SCOTT SIMON, HOST:
I look forward all week to saying, and now it's time for sports.
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SIMON: Bill Belichick heads back to school. Juan Soto heads across town. Howard Bryant of Meadowlark Media joins us now. Howard, thanks so much for being with us.
HOWARD BRYANT: Good morning, Scott. You've got such a good sports voice. You should be a broadcaster.
SIMON: Nah, nah, there's no future in that...
BRYANT: (Laughter).
SIMON: ...As we both know. In any event, Bill Belichick - maybe the greatest coach in NFL history - is now a college coach - UNC, Tar Heels. I guess he's going to get $10 million, but there is a mixed bag in history of pro coaches who take over college programs, isn't there?
BRYANT: This is a really interesting call right here. Number one, you've got Bill Belichick going to a basketball school. The University of North Carolina is not known for its football...
SIMON: Yeah.
BRYANT: ...Even though he did - although, the greatest - maybe the greatest player of all time, Lawrence Taylor, did go there. But still, the bottom line is it was a very interesting call. But you look at it - Belichick's 72 years old, and he wants back in. I think this is what he knows. Bill Belichick is a football genius. This is the thing that he has done his whole life. And I think leaving New England the way he left, I think everybody assumed that there was going to be an NFL coaching job out there immediately - there wasn't. And I think that this was as much as - as good as he is on TV and as revered as he is in terms of his football knowledge, clearly he wants to be back in there. And then there's something else here, Scott, too, which - I know, once again, you don't have to qualify when you're Bill Belichick, and, you know, you've got six Super Bowls. But he's coached 11 seasons without Tom Brady - before Brady, after Brady and the one season...
SIMON: Wow.
BRYANT: ...And then in the one season where Brady was injured and missed the entire season outside of one play against Kansas City. He's had 8 losing seasons of those 11. And so I wonder if there's a piece of him that also wants to try this and to say, hey, you know, I've got a second act or a third act - however many acts you want to say Belichick has. But yes, but there's also a comp. If we go back and look at Bill Walsh, the great 49ers head coach, he went back to college, coached at Stanford and had a great first year, and then was 17 and 17 overall. So can you go home again? Do you have a second act? It'll be all very interesting to see what he does. And also in the new NIL world, it'll be...
SIMON: Right.
BRYANT: ...Interesting to also see how Bill Belichick deals with the fact that college players may have more power than some of the pro players that he controlled for all those years.
SIMON: To baseball - Juan Soto signed a 15-year deal worth at least $765 million with not the New York Yankees, not the Los Angeles Dodgers, but the New York Mets, who undoubtedly would have met it. What do you think - why do you think Juan Soto found the Mets' offer more appealing?
BRYANT: Do you think he's going to take the subway, a bus?
SIMON: (Laughter).
BRYANT: Is he going to get bus fare...
SIMON: I'm sure to save - yes.
BRYANT: ...Seven-hundred and sixty-five million?
SIMON: Sure. Everybody has to save a little cash these days. Yeah.
BRYANT: Well, I think that Juan Soto was going to go to the highest bidder. The Mets were by far the highest bidder. They were going to be the highest bidder. They'd been talking about Juan Soto going to the Mets even when he was still with the Yankees during the season. Everyone knew this was going to happen and just didn't know what the dollar amount was going to be and if the Yankees were still going to be the Yankees and top all offers. But I think the one thing that does come out of this as well from a Yankee standpoint is that, you know, George Steinbrenner has been dead since 2010, and this is not the same organization. They're not the spend-all George - King George, of the - you know, of the 1980s, or even the 1990s, 2000s. It's a different organization. The family business is still baseball, but they're more conservative, even though they did offer 760 million. But Juan Soto went to the highest bidder. I think he wanted to be in the National League as well. And I think that you look at in 2002, Scott Simon, the Boston Red Sox sold for 700 million, and now individual players are getting that much.
SIMON: Oh, my word. Howard Bryant of Meadowlark Media. Thanks so much, Howard. Talk to you soon, my friend.
BRYANT: My pleasure, Scott. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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