Hour 2: Chris Simms

SPEAKER_1 (0:01)

This is The Michael Kay Show Podcast.

Michael Kay (0:03)

I gotta get more Kay.

SPEAKER_1 (0:05)

Listen live weekdays at 1 on the Espn New York app and your smart speaker.

Michael Kay (0:17)

Time now for Chris Simms, brought to you by Super Bowl 61 Hello, Christopher, how you doing?

Chris Simms (0:23)

I'm good, Michael. How you doing, big guy? I'm doing all right.

SPEAKER_4 (0:25)

Is everything good in your life?

Michael Kay (0:27)

I'm doing, I'm living my life. Now, I'm going to ask you a non-football-specific question. Because it's been a source of discussion on the show.

When a player doesn't perform, Chris, is it the fault of the coach or the player?

Chris Simms (0:44)

Well, that can go a whole lot of ways. That's a deep conversation. You know, I mean, more, all right, so, yeah, I would, it's hard to give you a concrete answer here.

Dave Inskinetti (0:56)

And I don't think there is a concrete answer.

SPEAKER_4 (0:58)

No, there's not a concrete answer.

Chris Simms (1:01)

No, but like, you know, with, with like quarterback play, a lot of the time, hey, yeah, there's times where I can look at it and just go, well, damn, like, yeah, his stats weren't good, but I watched the game and there's nowhere to go. The coach didn't help him out. There wasn't one easy completion. There was nothing to get him going, you know, but then, you know, you might hear a story about, hey, yeah, you know, hey, you know, oh, wait, I've seen guys open. They're not getting there. And then I hear a story, a guy doesn't work very hard. He doesn't really watch film, right? And that's stuff where you go, okay, that's back to the player. And that goes to other positions too. I mean, it certainly does. So I've been in, there's been instances in my career where guys have gotten on players or the media and the fan base and I've gone, damn, I mean, I don't think that's fair. We've put them in some really tough positions a bunch. I don't think anybody in the leagues is gonna succeed with the formula he played in. But I've also been in other ones where the coach is getting blamed for everything and I'm going, man, this guy over here ain't doing Jack Diddley's squad. He's the last guy in the building. He's the first guy out. He doesn't really care about football. And the coach's whole life is dependent on this guy.

And so that's where it can kind of go both ways. It's a good discussion. It's a hard discussion, really.

Michael Kay (2:14)

See, that's why I love that answer because everybody's so certain. We've been talking about baseball a lot. It's always the manager. So they blamed Dave Roberts of the Dodgers yesterday for leaving him Blake Snell in the seventh inning. Why is it Blake Snell's fault?

Chris Simms (2:27)

He didn't get the guys out.

No, we're in a little bit of an era of you can't win no matter what you do here in professional sports. And I'm telling you, as I joke about on my shows all the time, I'm so sick of Joe the Plumber who lives in the basement of his mom's house still telling me about football. I've had enough of those guys. I know that.

Michael Kay (2:48)

Well you get a lot of it. But that's the beauty of sports too because those are the fans that keep us all employed.

But the thing that gets me is that they talk with such certitude that it's this guy's fault when you don't even know what's behind the scenes. Like I've had managers tell me, why didn't I use this guy? Do you know that this guy had a fight with his girlfriend before the game and he wasn't in the right mental places? I can't say that. But those are the reasons behind the decisions.

Chris Simms (3:11)

Hey, I hear you. I have people come up to me all the time and tell me about quarterbacks. And I want to go with, have you ever met an NFL quarterback? Have you ever seen one in person? Have you ever caught from one?

Have you ever, you know, played against one? Oh, okay. But yeah, just tell me. Tell me what you, what your rankings are. Let me hear. Okay.

Have you ever been, did you play football? No, I really didn't. I quit at 8th grade. Oh, okay. Go ahead. Continue to tell me. So, yeah, we're a little bit in that self-righteous, me, me, me, social media era where everybody thinks their voice is important. And that can be frustrating for people like you and I.