Chasing Terry Bradway

Brian Johnson (00:02.025)
All right, welcome to Talent Chasing. Our guest today is Terry Bradway, born in Atlantic City, New Jersey, played football at Trenton State College, went on to start his coaching career at that point, started at his high school, then became a coach at University of Cincinnati, stopped coaching for a year so he could get his master's degree in health and physical education. Then he worked in the USFL, long time ago. Young folks don't know about the USFL.

under long time Kansas City Chiefs General Manager Carl Peterson. Then Terry went on to work with Carl Peterson at the Kansas City Chiefs and he would spend counting today the next 40 plus years in the NFL. He became a general manager and Jasper is particularly excited about this. He became a general manager of the New York Jets and he's currently a scout and advisor for the Carolina Panthers.

Jasper (00:48.558)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (00:58.313)
So Mr. Bradway, Mr. NFL, Mr. Scout, Mr. Former GM, welcome to Talent Chasin. It's good to have you here.

Terry Bradway (01:06.273)
Hey, thanks, Brian and Jasper. It's an honor to be with you guys. It really is. Looking forward to it.

Brian Johnson (01:10.601)
Let's get right to the jets. Jasper, let's get to the jets. What do we got?

Jasper (01:11.534)
That has to be one of the longest, yeah. Well, okay, so I live in the Netherlands and there are not a lot of New York Jets fans here. And I think on the European continent, I'm safe to say I own more Mark Sanchez jerseys than anyone remotely close to me. So when I got into the NFL, 2009, I was watching the Jets being slaughtered by the Patriots, as would happen a few times.

And I saw this bubbly, rookie quarterback, Hispanic guy, Mark Sanchez, this eccentric coach, Rex Ryan, and they were down, I don't know how many points, but I loved it. I just, I loved the color. I loved the passion. I loved everything. So I became a Jets fan naturally. So Terry, this is a real honor. But tell me firstly, why Mark Sanchez is a better quarterback than Joe Namath in Jets history.

Terry Bradway (02:11.329)
Well, that's a tough one to handle right off the bat. Listen, it's a shame that Mark's known for the butt fumble, you know.

Jasper (02:20.462)
it's ridiculous. I hate it. He was a good quarterback. Yeah.

Terry Bradway (02:24.193)
He was a really good quarterback and we, those two years, he won four playoff games all on the road, beat Brady and Manning, which is an accomplishment up there in New England. And, you know, he did a really good job with us. We had a really good defense, we ran the ball, we had some good players, but, you know, Joe's known for the Super Bowl and that was a big deal at the time, but Mark had his fair share of success.

Jasper (02:53.838)
No, absolutely. I mean, I say it jokingly, of course, I know that at Broadway Joe is considered the legend for all the right reasons. But for me, I really have special memories of those Jets teams, like the defense you mentioned, Jim Leonard was one of my favorite all time plays, safety, great player and just so underrated. But the Jets defense was stacked at that time, right? It was it was insane.

Terry Bradway (03:18.049)
We were, we had really good linebackers. David Harris was a very underrated player. We had a good front. And, you know, from the time we got there, obviously Bill Parcells helping that program back in the late nineties. And they were a game away from the AFC championship and possibly going to the Super Bowl with Nini Testiverdi. He was, yes, yes. And Testiverdi was a quarterback.

Jasper (03:21.006)
David Harris, yeah.

Brian Johnson (03:39.529)
Was Belichick on his staff at that point?

Jasper (03:43.278)
It was, yeah.

Terry Bradway (03:46.465)
so they built a great foundation for us when, when I got there and when I hired her as the head coach, but we had good players. The defense was always pretty good. You know, Sean Ellis, John Abraham, but you mentioned Jim Leonard. Jimmy was one of the smartest players that I was ever around. And obviously that's why he became a very successful coach. but that was good. We, we, we, we hung our hat on being a tough team, being very physical in defense, running the football, whether it was.

Jasper (04:06.446)
Yeah.

Terry Bradway (04:15.745)
You know, Sean Green around those times or earlier with Curtis Martin and Lamont Jordan and any place that I've ever been and won, and Brian can attest to this, we were really good up front. You know, we had good offensive linemen, whether it be the Stars, the Giants, the Kansas City, the Jets, even Miami and Carolina last year, not this past year, the year before when we got on the street there is because we were good up front. And,

Jasper (04:21.262)
Yep.

Jasper (04:29.71)
Mm.

Terry Bradway (04:45.889)
I remember, you know, my first 32 years in pro football, I had four centers. I had Bart Oates, okay, who played for the Stars and the Giants. That was nine years right there. I had Tim Grunhard for nine years in Kansas City. And then I had Kevin Mouais and Nick Mangold at the Jets. Yeah, and Kevin's in the Hall of Fame. But it's crazy that there were just four centers in 32 years.

Jasper (05:04.654)
Mangolds, yeah.

Jasper (05:12.046)
That's insane.

Terry Bradway (05:13.505)
I think the Chargers went through four in one season.

Jasper (05:16.218)
Yeah, I was just about to say that's a type of longevity that you don't have a sense of position. I mean, for me, like Nick Mangold is up there, right, at the absolute elite of the players that I was able to watch. And having watched a few games in person myself, you know, those were the absolute dreams to watch the types of the Brickishore Ferguson, Nick Mangold in person, because those guys were just upfront. And I felt like for me as a Jets fan, I'm going to get straight into the bad stuff.

Terry Bradway (05:23.745)
No.

Terry Bradway (05:37.441)
Well, to me, you have to be good up the middle. And we were good because...

Jasper (05:45.934)
But the last few years, that's exactly what we've missed. That's exactly the type of players that we just haven't had. They haven't been able to identify.

Terry Bradway (05:47.105)
Yeah.

Terry Bradway (05:56.193)
Well, I think this year they tried to do that in the off season, picked up some offensive linemen, the kid that they took from Penn State, who's a really good player, who's gonna fit in there. And again, that's how you win in this league. Everybody gets enamored with all the skilled players outside and you do need dynamic playmakers, but if you can't protect the quarterback and run the ball on offense and then on the other side, get after the quarterback, it's hard to win.

Jasper (06:23.982)
Yeah, because I'm not gonna get, sorry, Brian, I was just gonna get into a Jets conversation here because for me, it's been the last few years, right, Terry, I'm not gonna lie, and you've had nothing to do with this, so we can talk safely about this. It's been a bit painful to watch. We've seen talented quarterbacks come in, in Sam Donald, Zach Wilson, players who have been, you know, esteemed picks, top 10 draft picks, everyone's high expectations, but I feel like they have made no real effort until now, maybe.

Brian Johnson (06:28.073)
Hahaha.

Jasper (06:51.726)
to protect the quarterback properly and give him a real chance? Because both of these plays have had to start in their rookie years, which to me is impossible to begin with. For me, it's not necessarily the recipe for success you want in the NFL. But how do you look at just the evolution of that? Because I feel like you just mentioned it, skill positions, they're sexy picks, and they're still being picked high and they're still being picked in the first and second round. But then it's like, okay, now we've got a skill position, but we've got no plan.

to protect them. Has that always been the case here at NFL or is it just, has that gradually sort of happened due to just fans wanting a quarterback? Like the next quarterback is finally gonna be the right quarterback.

Terry Bradway (07:36.353)
I think it's easy to internalize when it's your team and that's what you think about. But I do know that Joe and his staff, they've done a good job of trying to put those pieces together up front. Sometimes there's injuries come into play. I remember back in 05 when we lost Jason Fabini, we lost Kevin Mawhy, we lost a bunch of players and we lost two quarterbacks in one game. We lost Chad Pennington and Jay Fiedler against Jacksonville. And that was our season.

Jasper (07:41.038)
Yeah.

Jasper (07:49.454)
True.

Jasper (08:00.206)
Hmm.

Terry Bradway (08:05.569)
And we were a pretty good team the year before we were a kick away from the AFC championship with Doug Ryan. And we thought we had a good team coming back. Chad had come off a shoulder injury that he had played with in the playoffs the year before. So he had that shoulder repaired. We brought Jay in felt really good about Jay started the season with Chad when he got healthy. We get to Jacksonville seven plays apart. They both want stuff their shoulders. And now we got to bring Vinny back at 40.

Brian Johnson (08:29.769)
Mm.

Jasper (08:32.142)
Yes.

Terry Bradway (08:34.785)
We got Cliff Kingsbury and Brooks Bollinger who were good players, but it just, it wasn't the same. And we had a lot of injuries. Chris Baker got hurt. We lost some guys on defense and they had four and 12 written all over it. We had some pretty competitive games, but it just didn't work out.

Jasper (08:35.214)
UGH

Jasper (08:49.55)
Hmm.

Brian Johnson (08:51.433)
And with Chad Pennington before he got hurt, I mean, he was doing really well. A guy didn't have a cannon of an arm, but he got the team to the end zone. He was a good player and not just a game manager. I don't like the game manager description of people. That's not what he was. He was that dynamic quarterback without having a gigantic cannon in his right arm. But then you're right, after he got hurt, everything changed, which was painful. And then I had forgotten that.

Jasper (09:00.526)
Good player, yeah.

Terry Bradway (09:03.681)
He was.

Brian Johnson (09:19.305)
The second quarterback went down so soon, but.

Terry Bradway (09:21.825)
Yeah. You know, it's interesting, Brian, you say that, I've got a lot of friends who are defensive coordinators in this league and they would tell me when they watched the tape on Pennington, they just knew how smart he was. He was a great processor, but he was very accurate. And the key is the key to quarterback and in our league is accuracy because accuracy creates yards after the play. that's why Joe Montana was so good. You know, I was with Joe the last couple of years of his career in Kansas city.

And I remember we brought him in for a workout and we watched him throw and I'm like, man, this doesn't look great. You know, the arm does, it's not jumping off his hand, all that stuff. That training camp, we went and practiced against the Vikings and in team competitive periods, he was 41 out of 45. And that's the difference. Rich Gannon told me when he was with the Vikings, they had a fourth down play that would have helped them get into the playoffs.

Jasper (10:08.8)
Yeah.

Terry Bradway (10:19.873)
And he threw an under route to Roger Craig and the ball was on his back hip, which made Craig stop, have to regain his and go and missed the first down by like three or four yards. If he had hit him in stride, it might've been a 20 yard play. And the thing that you realize is how important the details are and the accuracy, how important it is in a quarterback.

Brian Johnson (10:37.257)
Yeah.

Jasper (10:37.326)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (10:47.561)
Yeah, it really is. It's a game of inches. And I got to work out when I was in college at Stanford, Joe Montana, Roger Craig, Jerry Rice, all the 49ers greats would come down and work out with us at our, at our fields, which is awesome. But, you know, I got to throw with Steve Young and Joe Montana in practice. And as you described, you know, Montana was built just like Chad Pennington was. He wasn't tall. He didn't have a cannon, but he could get it done. And, and his, the way his personality melded with his teammates, he was a great leader.

So anyway, it's also, well, let's...

Jasper (11:20.27)
That's a good name drop, right? That's a good name drop. I was just casually catching passes from Germans.

Brian Johnson (11:23.561)
Yeah, yeah, a lot of name jobs. I influenced Joe Montana and Steve Young's career in a great deal. But let's get to Tim Tebow, Terry, because Tim Tebow did not have a great arm, nor did Chad Pennington. But Tim Tebow couldn't get a second job after he won a playoff game with the Denver Broncos. Compare and contrast those two and any thoughts as to why Tebow didn't quite work out with football.

Jasper (11:33.518)
Terry Bradway (11:50.273)
Tim was a great college football player. Didn't quite have the arm talent to NFL level. And that was even obvious at Florida. He was such a great competitor. And it's interesting because when you see the running quarterbacks nowadays, like Lamar or Kyler, you know, he was a different kind of runner. He was more of a power runner. They were more run quarterback power with him and he was very tough physical. And that's kind of...

Jasper (12:13.294)
Yeah, yeah.

Terry Bradway (12:19.777)
You know, how he made his mark. I just don't think the arm talent translated to the league. And that's why he didn't get other chances. You know, we actually tried at the Jets to do some things with them, but ultimately it just, it didn't work out. But you talk about a tremendous athlete who, you know, I mean, goes and plays baseball, got to the AA level, I think, maybe, maybe AAA for a little bit and struggled a little bit. Yeah, through it all. But, but,

Jasper (12:31.406)
Yeah, he did.

Jasper (12:42.734)
Yeah. I think he got to AAA. Yeah. Yeah.

Terry Bradway (12:49.569)
You know, not too many people can do that. You did it. Okay. I mean, there's certain guys who can do that, but not everybody can do it, especially at that level.

Brian Johnson (12:57.673)
And it's interesting you talk about arm talent. So you're saying Thibaut's arm strength was less than Pennington. So there's kind of a threshold where you have to be able to make this throw or that throw on time. Because that's similar to what when I was a scout in Major League Baseball, we had a theory, a working theory, my working theory. I don't know if anybody else bought into it, but as a pitcher, as a Major League pitcher in order to survive, you have to throw a 92. Now, it doesn't mean there aren't there aren't exceptions to that rule.

Terry Bradway (13:08.545)
It was.

Brian Johnson (13:25.993)
But when I'm evaluating something, you have to be able to create enough deception. And 92 mile per hour for me was kind of that cutoff. So it sounds like T -bone might have been a little below that cutoff. Pennington was a little bit above that cutoff.

Terry Bradway (13:41.601)
Yeah, I think too, like the accuracy part of it and just being able to spin it. those things weren't quite to that, to that level, but, you know, and, and you can, I mean, listen, there's great, great, great college players that don't always translate to the league. And you've seen that too. So, and that's our job as, as evaluators, you know, and we're not, we're not always perfect. I know when we have these drafts and.

people get selected, you see everybody in the room high -fiving each other and we're so excited, I can't believe you fell to us and this is exactly who we wanted. And then two years down the road, that player's not on your team anymore. And like, you don't make, well, you make decisions. You don't necessarily make a bad decision, but they don't always turn out good. And so that's kind of like the scouting process.

Jasper (14:24.878)
Yeah.

Jasper (14:35.31)
Yeah.

Terry Bradway (14:40.577)
that we go through and there's a lot of good picks that we've had over the years. But it just seems like we always remember the bad ones. Wasted opportunities, but that's the way the game's played.

Brian Johnson (14:49.065)
Yeah, it's draft time, draft time. Yeah.

Brian Johnson (14:58.249)
Yeah, draft time is always fun because they always review, right, which teams, you know, the ones that hit, the one that missed. And the names you don't remember, the names didn't work out. It wasn't anybody's fault, right? It just, you know, how can you tell what's going to happen to a guy or whatever it may be? But,

Jasper (15:03.918)
It's, yeah.

No, exactly. Yeah.

Terry Bradway (15:08.737)
Right. Yeah.

Terry Bradway (15:13.345)
Well, Brian, you know this, having been at that level, you know, the pro level is a lot different than college. And it's different mentally, it's different physically, it's just a different animal. And not everybody is prepared for it or equipped to handle it. And that's why, you know, you see guys who have a lot of talent that don't necessarily quite make it. And that's why we always talk about the extra. Well, what's the extra? It's always...

It's what you do when people don't see it. It's not what you do when you're not in the building. It's what you take home with you. Those are the things that separate the good from the great at that level.

Brian Johnson (15:53.513)
Yeah, agree.

Jasper (15:53.998)
Now you say that, Taryon, and something pops into my mind. I read a book by the former NFL coach, Tony Dungy. I read a few of his books. And I remember one of the great passages that I read was, you know, a true man's character is when no one's watching. And I think that very much rings true in life, but it also rings true in sort of scouting and how maybe one person is able to get into a situation and become, you know, the perennial all -star player that the team wanted them to be.

and the other one might be in the CFL two years later and without a job a year later. But for me, how do you test that? How do you scout those sort of intangibles? Because the NFL is renowned for its wonder league test and trying to get these plays into weird questions, ask them weird questions, get a full sort of grip on their character. But how do you personally view that sort of character test in the NFL?

Terry Bradway (16:49.633)
It's interesting you say that Jasper because you know, character has become as much a part of the report as the evaluation of the skills and techniques. you know, we're, we're responsible for football and personal character and part of football character. One of the questions you always ask athletes is do they love it? Okay. Well, everybody loves certain parts of it, whether it be the game, what comes from the game, you know, financially, whatever it might be. but it's more.

to me, like, do you love the process? And the great ones love the process and they're consumed by it. And so we asked a lot of questions, you know, we talked to a lot of coaches, you want to know who the first in last out guy is, are they spending time? Do they, do they, do they work on things that they need to improve on? So those are the questions that are really important. And,

Jasper (17:22.67)
Okay.

Terry Bradway (17:46.081)
To be honest with you, even when you get those questions answered, you still don't know until they're put in that situation. I don't think anything ever prepares you. You know, when you go from high school to college, it's different. When you go from college to the pro level, it's different. And people can talk to you and tell you, explain, you know, maybe what to expect, but really you don't know until you get there. And you're a young player coming into league and...

It's a little different now because players are older. We have that COVID year. It seems like some of these college players are playing six, seven. One guy's playing his ninth year at Miami this year in college, which is absolutely amazing. But again, just that transition is difficult. And we have a lot of people that there's a lot of resources available to people that Brian know very well Lamont and Kevin Winston are part of that program that.

Jasper (18:24.43)
Yeah.

Terry Bradway (18:40.737)
help players get acclimated to the league and even after football, that kind of stuff. So the resources are there, but they still have to be able to take advantage of.

Jasper (18:50.99)
Now, in your years of being in the NFL, which is more years than I've been alive on Earth, so let's give you some credit there, but has there been any player that you've looked at and you've scouted and you've been in the stands, if you've watched that play and you think to yourself, this player is going to be a hit and that player turned out to be completely different from what you expected? Maybe in a good way, maybe in a negative way.

Brian Johnson (18:55.849)
Hahaha!

Terry Bradway (19:13.825)
Well, I don't know about the hit to the miss, but I can tell you like one of the most enjoyable scouting opportunities I had was scouting Tony Gonzalez at Cal. And I remember Marty Schottenheimer, Paul Hackett and I took a 10 day, eight school spring visits from the West coast to the East coast. And it was one of the most enjoyable times I've ever had scouting.

But one of the things we did was we went and watched Tony play basketball at Mabel's Pavilion. And Stanford was a good team. They had the kid that played at the Brevin Knight was a guard. Brevin Knight was playing and Eddie Gray was a player on Cal, but he had gotten hurt. So Tony started that game. Stanford won the game. It was an early game because it was a TV game. So it was like 10 o 'clock in the morning. And,

Brian Johnson (19:55.017)
Mm -hmm.

Terry Bradway (20:09.601)
Of course, Marty and Tyrone Willingham sat in the first row and Paul and I were up in the rafters. They're one of the best -seated Maples anyway, but it was good. And getting through Tony with that whole process of playing basketball, playing football, here's a guy that was playing basketball at Cal, plays a game, gets on a plane, flies to Indianapolis, does the entire Indianapolis workout. I think he ran like four, seven, five, hadn't even been training for it.

Jasper (20:15.534)
Hehehehe.

Terry Bradway (20:39.521)
because he was playing basketball. All right. And then, and then didn't beg out of any drill like they do nowadays. Now it's all a la carte. I'll do the 40 and the vertical, but I won't do the shuttle, whatever it might be. But, but that was to me, you know, that one. And then I remembered a scout and Daryl Revis at Pitt and the workout was indoors because there was a major snowstorm going on. And we have this thing called the, the, the, the three cone drill where they,

Jasper (20:46.094)
Yeah.

Jasper (21:00.558)
Right.

Terry Bradway (21:08.577)
They run up, they run back and they circle this cone. Well, well, Darrell going around this last cone made a mistake, but the mistake was so impressive athletically that you went, whoa, this is nuts. And I remember calling Tanenbaum up and saying, we were at 25. I said, we have no shot at Rivas at 25. And ultimately we traded up to 14 to get him and he ended up having a Hall of Fame career.

Jasper (21:32.238)
Yeah, every every Jets fan thanks you for that because the Reavers Island years were incredible. You just knew that that cover. I love I love the T -shirts being printed out at the time like 50 % of Earth is gone.

Terry Bradway (21:39.089)
yeah.

Terry Bradway (21:44.033)
But you know, but you know, there's, well, it's funny because there's other, there's other guys. I remember back in 1990 going to Howard University and it was a Saturday and it was pro day and it was kind of rainy and there were 24 players working out at Howard. Okay. So we got our watches out. We're timing guys and they had a kid named Troy Kyle's who was a wide receiver and in the rain, he ran the mid four fours. And so I go to the coach and I said,

Tell me about Troy Kyle's, because I didn't scout him. Well, he caught 10 passes all year, and four of them were against Morehouse. So I got a copy, a VHS copy of the game. You know what VHS tapes are, Jasper, don't you?

Brian Johnson (22:26.569)
He may not.

Terry Bradway (22:29.025)
Okay, yeah, right. And so, yeah, so we take it back to the end and we sign them as a free agent. And he actually played for us in the playoffs that year and in the Super Bowl that we won against, not Denver, Buffalo. Yeah, exactly. So yeah, there's all different ways to find them, that's for sure.

Brian Johnson (22:53.257)
Yeah. So let's go back a little bit. So you started the USFL and Carl Peterson was there with the Philadelphia Stars with you, correct?

Terry Bradway (22:59.745)
Yeah.

Terry Bradway (23:05.473)
Yeah, Brian, that's interesting because, you know, I, as you mentioned, I love sports my whole life. Like division three player, four, eight corners don't play division one. You know that, but you can play division three and, and I had, believe it or not, I had four coaches at Trenton state, all that had some eventual ties to the NFL, including Dick curl, who was my head coach as a sophomore. And I started every game until the last game. He didn't start me.

Jasper (23:16.654)
Hahaha!

Terry Bradway (23:35.393)
They started freshmen instead of me and I hated them. Absolutely hated them, right? 20 years later, I hired him in Kansas City as our pro scout, Dick Crow. And I realized when I got into scouting, the other guy was probably a better player anyway. So that all worked out. But I had a chance to be a GA at Cincinnati, coached a year at the Merchant Marine Academy, got out of coaching, was going to be a teacher, finished my master's degree.

Jasper (23:44.718)
Hahaha.

Brian Johnson (23:51.049)
Right.

Terry Bradway (24:01.473)
really was gonna be like a teacher, athletic director. That's what I was gonna do. I love sports. And I met a guy named Jerry Sazio, whose brother was a CFL general manager. And he was a high school athletic director in Virginia that did some part -time scouting for his dad, for his brother. I said, you know, that would be a good way to get back into football. I didn't really know much about scouting. This is 1982. And I remember writing Carl Lettter when he was at Philadelphia.

April of 1982, got back thanks, but no thanks. Cause I'm sure he never got it. You know, it's one of those form, whatever. And so that summer he takes a job as the president and GM of the fledgling Philadelphia stars, USFL. The guy that I'd been a GA for at Cincinnati knew Carl and that's kind of how I got involved. So I didn't, we didn't know much about scaling. Billy Kuharic was on that staff. Rod Graves was on that staff. We ended up working in Arizona.

Brian Johnson (24:51.401)
okay.

Terry Bradway (25:00.033)
Billy became a GM also in New Orleans. my first game was Connecticut against Yale at the Yale bowl. John Dorsey, who became a GM in the NFL was playing for Connecticut at the time. So it was really, that was the start of it all. And I, I had, you know, this is from my 42nd year now, but those first three years were as fun as any, because it was new. We, we scouted college in the fall.

Brian Johnson (25:09.961)
Yeah.

Jasper (25:10.286)
Yeah.

Terry Bradway (25:28.065)
We did advanced scouting in the spring. We helped run training camp in the land, Florida. We had really had a chance to do everything. And that was, that was a great group of people. We won 48 games in three years, two championships, three championship games. There were four coaches on that staff, Jim Moore, Vince Tobin, Dom Capers and Vic Fangio, who all, who all became NFL head coaches. And there were four guys that became NFL GMs, well for USFL football team.

So it was a lot of fun. It was a great way to get started. And then what happened was the third year when the league ended up not making it, our third string quarterbacks dad was the player personnel director for the Giants. And that's how I got involved with the New York Giants.

Jasper (26:11.854)
Ugh.

Brian Johnson (26:14.793)
It's all about relationships, baby. It's gotta be relationships.

Terry Bradway (26:16.737)
I grew up a Phillies fan, love Philadelphia teams living here in South Jersey, and I hated every New York team, and I ended up working for two of them. That's how it goes. You know? Yeah.

Brian Johnson (26:26.825)
Hahaha.

Jasper (26:27.214)
Hahaha!

Brian Johnson (26:29.577)
That's right. That's right. Well, let's get into kind of the modern day scouting where the analytics cult has come into play, not just in baseball, football and basketball, but every sport. Right. And analytics is great. And I say this all the time. Analytics are great. They provide a lot of information, really allows you to evaluate what's already happened really well. Not so much very good at evaluating what or predicting what's going to happen in the future. How do you see?

analytics and how it's coming to play in the NFL. There's got to be a balance to both, but how do you see it and how it's impacted your career as a scout and the NFL at large?

Terry Bradway (27:10.913)
So this is the way I look at it. I'm in between money ball and trouble with the curve. Okay. I can still hear it. Okay. I can still hear it, but I respect the numbers. And to be honest with you, even when I, whenever I evaluate players and we all have different ways of taking notes, but if it's a defensive player and I'm looking at a guy and I'm charting solo assist, miss tackles,

Jasper (27:17.838)
okay. Yeah, good. Two good films there, yeah. That was a great film. Yeah, the sound, yeah.

Brian Johnson (27:17.897)
Clint Eastwood, Trouble with the Curve. That was a great one.

Terry Bradway (27:41.025)
whatever they might do. At the end of the day, I know after five games that he had 15 solos, seven assists, eight missed tackles, okay, which is a concern. And that's basically analytics. You know, I did the same thing with receivers, you know, targets, catches, drops, what percentage, this, that, and the other. I'm not afraid of analytics at all. I think it's really can be a good piece of the puzzle as long as you have both.

You know, the objective and the subjective, it's so much different now scouting. I remember you, Ryan, saying that you're glad you grew up when you did in the sport and playing the game. I feel the same way about the business. You know, starting with 16 millimeter projectors, you know, and no GPS and getting lost going to Florida and looking at a hunter and missing pregame and never seeing them punt the game because they didn't punt. You know, it's...

Brian Johnson (28:33.833)
Yeah.

Jasper (28:35.086)
Hahaha

Terry Bradway (28:40.001)
Like that stuff doesn't happen nowadays. So we've come a long way. I can go on to PFF, Pro Football Focus, and if I have a concern about a guy missing tackles, all I do is hit the missed tackles. Maybe there's 15 of them. And I can see exactly what people saw. Now, I don't know everybody who's tagging all these plays on the other end, but I can see, is he leaving his feet? Is he getting run over? I mean, what...

Like, what do these missed tackles mean when you're trying to put together your evaluation? But I think that there's a there's a balance between the two. And I remember being down in Miami and we had one of our analytic guys and I had the running backs after the draft looking for undrafted college free agents. And I said to the guy, I said, I said, is there anybody that you've identified that we should look at? And he mentioned a little running back from Louisiana, Boston, Scott.

Jasper (29:27.054)
Yep.

Terry Bradway (29:38.305)
who is still playing in the league like five years later and was with the Eagles and did some really great things there. But the guy was like five foot six, but number wise, he had some good things to say about him. And so I think that kind of interaction and that kind of respect on both ends, I think if you go too far one way or too far the other way, it's a little bit of a concern. And then you gotta have the right person in the top seed that's gonna take all this information and make something out.

Jasper (29:38.51)
Mmm.

Terry Bradway (30:07.713)
You know, so that's what I think.

Jasper (30:10.766)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Brian Johnson (30:10.825)
Yeah, I agree. There's so many, I'm sorry, there's so many leaders of organizations in sports, right? I won't get specific, but have never played. And that's okay. It doesn't matter if you played or not, but you still have to be able to utilize the information, the game information and the analytics information. You know, not having someone that's able to evaluate like you can.

It's like having someone run Ford Motor Company that's never had a driver's license. It's just different. You should be able to feel it and snow what you're seeing. It's just different. And that's my biggest concern as far as analytics is that I think we've lost the balance, at least in baseball. And I think basketball is trying to get there. Football, thank goodness, has not gotten to that point. But it's just better. Why not utilize all the different skills that are available, all the experience of a guy like you?

In baseball, all those experienced guys have gotten wiped out and have been taken out of the game of scouting. Has that happened in football?

Terry Bradway (31:15.009)
Not so much yet. I think, I do think there are some teams that maybe are a little more heavily analytical. And, and I know in talking to some scouts, they get frustrated when that happens. And, you know, you just got to keep, you know, you got to keep doing your job. I, you know, I had a chance, I had a chance like ever, ever since I've been in it, I've always, you know, in our business, you don't really share a lot of information among teams. And then.

Jasper (31:41.518)
Mm.

Terry Bradway (31:43.457)
If somebody else comes to you from another team and they have some stuff that they've looked at, maybe a little differently, you can learn that way. But even going back to my days in Kansas City, I always spent time with the baseball guys. So it was Art Stewart and Muzzy Jackson. And then when I got to New York, it was Steve Phillips and Omar Maniah and Jimmy Duquette. And then when I was working in Miami, I spent time with the Phillies guys.

Jasper (31:56.398)
Okay.

Terry Bradway (32:11.297)
So it was Mike Ando and Rob Holliday and Marty Wohlberg and Ruben was there, Amaro was there. And I remember Marty inviting me to sit in on a draft meeting four days before the draft on, it was a Friday and the draft was on Monday. And I remembered, you know, and when you do football, I've been in football my whole life. So I respect and I'm very grateful for it all. And I respect the,

You know, the people in the business and all that. But this was baseball, man. I was in this room sitting between Dallas Green and Pat Gillick. Okay. Pat Gillick, I find out was actually Bobby Beathard Center in high school. But I'm sitting in this room and I'm like a 13 year old kid, but I'm looking at it. I'm saying, okay, here's how they evaluate. It's a lot harder than what we do. We pretty much get ready -made players coming out of college.

They've got to give present grades. They've got to project future grades on five tools or whatever it might be. And I'm thinking to myself, is there any way that we can do that? Because not every guy is coming in the league ready to play, especially like some linemen. So what separates a free agent tackle from guys that become starters or good backups, as opposed to guys that just get washed out of the league. And so we try to look at that a little bit and

And I think baseball really does a good job of makeup, which is what we're trying to do, especially now, the character part of it's really big.

Jasper (33:44.878)
Yeah, I mean, it's so difficult though, because I've read a few books and everything about just the way that baseball players are analyzed and the gap between being drafted and eventually playing for the major league team, if you get there, it can take years and years and years where NFL, it's like, okay, out of college, okay, Zach Wilson, you go and play quarterback for the New York Jets now. And it's like...

Okay, here it was a year ago, just in college, just living his life and now you're in front of, well, you're in front of thousands of people anyway, but it's a different game. Completely different game. But do you feel like the NFL has to sometimes sort of protect the younger players a little bit better where, you know, you've got kids coming out of college, 19, 20 years old, just having to play white receiver, having to play, you know, being immediately being propelled into this star player for this team. Do they need to protect their younger players a bit better, you think?

Terry Bradway (34:41.025)
I agree. I mean, you look at, you know, Aaron Rogers sat behind Brett Favre. Jordan Love sat behind Aaron Rogers. They had the luxury of doing that. I mean, people are criticizing Atlanta now for taking Pinnix. All right, well, four years from now they might not be. You know, he's going to be Kirk Cousins is a good guy, good quarterback. So why not have, you need more than one in this league, I can tell you that much. And so.

Jasper (34:46.862)
Yeah.

Jasper (34:57.262)
Exactly.

Brian Johnson (35:05.001)
Yeah, because if he goes down, you got a Chad Pennington situation all over again. If one guy, why is it that you can only have one starting quarterback, but every other position you're two or three deep? It doesn't make any sense, but I'm sorry. Go ahead.

Jasper (35:13.102)
I've never understood that. Yeah.

Terry Bradway (35:15.681)
Yes.

Yeah, it's the most important position on the field. And again, I thought for years it was probably the worst coach position in the field. I mean, I've had veteran quarterbacks tell me that they spent the first six years of their career and weren't even coached. And it blew my mind because, you know, and then even, you know, I think one of the things, Jasprey talked about young players. I think we have to do a better job of developing young players.

And my hope, and I don't have any stake in the game, is that a league like the UFL can become a place where players can develop, whether it be quarterbacks, offensive linemen. For us, NFL Europe was tremendous. Okay? We would send, like Brandon Moore was a defensive lineman in college. He went over to Europe and played, came back as an offensive lineman and played another 11 years as a starter.

You know, Brian Waters was another one we had in Kansas City. I mean, the quarterbacks that played over there, I thought it was really good. I was very disappointed when we stopped that because even in Kansas City, we were, we were a big team that would allocate players to go over there and play. And, and I thought, especially for. They need, they need reps. Yeah. And Brian knows this, if you're a quarterback, like every rep you take is, is a, is a, is a lesson. I mean, like.

Jasper (36:34.83)
Because those players need reps, right? They need reps. They need to get reps. Yeah.

Terry Bradway (36:47.265)
The guys, there's no getting around the fact that Philip Rivers started 51 games, Pennington started 51 games. Mark Sanchez was a little bit opposite, he started 16 games. So that was a little bit of a concern coming in. Because like I said, every snap you take is an adventure and you learn something every time that ball's high.

Jasper (36:59.726)
Yeah.

Brian Johnson (37:09.563)
Yeah, I love that. You know, part of the thing, one of the things we try to do here with this show is kind of meld the business piece with the sports piece. I found a really interesting article or interview that you did where you talked a lot about how to run an organization and what are some key things about running organization. I think while you were with the job, I don't know when you did it, but can you expound on that a little bit? I think one of the questions was, what's the most important thing?

to keep in mind when you're running a company. I really thought your answers were spot on and really carries over to no matter what organization or company that you're running.

Terry Bradway (37:47.713)
You know, it's interesting you say that Brian, because I don't think any of us are prepared for that next step, like whatever jump it might be in a job, responsibilities it might be. And then when you get there, you know, you kind of have to rely a little bit on, you know, what you've known, how you've grown up in the business and things like that. But I remember like my first press conference at the Jets talking about how we're all in this together. And normally in a lot of these organizations, the football, the building split in half.

Football's on one side, business is on the other side, and never the two should meet, okay? So my whole thing was in reading, you know, Jim Collins wrote Good to Great, and so he talked about getting everybody on the bus, but my whole thing was, in addition to getting everybody on the bus, you gotta get them in the right seat too. And they all have to have the right role and responsibility and things like that. So when I got up there and said that,

Brian Johnson (38:18.761)
Right. Baseball, same way. Yep.

Jasper (38:37.614)
Mmm.

Terry Bradway (38:45.217)
It was important for me to kind of live that every day. So I'm not the smartest guy in the room. Believe me, I can tell you that. I think I was towards the front of the line with common sense and maybe the middle when it came to intelligence. But every day I would spend two times a day, I would walk through the business side and talk to somebody different along the way. Because people on that side were dealing with our players every day, whether it be tickets or whether it be HR.

or whether it be some kind of community relations or whatever it might be. And so they had an effect on those particular players and how they were developed in the system and our program and our culture and things like that. So it was important for me to go do that. And I never wanted to be a micromanager. And we always used to do summer projects, whether it be read a book or there was a book that Kevin Coran wrote in 1980 called Dollar Sign on the Muscle.

Jasper (39:19.438)
Mm.

Terry Bradway (39:44.065)
And basically he was talking about the Phillies. He was a professor at Delaware. And basically it was like, is this guy a $500 ,000 player? Is this guy a million dollar player? That was the premise of the book and tying it into scouting. But we would do the books and then we'd have a big dinner. We'd have some, we'd eat and we'd drink and we'd go around the room and each person would not give us a full report, but what were the one or two things you took from that book?

that you think could help us in our organization. It wasn't 10, you know, because that's ridiculous. That's not gonna happen. Just like I tell people when they go to clinics, if you find 10 things that you're gonna try to do, you made a mistake. Find one or two and then go ahead and do that, because then you'll do it right. And then the other thing we would do is we would go to businesses. I remember Bill Callahan went to Dollar General. He knew like the CEO of Dollar General and wanted to know exactly how that store was operated.

because they're all kind of the same and they all do the same and they're all uniform. And they came back and did a presentation for our staff. So there were a lot of things like that, but I just wanted to make sure that whatever I said, I was following through with. Because I think even if you read Pete Carroll's book about his philosophy, he said, really his first couple of jobs, he really didn't have a philosophy. And then he finally said, when he got out of the NFL, it was like, you know what? If I get another job, here's how I'm gonna do it.

And he did it at USC and he continued to do it at the Seahawks and a lot of success. But it's important to have things in writing, but the writing doesn't get it done if you don't live it every day. You know, and that philosophy that he had, you got to live that every day and your whole staff has to live it every day. They talk about PJ Fleck row the boat in Minnesota. Well, when you're on the outside, you look at them and go, that's kind of corny, you know, row the boat, this is football, whatever.

That mantra has lasted and PJ Fleck is real. I mean, what he does is real in that program and the kids buy in. And so things like that. But I just, I never wanted to be a micromanager, but I always wanted to make sure everybody knew what they had to do. You know, spell it all out. One year, you know, Brian, you've worked, you've looked through all those playbooks, okay? Offensive playbooks, defensive playbooks. I wanted to make sure every department or organization had a playbook.

Terry Bradway (42:10.817)
So that if the equipment guy left tomorrow, somebody could come in off the street, read the book and basically be able to run the program. Now, again, I talked to people that are interviewing for jobs, maybe to become GMs, and you gotta have a book. You do have to have a book, but the book's not gonna win you the interview. You know, you gotta sell yourself and your personality and how you're gonna fit to that particular program. But I appreciate you saying that. And I had great mentors like George Young.

Jasper (42:18.51)
Hmm.

Terry Bradway (42:39.809)
Carl Peterson, you know, we would have meetings every Tuesday at seven o 'clock with all the departments, business side and football side, and just, hey, here's what's happening this week. And I think everybody felt, you know, like they had ownership in the program by doing that.

Jasper (42:59.246)
When you look at your career though, what do you think has been because you know as you as we search for Scouts or general managers in the NFL, you know There's not a lot of people that last as long as you have so far you still you're still going strong But what do you think has been the one most important thing or the key to the longevity in your NFL career?

Terry Bradway (43:23.201)
You know, I just think, first of all, you have to work and you have to enjoy what you're doing. I love what I'm doing. I love the people I'm with. I retired in June of 20. It was a good year to be out with COVID. I did a lot of, you know, put a lot of stuff together for people that are trying to be general managers, whatever, but I miss being the day to day. I miss being around the game, being around the people, being around young people, trying to do great stuff, you know, being around the coaches. It's a,

It's a tough profession. It really is. It's not for everybody. And I've been lucky. I mean, I know I've been lucky. I have two sons that are in the business. One's in Kansas City as a senior director, and he's been really lucky recently. And my youngest one is working for the Chicago Bears in scouting. So I just think I try to treat people right, try to do the right thing. I never, you know...

I never had an ego. You know, I survived five years as GM in New York. I mean, I remember 2002, we are one in four and we're going to San Diego to play and they are just killing me. Two pages in the post said, this Bradway shows a flop. He said, clueless GM and spin cycle.

Brian Johnson (44:25.513)
Hehehehe

Jasper (44:25.774)
You

Jasper (44:45.39)
Yeah, of course, yeah.

Terry Bradway (44:49.857)
And it said, it said gangrene in terrible shape. Now those are three headlines on two pages, which I still have in my bottom right drawer here. Okay. They're still here. Well, long story short, we go out there and win and beat Marty Schottenheimer, which killed me. I love Marty. And we ended up winning the division that year with, with Chad and then, and then base and that year we shut out Peyton Manning in the first playoff game at the Meadowlands.

Brian Johnson (44:54.249)
Yeah.

Jasper (44:55.726)
Hahaha!

Brian Johnson (45:09.769)
Well.

Terry Bradway (45:19.489)
What's was giant stadium, whatever. But, but, we beat him 41, nothing. The only time in his career was shut out. So, but, but to get back, Jasper, I've been lucky. I've been around a lot of good people, a lot of good organizations. Woody Johnson was great to me with the jets. You know, finally, when I got let go in 2015, he sent me a frame Jersey with my name on the back. I mean, it was just, just good stuff, you know? And, and, I mean.

Jasper (45:26.99)
Ugh.

Terry Bradway (45:49.683)
I'm just a guy from Atlantic City, New Jersey, that's all. And I got lucky. I mean, I wanted to be in sports all my life and things just worked out.

Brian Johnson (46:00.905)
Well, what comes around goes around. Congratulations on a great career so far that's still going. Treating people right, doing the right thing, not having an ego. I mean, that translates everywhere. So thank you so much for the stories. Thank you for being here. It's been a pleasure having you. And hey, we'd love to have you on again. There's a whole list of more questions that we'd like to ask next time around. So.

Jasper (46:22.894)
yeah, yeah.

Terry Bradway (46:23.009)
Okay.

Well, Jasper, I'll tell you the thing about Brian. I met Brian through the Winstons, okay? And he was in Kansas City for a year there and he was over our house and he was sitting in the basement with my kids and our dog. And he was so nice to everybody, a better person than a player. And I'm thrilled to be on with you, to be honest with you.

Jasper (46:48.782)
Awesome, I love it. Everyone's too kind, I love it.

Brian Johnson (46:50.601)
I love it. Thank you, Derek. Appreciate it.

Terry Bradway (46:52.225)
And Jasper, I got your background because I did my homework. I know you do the Wikipedia page. I think mine's about 98 % accurate. Brian's is probably 100 % accurate. But you've done great in your young career. And keep going. And I'm going to watch the documentaries. I'm going to watch.

Jasper (47:09.23)
Awesome, yeah, I'll send them to you. Thanks guys.

Brian Johnson (47:10.441)
They're good, I've seen them both. They're good, they're good, they're excellent. Thank you, Terry, great to have you. We'll see you all next time.

Terry Bradway (47:13.825)
Good luck.

Alright guys, thank you.

Terry Bradway (47:22.657)
We're good?

Brian Johnson (47:23.785)
Chad, we were excellent without you. We didn't need you, because you're off hanging out in the beaches and all over the world. So whatever.

Jasper (47:23.886)
Yeah.

Terry Bradway (47:26.433)
Hahaha!

Jasper (47:26.542)
We don't need you anymore, Chad. Bye. Yeah. Yeah. Bye.