Joe Theismann Talks NFL Top Storylines, Andre the Giant, More

Joe Theismann has met some enormous human beings in his life. He played racquetball against Wilt Chamberlain. He shared a frame with Andre the Giant. And when he sat down with guest host Seth Rollins, the Super Bowl champion and former NFL MVP made clear that one of those experiences still leaves him in awe.

The photo tells the story. Andre the Giant cradling Theismann, a full-grown man, like a child. Theismann explained how it happened. George Allen, his coach in Washington, wanted to keep the franchise in the news during the dead months between January and March, so he cooked up a plan to sign Andre to block extra points and field goals. The idea was simple: put the biggest man alive in the middle and let him swat kicks out of the sky.

"I've never seen a human being that big in my life. Never," Theismann said. He listed the giants he had known, Shaq, Kareem, Wilt, and put Andre above all of them. When Andre picked him up, Theismann said, he did it with the ease of someone lifting a baby. To Theismann, Hulk Hogan getting Andre off the ground remains one of the greatest feats he has ever seen.

The Wilt Chamberlain detail almost slipped by. Theismann used to play racquetball with him in California, and Chamberlain treated the court like a fortress. "You couldn't hit it around him. You couldn't hit it over him," Theismann said. The best available strategy was to hit it right at him and hope he did not fire it back.

Rollins steered the conversation toward football, and Theismann lit up. A self-described competition junkie, he never took the summer off as a player. He would head to the park three days a week to throw, run routes, or start a touch football game, because he believed no one keeps an edge by disappearing for two months.

That work ethic shapes his biggest gripe with the modern game: too few preseason snaps. Theismann played six exhibition games. Now the league is down to three and heading, he suspects, toward two. His concern is evaluation. "How do you evaluate somebody in a pair of shorts?" he asked. Starters barely play, so the opening weeks of the regular season become glorified preseason. He pointed to Cleveland's crowded quarterback room as a case study in impossible math.

Looking ahead to the season, Theismann rattled off storylines. He praised Caleb Williams in Chicago and credited the coaching structure Ben brought there for the quarterback's growth. He flagged Kyler Murray landing in Minnesota as one of the most intriguing situations in the league, and he noted a third of the NFL now has new head coaches. On the Rams, with Myles Garrett joining a defense that already terrorized quarterbacks, Theismann called them tough to beat. And he offered a scouting take on Aaron Rodgers that few would argue with, calling him the greatest pure passer the game has seen.

Theismann closed by pitching the American Century Championship at Lake Tahoe, a celebrity golf event that has raised over eight million dollars for charities in the area and donates through American Century to medical research. Steph Curry, Charles Barkley, and a long list of stars will play. He also could not resist a shot at Rich, who finished second to last last year and, according to Theismann, performed "New York, New York" at karaoke night.