love them the same um no

But I I think there are stories that have been have had sort of a Prof found impact on me um going back to when I was a Sports Illustrated and Shawn Taylor was murdered and everyone around me was basically writing that to some degree he brought it on himself because of his

Past and completely ignoring how Shawn Taylor had changed and so fortunately Sports illustrator allowed me to write it from my perspective in terms of how I viewed it which was completely different from many of my colleagues and it turns out that no it wasn’t about his past um

There was a Breakin at his house and he was defending his family so that one sticks out to me and the other one that sticks out to me truthfully is something I wrote while I was at nfl.com um about the lack of diversity among head

Coaches and two men that I talked to in particular Jimmy Ray a longtime assistant coach in the NFL who does Consulting work for the NFL now and Clarence Shellman a longtime coach in the NFL who left the game because it was messing with his head that he had

Reached the highest level one step below becoming a head coach and people that he had trained or worked with were getting interviews for head coaching positions and he could not get one and so he walked away from the game because he said it was emasculating now imagine a

Black man using that word to describe his experience in the NFL emasculating I’ve never forgotten that nor have I forgotten him saying that that he has been out of the NFL for more than a decade and it stays with him every day so when the NFL talks about the

Importance of mental health I don’t think it gives a lot of consideration to how these discriminatory practices are affecting the mental health of these black men the other thing about Jimmy Ray that he said to me and I remember doing this story back when Byron Leftwich and Eric benmy were the

Offensive coordinators in the Super Bowl and I asked Jimmy Ray if he ever saw a time where these hiring practices of the owners were going to change and he said to me not in his lifetime and he said that that racism is so deeply embedded systemic racism is so deeply embedded in

Our society that he just could not see it changing in the NFL and that was very sobering for me um and it hit me really hard because these are men who had who had worked hard to position themselves to have a chance to be a head coach in

The NFL and never got that opportunity not because they weren’t qualified and not because they weren’t capable but simply because of the color of their skin well put um I have two more for you there’s something that I try to explain to my parents because I’ve worked for a

Few different networks um media major the erosion of local journalism has been troubling to me seeing how many newspapers have closed up because these even if they are hyper local stories are important stories and sometimes those hyper local stories will go National because of the impact that it

Would have why do you believe that so many local towns and local New Rather local newspapers have simply gone into the wind and how much of a threat is this this to the profession of media in general in deciphering truth from fiction no it’s not just a threat to

Media it’s a threat to society I mean the fourth estate what I was taught in journalism school is that our purpose was to provide accurate and fair information so that people could be informed and make quality decisions about things that affect their lives so as as we see

Newspapers start to dry up and whatnot particularly on the local level as you said um that means you’re not getting all the information you should have about things that can affect your life and the decisions that you make so it’s it’s dangerous from a societal standpoint not just a media standpoint

Why are they drying up it simply comes down to money when I got into the journalism profession many of the newspapers were familyowned and so so when I arrived at the San Diego Union uh Tribune at the time it was the San Diego Union it was familyowned well now many

Of these these newspapers have been bought up by Venture capitalists hedge funds and whatnot and they stripped them down and it is all about the money the bottom line as opposed to the journalism and that’s a very troubling state to be in here so um am I concerned about that

Absolutely I am not just be not just because I’m am a journalist but also as somebody in the society who when I’m out of the game who is going to be relying on um media Outlets to provide me with information so that I can make informed quality decisions about things that are

Going to affect my life it’s very it’s serious it’s dangerous and it’s not just about the media it’s about us as a society being an informed Society about fake news and whatnot I shake my head because it’s like we no longer accept facts you know if it doesn’t fit into

Our Echo chamber and that’s really disturbing one variable that I have despised over time and I would say this has come up in the last decade is or so maybe a little less is aggregate media we see it all the time on Twitter where someone will put if Jim trod breaks a

Story they’ll put the story but then at the end they’ll put via Jim trod or via at jimrod um clutch points I know JJ reic called it out whether someone were to love him or hate him JJ reic called out a site like clutch points on ESPN’s

First Take how has this hurt those who are seeking to inform themselves when it is simply hate to say it uh a a what used to be Bastion of media I used to read Sports Illustrated all the time now it is essentially serving as aggregate

Media where I saw a former writer I know this’s a longwinded question just follow me uh Jeff Pearlman had a tweet about something and they created an entire article over Jeff pearlman’s tweet and the whole thing was maybe five paragraphs at best how is this hurting those who are trying to Garner

Information and how does it leave them in the long run that’s a that’s a deeper conversation Um we saw this uh I I’ll tell you where I first noticed it was when I was covering the San Diego Chargers and pro football talk was really getting going and it would take um stories that that beat reporters had written it would opine on them but

Within the the con within the the the frame of opining on it it would mention who wrote the story right and I thought number one um I thought it was wrong because it’s taking away from the original author of that piece and then number two um it was acting as if it

Knew more than the person whose boots were on the ground now pro football talk is since developed into where you know Mike Florio and others do their own reporting as well um and they will break their own stories as well so I’m talking about in its infancy um and I remember being

Disturbed by that and really what again we talked about how the media game has changed what these Venture capitalists and others have realized is it’s about the bottom line so I can take a group of reporters here and do an investigative piece that wins a piter prize and over here I can have

Some kids right out of college or still in college doing um rankings of the 10 hottest wives in the NFL and the 10 hottest wives in the NFL the clicks are going to far outnumber the investigative pulled to prizewinning peace that’s just the society we live in today and so from

Strictly from a business standpoint from a dollars and cents standpoint people who don’t care about journalism say here’s where the money is over here with the 10 hottest wives I don’t have to pay these college kids very much or these recent graduates very much I don’t even have to do benefits

And all that they can be part-time employees I save myself a lot of money and yet I get more eyeballs which means I can get more money from advertising and whatnot and that’s the state of our game right now and until we as a society say that is not what we want see

We want to blame those who are are doing it and I say ultimately the blame is with us the consumer that’s right because if we say that’s not what we want they’ll stop doing it but that’s not what we’ve that we’re not doing that and so ultimately I think we have to

Look in the mirror and say that we are culpable in this as well do you think the public will have that Reckoning no well I I hope for a better future um and I do know that uh without the journalists on the ground that are breaking these stories and working their

Tales off those aggregate sites simply would not exist so uh to wrap this up Jim let me just say um I really appreciate your time I appreciate your wisdom and I wish you the best of luck in your lawsuit and not just that let me close this out by saying you promised

That you were going to bring different stories with the athletic you have delivered thus far and I’m very appreciative so thank you very much for your time and the best of luck to you you know Rick I appreciate that but I’ll say this to you speak and this goes to

The point that we finished on so I said I wanted to bring other stories more diverse stories to the athletic correct MH the thing is if you go and you check the the metrics when I write about let’s say WNBA or I write about the diversifying of golf or something to that

Effect the readership numbers are not strong but let me go off and write about Dion Sanders or let me write about Mel Tucker or one of those type things and now the numbers go through the roof so that’s why I say as consumers we’re culpable in this because we say we want

More diverse stories women’s Athletics matter you know those sorts of things and yet when I write about them the numbers aren’t as great as something as silly as you know Deon Sanders going off on on a media member for not believing in Colorado right so again we have to look in the

Mirror and say and there’s going to come a point I believe don’t know this but I believe this where the athletic will say you know what um we’re just not get enough bang for our bug writing about those things so we’re not going to it is

Not there now it will tell you and it is told me that is committed to telling these stories but maybe it’s the pessimist in me but what I have seen in this business so far is It ultimately the bottom line always wins out unfortunately that is true um I’ll

Just add on to that very quickly Before I Let You Go I have covered stories that I feel like are important I have interviewed people that I feel like are important and have stories to tell and sadly the viewership doesn’t match what I feel isal absolutely um it is to be

Fully transparent it pisses me off um it gets to me a lot because when and I know you feel like this when you are putting so much into something that you know is for lack of a better word good you know it is pure and strong and good and then

Cuz I have the numbers I can go and use YouTube video manager I can go in Facebook video manager yada yada I see them and to see stuff that I know would resonate with more people but it just Falls flat on its face doesn’t get the amount of views it’s

Uh it’s disheartening to say the least and I don’t necessarily know if it requires more cross promotion I don’t know if it requires me you know editing a really cool hip trend we’re going to wipe everything quotes on screens texts on screens promo videos I’m still trying to figure that out but

I do relate that it just gets to me when I know that I’m putting so much into this piece and it gets the minimal amount of what I view as it’s not views I view it as respect and I don’t get that no and you know my attitude is look and I’ve told

My editor this there there are columns I’m going to write for me right I know the metrics won’t be strong but I feel they’re important that the stories be told and then there’ll be the other columns that balance that out you know the ones the talkers that that people

Want to want to read about and whatnot you know whether it’s Jim Harbaugh now or whether it’s Deion Sanders and I’m not writing about the NFL at the moment so I can’t speak to that um but I’m gonna I’m going to try and do both you know as best I can to balance

That but you know I ultimately believe you have to be true to yourself and if you’re not passionate about what you’re writing then what’s the point Amen to that Jim thank you so much really appreciate the time all right Rick thanks for having me thank you