PMS 2.0 1308 - NCAA Conference Tournaments in Full Swing, Ian Rapoport, Shams Charania, & AJ Hawk

Speaker 1 Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode, the Thunderdome. On this Feel Good Friday, March 14th, 2025, this program starts now.

Speaker 1 Fours are fantastic and obviously we're incredibly lucky that we get to talk about them every single day. On this Feel Good Friday, our job is to do one thing.

Speaker 1 That is to thrust you into a weekend of March madness magic that is going to be stupendous. And one weekend, it's going to be better than the others.
You know why? Because it's the next weekend.

Speaker 1 The term Friday is one that is supposed to be celebrated. It's the end of a long work week.
Now, to the service industry, I know it's just getting started for you guys.

Speaker 1 We appreciate everything you're about to do.

Speaker 1 But for all of us, let's understand that today is supposed to be a great day, especially with the weather being like 71 degrees here in the middle of America with two days ahead of us of great sports, including golf that's about to show up.

Speaker 1 Hockey's going to be out there, basketball, college, and in the NBA. And if you look on ESPN News during the day, during the weekend, weekend, you might see something like tire wrestling or dodgeball.

Speaker 1 You might be able to go out and get some fresh air, touch some grass. Let's go and have the greatest weekend of all time.
And today, we're going to try to make sure that is an easier thing to do.

Speaker 1 We have Ian Rappaport joining us in about nine minutes for the weekly wrap-up with Rapsheet and Friends. Us being the Friends, he being Rapsheet.
We cannot wait to chit-chat with him.

Speaker 1 The numbers have been out on how much money has been spent on this first five days. of the free agency period.

Speaker 1 Spoiler, it's over $4.5 billion in contracts. Whoa.
That is so much money.

Speaker 1 Now, a lot of these contracts, the big number is all foogues, you know, because potentially in there is you got to solve a world's mystery.

Speaker 1 What is it? Or you have to do all those things. You have to get to the bottom of it to get any of those money.
But the guaranteed money, too, bigger this year than it's ever been.

Speaker 1 And it's only going up. Congrats to the league.
Congrats to all of the guys that signed these deals and changed their entire lives. And then in the next hour, we'll have Sean Shirania join us.

Speaker 1 We have a couple of requests out to some legendary college ball folks. We'll see if they respond in time before the show ends, and it's going to be a good one.

Speaker 1 The talks and tables here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Con man looking a lot of pizazz today.

Speaker 2 Yeah, thank you. This is a pizzazz jacket.
You know, the color is a little off. It's more so the Grinch, but you know, I had such an amazing morning.
You know, my DoorDash got here.

Speaker 2 It was the wrong DoorDash. Hold on, boys.
It was the right DoorDash. It was Zonas.
I don't know if there's a Zona out there.

Speaker 1 Zona C to be specific.

Speaker 2 Zona C, to be specific. Your order from First Watch is delightful.
Let me just say that.

Speaker 2 The salad, salad i'm not a salad guy but with this salad and the chicken and bacon and the sauce that you have in there delicious and then the potatoes with cheese and and bacon on top of the potatoes i've never even had that mixture of something in a meal and it was delightful i i could not be more happy with the wrong door dash order i don't know if that ever ever happens and also i know zona is probably you know kicking rocks because my door dash order i've learned sucks yeah i i learned today my door dash order from that place blows.

Speaker 2 But hers or his was fantastic.

Speaker 2 And then, of course, you know, just as you kind of get into college basketball, especially these last couple of days, it is getting me pretty pumped up for next week with the March Madness.

Speaker 1 Little zanious.

Speaker 2 A little zanininess. We actually all, I believe, maybe not all.

Speaker 2 Me and you, however, did place a pretty large wager on the Johnnies, the godfather of New York, Rick Petino, kind of making his way all the way to the final.

Speaker 1 I heard they're a tough team. I heard they cheat.

Speaker 1 It says Greenberg said they foul on every possession, but they actually change what the definition of a foul is whenever you're playing them because that's how they play.

Speaker 1 That's what that's Petino balling. He said he got the boys rolling.
I said, you know what? I believe you, Seth, especially for Petino. What a good story.
Yeah, come on.

Speaker 1 Everything that happened in Louisville. Okay, we learned.

Speaker 1 We experienced. We read about.
And we all said, wow, I don't know how that even.

Speaker 1 is possible in a modern day. Hey, Petino's doing, Petino's living his life.
So they goes to Iona. They go to St.
John's, and all of a sudden now they're all the way back in it.

Speaker 1 And yeah, we put a pretty large little hefty wager on them to go. First bet in long time for me.

Speaker 1 And I couldn't be more proud of who, well, Pieson, I'm betting on.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, let's go Johnny's. You know, the Red Storm, they got six dudes.
I've been kind of ingratiated in the Rick Petino-St. John system since about 2016.

Speaker 2 Okay, so it's not like I'm just showing up at the front door, you know, as they're getting good. You know, a roommate of mine in college, he has a season ticket to the Johnnies.

Speaker 2 We've been following him since then. Okay.

Speaker 1 So I don't think Petino was there, though.

Speaker 2 No, but Patino was the head coach of the Boston Celtics. All right, let me tell you about that time.
It was tough, you know,

Speaker 2 very tough, but some people stuck by him.

Speaker 1 And I was one of those people.

Speaker 2 Okay. You know, Louisville, a lot of things did happen.
You know what else happened? What? He won a national championship. So it's not.

Speaker 1 Nobody talks about that.

Speaker 2 It is not like it was all bad. It was terrible, but it wasn't all bad.

Speaker 1 Okay.

Speaker 2 He brought a lot of happiness to that

Speaker 2 town as well over there in Kentucky.

Speaker 1 And yeah, I think with New York, the way the basketball is going in New York, the Knicks players kind of hate their coach asking hey can you stop playing us a little bit ain't that kind of the problem every single year every single year i'm not really a basketball person but i remember when they played the pacers everybody thought well they're not going to be able to just continue to go because they're all either uh dinged up hurt or tired yeah physically exhausted because they were only running like i think they had one man six man was uh basically all it was and uh i think the people in the basketball world were like they're not going to be able at some point this is going to end for them and it did yeah i think it was because they were exhausted so going into this year i think the convoy was maybe the tibs won't do that they're going to change the way they play i guess they're doing it even worse this year than they did last year yeah doing the exact same thing and funny which we like people playing yeah yeah we like people playing but this is a marathon here now there's a lot of games there's a sweet spot and it's uh yeah like opting out people don't love it sure

Speaker 1 running people to death love it if you're not a fan of the team.

Speaker 1 But if you're a fan of the team, you have to think, these guys aren't going to be able to survive the length of this season, especially whenever the only thing that matters is at the very end of 82 games, whenever you go forward.

Speaker 1 But he's got a plan. He knows his boys better than anybody else.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I don't think he does because the guy that actually said, hey, can you stop playing this so much is the guy who played the most consecutive basketball games in the history of the NBA, Mikkel Bridges.

Speaker 2 He is basically the journeyman of all journeymen. He's a Kyle Ripkin with the Kyle Ripkin of the NBA.
Sure.

Speaker 1 I'm not a baseball guy.

Speaker 2 I don't know what Kyle Ripkin did, but it was probably something like play a bunch of games straight. So

Speaker 3 3,000 straight.

Speaker 1 Boom.

Speaker 2 3,000 straight. That is basically the pace that Bridges is on.
And unfortunately, Tibbs.

Speaker 1 Pretty durable. Yeah, he was.
Yeah, he's a hell of a player.

Speaker 2 Unfortunately, Tibbs, though, is running them into the ground, but that's why Patino, he's going to swoop in. Hey, New York City, this is a basketball city.
Hop on the Johnny's train.

Speaker 2 The red storm's coming, baby.

Speaker 1 This is what March is all about. Us finding some school that certainly we paid no attention to all basketball season.

Speaker 1 But now, because there's magic in the air, we're going to watch and we're going to root for them. And I'll tell you what, if they lose, I'll go right to another team.
That's March Madness game.

Speaker 1 Both of these. And West Virginia's in, look out, from what I've been told.
West Virginia is in the tournament. From what I've been told.

Speaker 2 According to Joe Lunardi, they are an 11th seed right now.

Speaker 3 They're trending down, but they're still in.

Speaker 1 Trending down. I don't know what we don't have any more games, so we're not going to be able to stop that train if they take it.

Speaker 3 Well, no, that's what I think they were probably at, like maybe like a nine or a 10 seed. And since they lost in the first round, they've slid down.

Speaker 3 So now, if you look next to their name, they have a little red arrow down, indicating, yeah, they have bumped down a couple spots on the seed line.

Speaker 1 Well, that's right where West Virginia basketball wants to be.

Speaker 1 Right where the hoops want to be. And it's been up and down here.
We had some injuries, obviously, some very key players got injured. But once we get into the tournament, it's going to be hell.

Speaker 1 And everybody knows that it's going to be hell. With that being said, if it's not West Virginia, like on your forehead right there,

Speaker 1 I am pulling for the Johnny. Let's go, Johnny.
Let's go, Johnny. Come on.
And maybe the Bonnie's, too, you know, because Woge is over there GMing. Are they going to be in? They'll be in a tournament.

Speaker 1 They're down by eight right now to VCU.

Speaker 2 I don't think so.

Speaker 3 They got to win the conference.

Speaker 1 They got to win the eight days. Woj ain't making a tournament?

Speaker 3 Nah, I don't think so. He's worried a little bit too much about selling those phones and trying to bring in more NIL money than, you know, making sure that they got a spot in the big dance.

Speaker 1 I did see that. We never got a chance to chat about that.
That was very interesting. Can you certify any of that thing? Or is it just...
I don't know.

Speaker 3 And I think, didn't they come in right away? And they're like, yeah, you can't fucking do that. We're not letting you do that.
I don't think so.

Speaker 3 So that was kind of just the end of that, but he was trying to sell them there.

Speaker 1 But how would the door? He would have to take a photo with said phone at the same exact time that the news is broken so then people know that. Just from watching Pawn Stars.

Speaker 1 This is just from me watching Pawn Stars. Having to legitimize it is always the problem.
That's why they go to all these buddies down the road.

Speaker 1 You know, he got an expert on this, got an expert on Civil War, War, got an expert on World War II, got an expert on maybe cars. Literally, that is kind of the thing.

Speaker 1 Can you legitimize that this is whatever they say it is? And then sometimes, yeah, it's 100% real. You got a $400,000 item right here.
It's going to sit on a shelf, obviously. Got some dings in it.

Speaker 1 Small demographic, niche group of people will buy this. I can give you, guess what? 22 grand.

Speaker 1 That was Pawn Stars.

Speaker 1 That was Pawn Stars football right there. That was literally what it was.
But if it wasn't legitimized, then it was basically like, I'll give you four bucks for this. six jumps.

Speaker 1 This thing is absolutely nothing. Might as well take this to a scrapyard and try to get a few pennies from this thing for being metal.
So I don't know.

Speaker 1 When I saw those one up for sale, I was always wondering, like, how can he legitimize that those are the moments? And maybe just takes them to a museum of sports. Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 1 Yeah, maybe takes them to a museum, maybe a hall of fame of some sort. Basketball Hall of Fame.
That's right. They're a mess.

Speaker 1 And granted, now, maybe Sean should think about retiring to Lucophone. Yeah.
You know, and we'll talk to him in the next hour.

Speaker 1 And maybe he should take a, he should try to figure out how we can make sure that's the case. Basketball is awesome whenever we're forced to watch it.
Sure. You know, the NBA is doing it.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I think the NBA is doing it right now. College will obviously do it over the next few weeks here with everything that's about to pop off.
Conference tournaments happening now.

Speaker 1 March Madness happening here in a matter of weeks. And I think it's going to get going.
I think we're going to become big fans of that. At least act like we are.

Speaker 1 So we hope you all will enjoy the ride with us. We have some money on the St.
John Johnnies, but they won't be the last team we we bet on this particular tournament. They won't have for the Hammer.

Speaker 1 Cowboys AP tone there. Great sweatshirt.
The players also this weekend. Cannot wait to watch some real golf on Sunday and Saturday.

Speaker 4 Yeah, the top 10's looking pretty good right now. Min Wu Lee is your leader, but the other one.

Speaker 1 I saw him grind out a par.

Speaker 4 People love Min Wu.

Speaker 1 He hit one under a tree.

Speaker 1 We shanked the drive. Then he hit one under a tree that like rolled onto the green like a beautiful shot.

Speaker 1 And then he rolls his putty, and it's like, par, like, obviously these golfers are so much better than us, but you you got to have the golf gods on your side a little bit.

Speaker 4 Yeah, you do. But the top 10 right now looks pretty good.
I mean, Rory's in second. Our guy, Akshay, sitting there in five.

Speaker 4 Colin Moore Kawas at T5, Ricky Fowler, Billy Horschel, Scotty Scheffler, Tommy Fleetwood. Those can't lay.
That's your top 10. It's looking pretty good right now.

Speaker 4 So yeah, hopefully Saturday and Sunday, you get to that 17th island green, and there's a lot on the line because like this is basically the start of the golf season for a lot of people is once we get here.

Speaker 4 Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's what I was about to say. This is the first big one, right? Yes.
This is the first one where everybody's at it.

Speaker 4 Yeah. Well, like the Arnie, the Arnie Palmer invitational was last week.
Not everyone is obviously there because it's an invitational, but this one, what were they calling them? Signature events?

Speaker 4 I mean, this is the first signature event, you know, of the season.

Speaker 1 Okay, is and uh, Scotty's still Scotty?

Speaker 4 Scotty's still Scotty.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Scotty wins.

Speaker 2 Well, that's the thing. I just looked at those odds and I was like, plus 650 for Scoot Scheffler.
What the hell is going on?

Speaker 1 I was so confused by that as well. Minwu Lee currently in the lead, so I guess that's why they have him above him.
Rory at plus 160. Okay.

Speaker 1 Is this Rory's year? Is it about to be Rory's year? What? That's awesome. I thought he was freaking out in the practice.

Speaker 1 It doesn't matter. Rory's going to kid brought up the masters drive.
I looked into what AJ was talking about. You remember Masters, I think, on 10.
He had the lead as a young lad. Yep, and he...

Speaker 1 worst shank in the history and it obviously ended up ruining some college golfer was on the t-box at 11 at the players and said hey don't do what you did at the master like right next to him and there wasn't a lot of people so that was the person he won up i think he grabbed his phone and just walked away with it correct yeah and then that guy got removed from the premise i don't know if he got his phone back i don't know what all happened with the phone but yeah rory was in some was in it a little bit and it feels like okay is this gonna be rory's year again good congrats rory that's what the odds makers are saying right

Speaker 4 now i mean he's up he's up uh what is he got five strokes on scotty in second one behind minwu so like if you are normally one of the best golfers in the world at that time and you are in the lead or close to the lead, you're going to be the favorite.

Speaker 1 Okay. Good luck to Rory.

Speaker 5 What if you have a history of choking away that lead every single time?

Speaker 1 That's what that college golfer was saying. But the winning.
We can always change that. Remember, he was guy.
Yeah. Then he kind of rattled a little bit.
He can come back to being a guy for sure.

Speaker 6 Yeah, 100%. He will give us a big number, though, at some point.
It'll probably be tomorrow and then Sunday.

Speaker 1 He'll be right back in it. Yeah, and then Scotty is going to be lurking

Speaker 1 the entire time. And then obviously he's going to do what he does.
All right, let's pivot away from golf and from basketball. Let's get back to the NFL.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, it's time for the weekly wrap-up with rap sheet and friends. Us being the friends, he being Rap Sheet.
Ladies and gentlemen, it's Ian Wrap-Up Oy. Wow, Rapsheet.
Wow, man.

Speaker 1 That felt good to say. That's the first time saying that in a few years.
Let's wrap up the week that was with our friend Rapheet. Yeah, it did.

Speaker 1 We just saw a post from Adam Schefter, and I believe we did the math with Spotrack as well. Over 4.8 billion or something in contracts this last week.

Speaker 1 Did you expect it to be this active? And what's the big takeaway in your mind from free agency this week?

Speaker 7 All right. Well, first of all, the money is staggering.

Speaker 7 I didn't do the calculations.

Speaker 7 I would imagine some, well,

Speaker 7 not like exactly my thing. Like when Max has to have me help him with his math homework, I say, ask mama.
Like, it's not exactly my deal. I have someone else do that.

Speaker 1 Fuck an Ivy League. So I don't know if that's what I'm doing.
Yeah, where'd you go? You went to that blue.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Columbia, yeah.

Speaker 7 Yeah, but like the math, I mean, I did take math, but it was like surfaces and knots or something, I think, was my math class.

Speaker 1 How old's math? Which is

Speaker 7 max is 11.

Speaker 1 You can't do 11-year-olds. What is that? Fifth grade, fourth grade? Six times.

Speaker 6 It's sixth grade.

Speaker 7 It's algebra. You think I can do algebra?

Speaker 1 What is algebra? Multiplication. I don't know.
Division and all that.

Speaker 1 Three numbers and

Speaker 3 minus four equals 18 and x equals six or whatever.

Speaker 1 Oh my God.

Speaker 1 That's basic shit. This is basic shit, Ramsheet.

Speaker 7 Very confusing. I'm not even kidding.
Don't tell me.

Speaker 1 I have the key rate there.

Speaker 1 What is X equal? Like they do the entire letter. You haven't done this.

Speaker 7 There's parentheses and there's different like

Speaker 1 letters that you're doing. Yeah, you hit the parentheses first.
What are we even talking about? You hit the parentheses first. I haven't done this since, what, sixth grade?

Speaker 1 This is my first time hearing about this. Are you kidding me?

Speaker 7 I'm going to set... Cool.
I will say that.

Speaker 1 Columbia just left anybody in. Okay,

Speaker 1 I didn't know Columbia just was a pass-fail operation there at Columbia as well?

Speaker 7 I did have to pass fail math class, yes, but not that one. Or is that what you meant?

Speaker 1 That may not be what you meant. No, are all classes passed fail at Columbia? Because I know like at Brown, I had a teammate that was at Brown and everything was passed fail.
And I'm like, what?

Speaker 1 So you just got to pass the class? They do that. Fun fact, they do let anybody in.

Speaker 4 My first football letter was from Columbia.

Speaker 1 I don't think they would have accepted you. Hey, let's go.
That was them just snooping around. Hey, chase that out.

Speaker 1 How many people from Plum High School are getting accepted to Columbia?

Speaker 4 Tony Diggs.

Speaker 1 I don't think so.

Speaker 1 I don't think so. I do wonder if...
You know what? Congrats to you, Tony. Thanks for having me.
Thanks for the Trailblazers and I'm not sure. I'm not quite paired to have it.
We need more.

Speaker 1 We need more out of Plum, not just Tony Diggs getting accepted to Columbia. I expect that is right around the corner.

Speaker 1 4.8 billion plus is what we're being told, even though you're too lazy to figure it out.

Speaker 1 And you would have to echo those numbers, yeah. Yeah, in action.
Yeah, I mean,

Speaker 7 someone did. But here's the thing to me.
It's like, I started this, you know, really started digging in on free agency probably three weeks ago, and everyone kind of said the same thing.

Speaker 7 Ah, quality of players isn't great. It's the worst quality we've seen in a while.

Speaker 7 And I'm sort of like, one, one, I feel like we hear that every year because if you're, you know, there are some very good players who get a free agency, but usually great, great, great players who have zero questions, usually they get locked up by their teams, right?

Speaker 7 So I feel like that's just something teams say. It's like, ah, the quality isn't great.
Like in the end, free agent prices are still free agent prices.

Speaker 7 And once you get there, like you really can cash in. Like the money has been astounding.

Speaker 7 Everyone has overpaid. I think that's the way it is every year.
It's great for business, great for business because it drives up the prices for everyone else. And it's also very fun for us.

Speaker 7 And if you're the guys who get the bag and there's been an unbelievable amount of them, not just like the, you know, Nilton Williams of the world, I mean like,

Speaker 7 you know, mid-players are getting huge numbers. And I'm like, that is great for everyone because everyone gets paid.

Speaker 1 Yeah, it's life-changing shit for a lot of people. And it's been fun to watch.

Speaker 1 Even DK, who got that massive deal with the Pittsburgh Steelers, him talking about, you know, his fiancé and like how happy he was.

Speaker 1 It's like you could see you work your entire life for these moments and you're dreaming of getting this type of paycheck. And obviously a lot of people did.

Speaker 1 Now there's a couple people that are still outstanding in the conversation. Connor has a question for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Ravshi, where do we stand with Cooper Cup? It was reported overnight the Cowboys have kind of made a push and then there are multiple teams still involved.

Speaker 2 Is it still at that 12 plus team mark or has it been whittled down to, you know, five plus teams that are now kind of in a bidding war for Cooper Cup? And what's the number going to be at?

Speaker 7 Yeah, I mean, I would say there were a lot of teams interested. The market was, I thought it would be pretty hot.
It was pretty hot. A lot of teams interested.

Speaker 7 You know, sort of the problem now, not that there's a problem because

Speaker 7 he's going to do really fine.

Speaker 7 But the problem is a lot of teams have spent a lot of their money. So like this is the reason why people like to get free before free agency is because like, let's say he was free a week ago.

Speaker 7 Let's say he was free like Devonta Adams a week ago. Might have been able to get that 20-plus contract? Maybe.
But that's just not the way it worked. And

Speaker 7 he was cut when he was cut just because of some contractual things and whatever. He's going to do fine.
I believe the list is getting narrowed down. I believe we'll have a decision today.

Speaker 7 And I think there's, you know, some really good teams interested.

Speaker 7 You know, the Seahawks have been a team that's been interested. The Saints have been in the mix.
You'd mentioned the Cowboys.

Speaker 7 I don't get the sense they're in it now, but I believe they checked in at some point. There's been several teams.
And I think, you know, Cooper Cup, like, he's 31, right?

Speaker 7 Obviously, the numbers over the last couple of years are the numbers, but he is still a very, very good receiver.

Speaker 7 Seems to be to me more like the final piece for a championship caliber team now, as opposed to like the Key Cog that he was like eight years ago. But I think he's going to do very well.

Speaker 1 Okay, so very well. Is that like 12, 13, 14, 15, 10? What is very well?

Speaker 7 It sounds like probably more than 12.

Speaker 7 Ooh. And I mean, maybe up to 15.
Yeah. I mean,

Speaker 7 I don't actually know the firm numbers, but you say to me, like, what teams have been discussing, I think that's probably in the ballpark. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Interesting, because you did say in your answer that he could have got more than 20 if he was released earlier.

Speaker 1 Obviously, that was during the trade stuff that was allegedly happening behind the scenes for Cooper Cup. Now he's a free agent.
I'm excited to see who signs him.

Speaker 1 And if it is a team for cheaper than that, that has a Super Bowl quality run. Like, if the Chiefs sign Cooper Cup, everybody will go, of course.

Speaker 1 You know, I don't even know how the Chiefs would be able to do it, but everybody would say, Of course, the Kansas City Chiefs do this, or the Buffalo Beatles, or somebody.

Speaker 1 Like, if one of these teams that are at the very top sign him and get a deal done, you're going to see so many other people go, Well, why couldn't we do it?

Speaker 1 And then the question would be, Can Cooper Cup stay healthy? And if he can, he's a dog. Pull for you, Cup, pull for you, Coop, stay cooper.

Speaker 1 All right, let's talk about some other outstanding stories happening, especially one that has you insiders a little bit

Speaker 1 perturbed, we'll say. This is AP Tones, question for you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, he's referencing Aaron Rodgers. He does feel like he has you guys a little perturbed because you're just sitting there and you have to wait to see what Aaron's going to do.

Speaker 4 There are reports that Aaron's team said that a decision is coming soon. I guess it's potentially his team told the Steelers and Giants that or whatever it is.

Speaker 4 What do you guys think you know or think you're hearing? What's the latest you know on Aaron Rodgers?

Speaker 7 All right, so I'm not perturbed.

Speaker 7 I never, you know, I don't mind talking about Aaron Rodgers. I've done it for the last like five years, forever.
Just like if someone's like, would you talk about the Cowboys?

Speaker 7 I'm like, of course I would talk about the Cowboys. Like, these people keep us in business.
Like, I am good with Aaron Rodgers. I also, like,

Speaker 7 you know, would I like everything wrapped up in a nice little bow? Someone sends me the scoop. I tweet it, and that's the end.
Like, that would be the ideal situation for me.

Speaker 7 Like, let's try to make that happen.

Speaker 7 Otherwise, though.

Speaker 1 Let's try to make that happen. Okay.
That should still be. I mean, I'm just saying.

Speaker 1 If we get that to happen, that that would be no really cool

Speaker 1 if he's what like aaron rogers a friend of the program if he's watching this now okay he might be like you know what i'm gonna send it to him and then that would really be great for me okay so you're openly campaigning for the story so you're not perturbed but you certainly are eager you know and that's the yeah you're not the only one though all of pittsburgh is seemingly getting eager as well and it's like aaron has never played for the steelers there's no clue if aaron wants to play like granted we all assume aaron's gonna play again i think everybody's assuming are us included but that's not i don't think that's been officialized though i don't think anything's been talked about like you know i wanted to say something about that because you said that to me a couple days ago you're like well are you saying he's playing and i was kind of like yeah yeah yeah but like

Speaker 7 i am also kind of not 100 sure right like if he i think these are some decent pretty good options um i could make a case for the giants i can make a case for the steelers um you know i know we've talked about that he likes minnesota if that i don't know about that one but if he if that ends up being the one, I could certainly make that case.

Speaker 7 But if he doesn't like them, if he's not 100% committed, then he should definitely not do it. And so, like, to me, retirement should still be a consideration.

Speaker 7 I just, I don't know that anything has been ruled out now. And so, to me, you asked me, like, what's the latest?

Speaker 7 Those are great differences. Why did you pick those expressions for each of those teams?

Speaker 1 Yeah, that was D-bone. I mean, this is a D-bone picture here.
That's a bloody groove. You can kind of tell.
You can kind of tell that D-bone's a part of it.

Speaker 1 It gets the story done, but it has its shit in it.

Speaker 1 That's what you do when you deal with an artist. And it's kind of what you got to do.
Very good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, D-Bone's a real deal over there. He's got ideas.
A lot of them. And we appreciate it.

Speaker 1 We do like that. We like that he hops right in that batter's box.
You know, you can tell him the exact pitch that's coming. And he goes, no, I don't think so.
And then

Speaker 1 he'll take a big hack at it. And it's like, okay.

Speaker 1 And then he'll get right back in here. And that's a D-bone.
Hey, D-bone.

Speaker 1 Love you, Deepot.

Speaker 1 Love you, Debot. And the entire graphics department is really,

Speaker 1 I mean, it's gone out of the way. But you're right.
Interesting photos.

Speaker 1 But with that being said, I think he's doing that because everybody in here that is belonging to the Pittsburgh Steelers are like, let's go.

Speaker 1 Let's just get you the Steelers and let's get this thing rolling. I think that's what Pittsburgh's feeling too.

Speaker 1 You know, Pittsburgh's like, hey, you have an opportunity to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers.

Speaker 1 This isn't like

Speaker 1 begging Aaron Rodgers to come play for the Steelers. Steelers fans are like, you get to to play for the Pittsburgh Steelers as opposed to it.
And it's interesting how all of a sudden, a probably,

Speaker 1 I mean, massive decision that Aaron Rodgers has either been putting off for a few years or has been waiting to make. He's a free agent for the first time ever.

Speaker 1 So like, there's so much that he's potentially contemplating. And if he wants to retire, Mount Rushmore player, Hall of Famer, richest guy to ever play in the NFL.

Speaker 1 So it's like, there's a lot of shit that's probably bouncing around in a guy who is a deep thinker's brain.

Speaker 7 Bro, those wires? I thought it was AirPods. Are those not AirPods?

Speaker 1 He would never use AirPods, bro. You think he's going to let these Bluetooth waves get to his brain? You're out of your fucking mind, dude.
Come on.

Speaker 1 What do you know? You know nothing. You haven't covered him anymore.

Speaker 6 You got to know that he was not an AirPod guy.

Speaker 1 People knew this? Oh, yeah. Dude.
Oh, yeah, dude.

Speaker 1 Come on, man. No one has told me this.

Speaker 1 You should just let your eyes should have told you this. That's terrible.
Your eyes should have told you this.

Speaker 1 Anytime you guys are talking about whatever he's doing or however he's walking, you just look, just look at it. Yeah,

Speaker 1 and it'll be. That's on me.
That's on me. Plugged in.
That's the issue with you journalists. Okay, you guys think you have it all figured out.

Speaker 1 Just look.

Speaker 1 Just look. It's right there.
But he has openly talked about on this show how, yeah, I'm not letting those Bluetooth waves kind of go.

Speaker 3 5G waves.

Speaker 1 Yeah, no way, my dude. You guys are just calling for this to go there? And also, oh, reliable.
I know it's going to work. You know, and he's right.
It does work. A little bit annoying, you know? Sure.

Speaker 1 No doubt. Certainly a lot.
The AirPods have evolved the convenience of it all. They get caught.
Lose them a lot, though. I lose

Speaker 7 noise canceling, though.

Speaker 6 Noise canceling AirPods are pretty great.

Speaker 1 I agree. Very good.
Especially on planes. I lose them a lot, though.
Do you lose them? That little thing's tough to keep.

Speaker 7 No, I have a ridiculous blue case.

Speaker 1 That's cool, man.

Speaker 2 Oh, nice, dude. Nice.

Speaker 1 Is that Prime? Is that a Prime one? That's cute. They pay you for that?

Speaker 7 They did not. They did send it it to me in the mail, though, along with a Halloween costume one year, so which I was.

Speaker 1 You dressed up like a Prime bottle?

Speaker 7 Yeah, it was awful because I was all blown up. I looked like the Kool-Aid guy, and then you can't actually walk because

Speaker 7 there's air on your feet, so you're wobbling around. It was ridiculous.

Speaker 1 I think it was Speed and Speed was in a bottle, right? In a Prime bottle. I don't think it was that bottle, though.

Speaker 7 So annoying.

Speaker 2 He could move.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but so claiming speed, yeah. Yeah.
But he got RKO'd, I think. Yes.
On the 10th bottom. Yeah, that's cool.

Speaker 9 Great pull right there.

Speaker 1 Good work, Zeek.

Speaker 2 When you guys go trick-or-treating, like noon?

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 7 No, you go at like

Speaker 1 30 or 5. That's booze in your left hand.
What?

Speaker 1 Fuck rap.

Speaker 1 All right, rap.

Speaker 1 All right, rap. Next question.
Booze bag. Ty has a question for you.

Speaker 3 Rap Sheet, I know you said that the Giants are still potentially an option for Rodgers, but it seems like that's kind of been eliminated, although they are one of the teams that's basically like begging him to come there.

Speaker 3 We heard Kirk Cousins said he does want to be a starter starter next year, but Atlanta might not get rid of him.

Speaker 3 With the Giants situation and Dable and Shane absolutely needing to win next year, what are the odds that they go after a guy like Cousins if they don't get Rodgers?

Speaker 3 Or are they just going to roll the dice with a rookie quarterback and hope that they win, you know, nine games to save their jobs next year?

Speaker 7 Well, first of all, I don't believe the Giants have been ruled out.

Speaker 7 Like, I've heard different rumors over the course of the week, but I haven't heard enough to say like the Giants are not getting them.

Speaker 7 To me, at least to me, it feels like they're in the mix. They had Joe Flacco visit

Speaker 7 yesterday, recently. So my sense is if it's not Rodgers,

Speaker 7 Flacco would be a strong possibility. And then maybe they do draft one.
They have number two. If the, or they have number three, I should say.
So the Browns visited with Russell Wilson yesterday.

Speaker 7 If the Browns decide to sign Russell Wilson, that would give them two veterans. That would make me think that maybe they don't draft a quarterback.
They could, but make me think maybe they don't.

Speaker 7 And maybe the next quarterback goes to the Giants. So maybe it's a veteran like Flacco, and then they draft.
So there are still options. I mean, the Giants draft three.

Speaker 7 Like, they can get a top quarterback.

Speaker 7 I just think Aaron Rodgers would make it easier for them.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's move to the draft here.

Speaker 1 Titans going to take quarterback. Browns are going to take quarterback.
Giants going to take quarterback. What are your, like, Browns with Russell Wilson? How real is that?

Speaker 1 Even if they sign Russell Wilson, are they going to draft a QB? Because it's been like reported that the Browns are definitely taking a quarterback.

Speaker 1 Giants, if they end up without Aaron Rodgers, maybe they sign Flacco. Does it matter? Are they still drafting a quarterback there?

Speaker 1 What are your kind of liens on what the draft will be for these quarterbacks? And does it matter what the veteran signings are?

Speaker 7 Well, I think, let's start with the Titans. I think it does matter because the Titans have not signed a

Speaker 7 or even looked. Right.

Speaker 7 So to me, like that at least means the Titans are, you can always trade for someone, but at least means the Titans are pretty firmly like considering maybe it's Cam Ward at number one.

Speaker 7 I think if the Browns do sign another veteran quarterback, that would make me think that they may not draft one, which would then mean maybe they're the team that trades out, right?

Speaker 7 Because if you're not taking one, maybe you trade out. Maybe you go to three, maybe you go to six,

Speaker 9 seven,

Speaker 7 maybe you go to nine, right? I mean, these are all possibilities now if the Browns are not taking a rookie quarterback and are open for business. I do think the Giants will probably take one.

Speaker 7 What I don't know is, like, it does seem that Cam Ward, as of right now, is probably,

Speaker 7 you know, the most likely number one, but I don't know where that number two slots in. I know teams are sort of all over the map,

Speaker 7 but I don't know where he slots in. All right.

Speaker 1 We appreciate your rap. We know you're going to do some TV here in about 30 seconds.
Thank you for taking time to do the weekly wrap-up with Rap Sheet and friends.

Speaker 1 Us being the friends, he being Rap Sheet, you're the man.

Speaker 7 You're the man. Thank you, guys.

Speaker 1 Stop boozing while you're walking around with the kids.

Speaker 2 Be a father once.

Speaker 7 Coffee, I was very tired from a long day of texting with people.

Speaker 1 Yeah, got it. Ian Rapids.

Speaker 7 Coffee is the only thing that goes in here. Where is it?

Speaker 9 See?

Speaker 1 It was a solo coffee. Yeah, okay.
Your coffee is the Irish coffee, though. We understand that.
Ladies and gentlemen, Ian Rapping. Guarantee.
Oh, he's got a good buzz go here. My coffee.

Speaker 1 Just go a little Bailey's.

Speaker 2 Stay loose. Stay loose.

Speaker 1 You put cream in your coffee, of course. Go, Bailey's? Sir, 6 a.m.

Speaker 1 I know. Right? That's what I'm saying.
Dolph.

Speaker 1 Ah, wraps the dog, dude. He's an absolute maniac.
Yeah, he is. Cam Ward, number one, seemingly the thing.
Yeah, to the Titans.

Speaker 1 Remember, that was like the big conversation whenever GM down there named

Speaker 1 Borganzi?

Speaker 1 Mike Borganzi. GM.
Yeah. But the

Speaker 1 president of Chad Spiker. Brinker.
Brinker. There it is.
Chad Brinker. Sorry, Mr.
Brinker. And Mr.
Spiker back in West Virginia.

Speaker 1 That is 100% on me.

Speaker 1 You don't pass on a generational player or a once-in-a generation player is what he said, basically. And that led off for everybody going, oh, Abdul Carter is a once-in-a-generation player.

Speaker 1 Travis Hunter, actually, once-in-a-generation type player, especially in college, being able to play the amount of plays and both sides of the ball that he had.

Speaker 1 And then everybody was like, well, this quarterback class, they doesn't really have a once-in-a-generation guy.

Speaker 1 And then you listen to Orlovsky talk after watching the film Cam Ward, and he's like, Cam Ward's a guy. And then you start hearing everybody talking.
They're like, Cam Ward, Cam Ward's a guy.

Speaker 1 The more people talk to Cam Ward, he's a leader. Obviously, Crystal Ball said that coming out of Miami.
Dan Orlovsky broke down the fact that over the middle, he's confident throwing the ball.

Speaker 1 So, a lot of these young quarterbacks, scared to death, go in here. You know, a lot of traffic in here.
Go on the outside, you know, there's only one person, hopefully. I can throw it out there.

Speaker 1 If I miss, it's not a pick, and I can just kind of throw it up and let my wide receiver do their thing.

Speaker 1 The timing routes across the middle, where if you miss by a foot, that thing's getting taken cribbed, either by a safety or a linebacker.

Speaker 1 Have to have enough touch to get it over somebody and then get it in between the linebacker and the safety. So that's a very difficult throw.

Speaker 1 The ones in the middle, let alone with your eyes not being able to see because you got six foot six offensive lineman standing in front of you.

Speaker 1 So the middle of the field is sometimes people's biggest weakness. Now, there's some quarterbacks that are great in the middle of the field.

Speaker 1 Brock Purdy has been eating in the middle of the field since he got in there, which is why their offense and Debo was able to do the slant God type of shit.

Speaker 1 But there's some quarterbacks that do not do well in the middle. Dan said that Cam Ward over the middle is very good and the ball comes out very strong.
It's on time. It's in the right spot.

Speaker 1 He obviously has enough arm for the deep ball and the outside, the touch and the finesse. It's like Cam Ward might be the guy.

Speaker 1 And maybe it's because of the entire class not being great that he isn't being talked about as much. And maybe it's because Miami didn't go on a run.

Speaker 1 You know, they lose to Syracuse last year, last week of the season, kind of derail everything after the magic was behind him.

Speaker 1 But every time you hear anybody talk about this draft, it's like Cam Ward's going number one. So congrats to him.
You know, I earned it, buddy.

Speaker 1 Incarnate word

Speaker 1 to Washington State, to Miami, and now number one, probably overall. Good for him.

Speaker 4 I think a lot of it has to do with like when you, when you get these big hype guys, it's guys that have been.

Speaker 4 not known for years, but have been high draft picks for years. Like Cam went to Miami because I believe he put his name into the draft last year, but he didn't get the grade that he liked coming back.

Speaker 4 So he's like, screw it. I'll go to Miami, make some NIL.
And then he has this unbelievable year down in Miami. So now I think it's like scouts, coaches, GMs, they're getting into this Miami tape.

Speaker 4 And now they're talking to people. And now they're like, oh, like he should have probably been up our boards a lot earlier than he just this year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I love, and I mention it a lot. I love the way him and Shador bicker.
Like, I really, I enjoy that. The shit talk.
Yeah, I enjoy it a lot. Now, Miami has a new quarterback.

Speaker 2 He's going through a lot right now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, alleged. We're not getting into it.
A lot of this. We are not getting into this.

Speaker 1 We are not getting into it.

Speaker 1 Because people. A lot of what?

Speaker 1 People that are not on the internet are going to automatically get mad of us for talking about this, but this is a massive story.

Speaker 3 He got a couple cars stolen, too. It's not just him.

Speaker 1 Kenja overnight. Yep.
That's what we were talking about. Hers were found.
His were not. Exactly.
That's a whole nother story. Right.
I mean, there's a lot going on since Carson has got to Miami.

Speaker 1 A lot has happened. He's gotten paid a lot of money, too.
Hopefully, Crystal Ball and the boys are able to bring it back. Pivoting away from football, college football at least.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about college basketball. You know? Hell yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about the time of the year that we are in right now let's talk about the special stuff that happens during these couple weeks that we don't really appreciate or see all year it's time for some march madness magic

Speaker 1 oh

Speaker 1 champion was insane

Speaker 1 champion was awesome yeah holy shit yeah i think we kind of forget that was seeds bro yeah it was

Speaker 1 this this particular video is not in march but it was madness and it was magic. And we have some March Madness magic.
Let's start in high school, shall we? Norris High School, to be exact.

Speaker 1 Barrett Bosinger.

Speaker 1 After just getting the ball thrown to him, pretty much. Boom.
Let me have that. Thank you.

Speaker 1 49-49. Semifinal.
Nebraska State Tourney. Bucket from the other side of the court.
Obviously, the boys are excited.

Speaker 1 Being on the bottom of that pile has to suck, but it is March Madness magic in the high school. Now let's go to some college stuff, shall we? Louisville, Stanford, ACC, 73-73.

Speaker 1 Buzzer beater by Chucky Hepburn

Speaker 1 from the elbow.

Speaker 1 That's the quarterfinal of the ACC tournament. The cards advance on a last-second mid-range jumper from old Chucky Hepburn.
Get it? Find it? Drop it. Let's move along.

Speaker 1 Let's have a night down in Louisville at 4th Street Live, I believe is what they call it. Now, let's go to the Mideastern Conference tournament.
NC Central gets a massive win over Delaware State.

Speaker 1 Isaac Parson, buzzer beater.

Speaker 1 The boys are moving on. What a win for NC Central.
North Carolina Central. Get the baseline.
Swoop-de-woo. Whoop-de-woo.
Get the bucket. That's what we're talking about.
Isaac Parson.

Speaker 1 Let's go to the SEC, shall we? Ole Miss with a coach that just wins ball games. Wins with

Speaker 1 Sean Padoula Bucket. What a shot by Sean Padula.
They didn't even think that that guy was going to make that shot from Arkansas. Now, Ole Miss and coach.

Speaker 1 Beard moves along down there in the great state of Mississippi. SEC tournament in Nashville.
Hopefully everybody can handle Broadway. There's been a lot of celebrating down there for good reason.

Speaker 1 Let's stay in in the SEC tournament. Kentucky, Oklahoma.

Speaker 1 Otega Owe, who was at Oklahoma last year, gets the baseline and the layup to get a massive win in the second round of the SEC tournament. That's just in the last two days.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 High school thing two days ago. That shit yesterday.
This is all just from yesterday. Buzzer beaters, magic old basketball taking place, and huge wins and storylines already developing.

Speaker 1 Congrats to college hoops.

Speaker 1 It's only going to get better, too.

Speaker 2 Like, some of the games yesterday, obviously, Iowa, you know, they did go down, but they put up 94 points.

Speaker 1 You know, like the entire thing. It's just incredible.
Yeah, I think college ball is about to be magical this morning, Madness.

Speaker 3 Well, we talk about like, you know, Duke and Auburn, and, you know, Seth Greenberg said yesterday, Florida, too.

Speaker 3 But in terms of like parody, it really does feel like we could see this could be one of those years where you never know, like, we could get a lot of chalk in the first round, or it could be one of those things where if you're going to bet all the underdogs, like you might stand to actually make a lot of money.

Speaker 1 I don't think outside of maybe two to three teams there's anyone who's really like head and shoulders better than every everyone else like we could see a lot of upsets well just like what happened in um football you know nil can make some teams right especially in basketball yeah if you invest some pieces you know some money you can change your entire program change your entire franchise and greg senkey put out a tweet uh yesterday about some graphs about how many sec teams have made to tournament it was like two four I think six was the most that they've ever had.

Speaker 1 And then once COVID hits, it like kind of changes. Now they're going to have eight probably in this year, and then they're probably only going to grow up.

Speaker 1 And then all the responses to him are like, you guys are putting money into it. He's like, Yeah.
That's what everybody's doing.

Speaker 1 SEC is investing in basketball. I think a lot of schools are, though, especially in the NIO.
You get two, three pieces. They get hot during March Madness.
You can go on a real run here.

Speaker 1 It should be electrified.

Speaker 2 Yeah, last year we did the Bet Every Underdog money line just blindly. And I believe after the first entire weekend, you were up money.

Speaker 2 But wasn't it also last year where the Big Ten had a bunch of teams and then they all shit the bed?

Speaker 1 Like you talk about how the Big Ten is the best conference.

Speaker 2 No, but that's the SEC this year. Like we're talking about how the SEC is the best conference, but then when it gets to March, they might all shit the best conference.
We'll see.

Speaker 2 Because it's madness, baby. This is March.

Speaker 1 It's magic, too. Yeah, it's incredible.
It is March madness, magic. How'd I do last night in the Big Ten turning?

Speaker 2 Well,

Speaker 3 they're out one of their best player, probably their second best player. He got hurt for the season, had to have season-ending surgery a couple of weeks ago.

Speaker 3 So, you know, hey, they gave him everything they got. You know, Peyton Sanford, who is one of the greatest hawks of all time, homegrown kid, you know, scored 30 last night.

Speaker 3 They just, that's the thing with Iowa, is they scored the second most points in Big Ten play this year on believable offense. They can't guard anybody.
They don't play any defense.

Speaker 3 So they scored 94 points, but they gave up 106. And you're not going to win a whole lot of basketball games, especially college basketball games, giving up 106 points.

Speaker 1 That's a lot. Illinois gets a massive win.
Yeah. I mean, that is

Speaker 1 a team that Greenberg told us at the beginning of the season had a bunch of dudes. Dudes got hurt.
Dudes got sick. Now they're all getting healthy.
Still got the dudes.

Speaker 3 Big physical. They out-rebounded Iowa by about 30.
So, you know, again, tough when you're getting, you know, just chewed up on the glass to be competitive.

Speaker 1 I guess Zito just told me Iowa's coach got ejected. You guys get a little fired up last time?

Speaker 3 He did.

Speaker 3 Fran's fiery. He's a fiery son of a bitch.
He always has been. And then there's a lot of discourse going around that he's been at Iowa for like 15 years.

Speaker 3 They think he might, that might have been his last game. So has he ever won?

Speaker 3 Well, national championship?

Speaker 1 Just.

Speaker 2 He's won a couple Big Ten tournaments, yeah.

Speaker 1 Has he? Yeah.

Speaker 1 How are they doing the March Madness thing?

Speaker 3 Pretty good? No, they typically choke in March, you know, just because that's

Speaker 1 kind of Iowa football and basketball just

Speaker 1 do they mirror each other or I don't think so.

Speaker 3 I don't think so. I mean, I think

Speaker 3 a lot of places would kill to have Iowa success for being as small of a state it is.

Speaker 1 In basketball and in football.

Speaker 3 Yeah, for sure. I mean, you know, like, yeah, are they going to compete for national championships?

Speaker 3 Probably not, but every once in a while, you know, every 10 years, like, you'll have a team that, you know, I mean, they were a two-seed a couple years ago, and again, they got beat by Oregon in the second round.

Speaker 3 But, like, they're, you know, they're consistently good, but it is what it is. You know, I mean, there's no, there's no pro team, so that's why, you know, people live and die with them.

Speaker 3 Like, I didn't really watch much of them this year because they weren't great, but like, you know, I was hanging on for every second last night and would have loved to see them win.

Speaker 1 Frannon Kirk just kind of running the sports over there and then lisa bluder she moves along her assistant becomes the head coach how's the iowa women's team uh pretty solid again like i think after you lose caitlin clark it's like a different game yeah for sure but they got uh she's like the best player in the w nba yeah exactly i know uh vegas asia

Speaker 1 wilson

Speaker 1 uh asia or

Speaker 1 asia i don't know i think it's asia asia she's a great player i'm not saying she's not a great player she has a completely different skill set than caitlin obviously she's taller and everything like that.

Speaker 1 But in, what, four years, five years, Caitlin's going to be considered the best in the WNBA as well.

Speaker 3 And people are already talking about what she did this offseason, like putting on muscle and stuff so that she can actually handle how it's a little more physical.

Speaker 1 So it might be harder to win whenever you lose that particular player. For sure.

Speaker 3 But they're going to make the tournament. They got a transfer from Villanova, who's like a great scorer.

Speaker 3 And her effect already, though, like they're getting girls, like top five girls in the nation from like California who are like, you know, wanting to come play at Iowa, which would have never happened before before her.

Speaker 1 All right, we'll obviously follow along with all the basketball. Oh, yeah.
Especially the Johnnies.

Speaker 2 Yeah, especially the Johnnies. And also, I mean, if we're talking about Iowa and March, Matt Madness, you know, coming up here in a little bit for the wrestling, like, that's what I'm saying.

Speaker 1 They need to do that when March Madness isn't happening. They need to figure out how to slide that thing right before March Madness.

Speaker 1 And maybe it is already, and I just missed a couple of the days, and they probably have to do it. But Matt Madness, the college wrestling thing, worth a watch.

Speaker 2 Should lead into mania.

Speaker 1 Yeah. it literally? Maybe.
Maybe it should lead into mania. I mean, it is electrifying.
They packed that fucker out. It really did.
And it is electric. We're talking full entrances.

Speaker 1 We're talking about real. I mean, it was, I think it was last year.
Was it last year or two years ago?

Speaker 1 Last year, I think, is when you first saw like the last year, I'm watching one of these March Madness games, one of these basketball games, or an entire window of March Madness games, all blowouts, which is the worst case scenario for sure.

Speaker 1 Because it's the only thing on TV and you know nothing about any of these teams. And then they're all blowouts.
It's like, okay, this is kind of a tough.

Speaker 1 Then I saw Matt Madness on and I went over there and clicked it. It was like, holy shit, Penn State's better than everybody.
But also, this is awesome. More people need to watch this.
Go ahead.

Speaker 4 It does run basically lateral to the basketball tournament I just looked. But

Speaker 4 the Midwest Regional, which I believe is, what, the Final Four?

Speaker 4 Elite Eight, is here at Lucas Oil Stadium.

Speaker 1 Okay. But if it's right in the middle of March Madness, it's going to be tough for anybody else to really pay attention.

Speaker 4 28th, 29th, and 30th of March, which I believe is Friday, Saturday, Sundays.

Speaker 1 I know they run concurrently to basketball too. It's a winter sport, yada, yada, yada.
They got to find a way to.

Speaker 2 Even if they just did it early in the week, Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday. Yeah, like that would be perfect because there's no March Madness then.

Speaker 2 And that would be so awesome just to be able to focus on that because it really is like a spectacle. And so few people know how great it is.

Speaker 2 And then once you are, like you were just mentioning, once you turn it on, it's like, holy shit, this is an incredible sport. It's similar to West Virginia's rifle team

Speaker 2 going at it today.

Speaker 1 Come on, national championship today down there in Kentucky. West Virginia's in it.
They put a tweet out and said,

Speaker 1 you know, the stage is shit.

Speaker 1 And just like Tone said whenever we saw the photo, West Virginia wouldn't mind a 30-40 mile-an-hour wins. Sure.

Speaker 1 You know, but the fact they're doing it inside, I guess we just got to kind of make it easier for everybody else. And West Virginia will certainly abide by the rules.

Speaker 1 And yeah, we're talking snipers out here. Oh, yeah.
Okay, we're talking snipers out here. Good luck to everybody.
Let's go to the NHL now, shall we? The NHL is magical for a lot of reasons.

Speaker 1 The sport is

Speaker 1 mesmerizing. They're flying around on blades on ice, like, I don't know, 30, 40, 50 miles, whatever it is.

Speaker 1 You know, with the way we're tracking humans running now, obviously you would just assume that it's quite an advancement of speed whenever they're on ice, especially with how these, they're like figure skate.

Speaker 1 They have the ability of figure skaters while also wearing full pads, dangling a puck with a wooden stick, and then there's a chance at any given moment they could just get absolutely annihilated, just demolished.

Speaker 1 And then they just pick themselves up and do it again. Never any bitching, never any complaining.
The

Speaker 1 skill set required is obviously absurd that not a lot of people have. And we're about to get to playoff time.
And it's the fastest, most electrifying thing that you could watch, the NHL playoffs.

Speaker 1 But the best thing about it is it's culture. They still fight people over there.
They still fight people over there. They still handle business with a, oh, is that right?

Speaker 1 You think you can hit our guy like that? Well, why don't you go ahead and drop the gloves, bud? Why don't you go ahead and do it? And they do it. And it's encouraged by everybody.

Speaker 1 Coaches, players, fans, even refs. One of the biggest dogs in the history of the NHL's name is Tom Wilson.
Okay. He has been a menace in the NHL for a long, long time.
Listen to him.

Speaker 1 And Strawmer, who's not a fighter or a tough guy, have a moment. And then listen to the ref chirp in the middle of this entire thing, in the middle of an actual NHL game.
Hi, guys, Nick Tat.

Speaker 1 Well, Ellen, I'm speeding up ice. How do you guys have toe pick? Bud, I'm hot this year.
Most goal scorers get those balls thrown. Oh, come on.
Come on.

Speaker 1 Tommy, if you want to go center ice, I've been waiting my whole career for one.

Speaker 1 I like to f ⁇ ing see that one. Yeah.

Speaker 1 I'd like to see it right now, Ryan. Hey, you got to fing put one hand behind your back.

Speaker 1 We got a chat.

Speaker 9 Not that stupid.

Speaker 1 That's a hilarious.

Speaker 1 This is a hilarious give and take. And then how about the ref going, oh, I'd fucking love it.

Speaker 1 Boys, I'd love to watch it. Hockey's culture is second to none, I believe, and the toughness is real.

Speaker 1 And the characters in the sport, we don't get to learn about them much because they very rarely do any media.

Speaker 1 Like, I think what Spit and Chicklets is doing is great for the sport and for the league and for everything.

Speaker 1 But the more clips that come out that just showcase what they are and who they are as a sport, I think the better for the sport as a whole.

Speaker 2 Yeah, no doubt about it.

Speaker 2 And like the amount of games, it's one of those sports where it's like, oh, well, there's so many games, kind of like the NBA, where, you know, it starts to matter like right now.

Speaker 2 But some of the things they've done to to make the game better like the the winter classic i feel like has been one of those things in the outdoor games like at the horseshoe things like that are obviously grow the game but it would be great if we could get more like players just talking because it is such a team you know culture you know take care of your own business don't say anything uh type of environment but then when you do get the mic'd ups and when you get the you know clips of behind the scenes about how much these guys care like McDavid last year when you know the Oilers lost game seven there's that highlight of you know him in the the in the locker room like super emotional and everything and seeing stuff like that behind the seasons is awesome even though they hate to actually show everything about it yeah we're great people hockey hates everything about it yeah hockey is just such a did it for the lads you know for the team and yeah we're trying really hard we got to execute and then like the most boring interview

Speaker 1 every time yeah whenever especially the in-between period stuff like i appreciate the commentators and the analysts trying to get stuff there's nothing ever coming no not not not one time you know it's just like the right before kickoff interviews that the NFL was trying to do.

Speaker 1 But like, you know, I think Jameis gave something good. There's been a few like personalities that are have delivered a little bit in that moment.

Speaker 1 In hockey, there's nothing coming out of any of those because they feel like they're a distraction to their team or they're like a me guy.

Speaker 1 And since they're like little tiny kids, literally waking up at 4 a.m., just

Speaker 1 skating the ice or being told, this ain't about you. This is about everybody else.

Speaker 1 So it's, I think that's a detriment to hockey, but also I think people just need to know that the people in hockey are fucking fucking awesome. They are awesome dudes.

Speaker 2 Yeah, every hockey player, the best comparison would be every hockey player is an offensive lineman, and none of them need to say anything.

Speaker 2 And when they do get asked questions, it's almost like an insult that they're getting asked a question about themselves and not the entire unit.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Strawmer there going, I've been waiting on my whole career for one. And I believe, you know, Strawmer's brother plays with Tom Wilson.
And obviously, I believe they played together in the past.

Speaker 1 And nobody that isn't a fighter is signing up to fight Tom Wilson. Just for you that don't know, Tom Wilson, you know,

Speaker 1 I'm a Penguins fan. Was have been Penguins fan for a long time.
I am, I am, I am. I hope they do good.
What was that word? I hope they do good.

Speaker 1 But at the time, I definitely was. And he was a problem.

Speaker 1 But it's not just us. He's a problem fucking everybody he plays against, which is why I think the boys love him on the team.
But I assume he is a hilarious human being.

Speaker 1 After watching that give and take right there, I assume when Tom Wilson is done, he's going to have a podcast or he's going to do shows and the stories are going to be hilariously absurd.

Speaker 1 Nick, is that accurate with Tom Wilson?

Speaker 5 Yeah, he's a guy guy who's built for it. And like, you know, you say this, he's got the face to match it.
He's got that rugged handsomeness if you see pictures of him.

Speaker 1 So like he's definitely built

Speaker 5 for an after-playing media career. And he's a guy who, you know, not to throw this back to the Canada-USA thing, but he didn't make that team Canada.
He probably will next year for the Olympics.

Speaker 1 And you might see a situation where you got the Chucks going against Tom Wilson on the international ice. Well, we'll see how the national anthems are handled.
You know, at that event.

Speaker 1 All of them. Yeah, exactly.
That's because we had a new standard, right? Yeah. Is Russia playing? Well, the Olympic athletes from Russia.
Yeah, that's a lot of them. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Luce.

Speaker 1 OAR in the Olympics in the past. But I think we need to look into every single competitor's

Speaker 1 country's political stuff.

Speaker 1 Because that is now how... national anthems are being judged at sporting events.
Remember? Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 I hope Iraq doesn't have a team.

Speaker 2 Tell you that much.

Speaker 1 I I don't think they're playing hockey. I don't know if Iraq has a

Speaker 1 winter Olympic team, but if they do, I hope we support the athletes, you know, doing their thing, living their dreams. But

Speaker 1 I guess, you know,

Speaker 1 I'm not getting into it.

Speaker 1 I'm not getting into it. Not on a Friday.
Not on a Friday.

Speaker 1 I like to have a good weekend.

Speaker 2 So, reason we need to do a couple segments today because it's Friday.

Speaker 1 I would like to just have a good weekend. It's beautiful outside.
I would just like to be able to sleep and

Speaker 1 not have to feel like I need to

Speaker 1 respond with some context, you know, which has become a very normal thing in this sports talk world for us.

Speaker 1 Not everybody else, it seems like a lot of other people say a lot of things that are kind of much worse. Yeah, well,

Speaker 1 very bad words. Yeah, very.
Yeah. Very.
Holy shit. And it just keeps on.
It's like, okay, all right, yeah, we get it. Feels targeted.

Speaker 1 Nonetheless, Evan Ingram, a former tight end for the Jacksonville Jaguars, he came out and said, I appreciated my time in Jacksonville, but they just let a dog off the leash.

Speaker 1 He was excited to get to somewhere new, and Sean Payton of the Denver Broncos was excited to get a player in his camp that is a joker position that he can do everything with.

Speaker 1 He saw that with Evan Ingram.

Speaker 1 And the only reason why we know that is because Evan Ingram announced his signing to the Denver Broncos as the Joker, you know, hanging out of a police car from a dark night.

Speaker 1 So whenever you think about this Sean Payton-led Denver Broncos, they were much better than anybody could have imagined, okay?

Speaker 1 Much better than anybody could have imagined with the amount of dead cap that they had. Not just Russell Wilson, everything else they had going on.

Speaker 1 With what the Denver Broncos had been over the past few years, just a mess. They got a rookie quarterback in Bo Nix.
He was good at the beginning of the year, got great at the end of the year.

Speaker 1 Sean Payton's culture is seemingly settling in, and now he's got a dog in somebody that he's viewing as a joker, just like he was with Taysom Hill whenever he was down there in New Orleans and the way he operated his offense.

Speaker 1 It's like, what are the Broncos? Are the Broncos going to be real? They're in a tough division. But I think the Broncos are on a

Speaker 1 green arrow up, and Sean Payton only wins. I think that's all I've ever really known him to do.

Speaker 4 Yeah, so obviously everything was a down year last year in Jacksville, but two years ago, two seasons ago, he had 114 catches for the Jaguars, which is just absurd.

Speaker 4 He is a dynamic tight end, but like you pair him with Cortland Sutton, and then in Mims and Vele, they have two really good young wide receivers. They need to probably get a running back.

Speaker 4 But with Sean Payton and Bo Nicks,

Speaker 4 they're only going to go up. They're only going to get better.
So yeah, the Broncos are going to be a problem potentially.

Speaker 1 Let's stay in the the AFC West. The Chiefs have signed Gardner Minshew.
Oh, wow. Congratulations to Gardner Minshew getting a one-year deal with the Kansas City Chiefs.

Speaker 1 We watched Gardner two years ago here in Indianapolis just do it. Okay.
Went to the Pro Bowl inevitably. Now he was like fourth alternate or something like that, fifth alternate, whatever the case.

Speaker 1 He was one play away from leading the Indianapolis Colts to an AFC South championship. That is real.
That is not a makeup at all.

Speaker 1 Gardner Minshew under Shane Steichen's leadership in offense was great for us. He then signs like a $30 million deal with the Raiders.
It does not work out. They are still looking for a quarterback.

Speaker 1 Andy Reid says, let's get you over here. We know you got a big brain.
We know you're a good Moxie guy. We know you're a good energy guy.
Come on over. He's not the only one.

Speaker 1 Zip on the ball Zappi also signed a one-year deal with the Kansas City Chiefs. There's competition brewing for that QB2 spot in Kansas City behind Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 DK Metcalf will be wearing number four for the Pittsburgh Steel. Steelers.
He addressed that in a press conference. You know, hey, GP's been here longer than I have been, obviously.

Speaker 1 He has created a legacy with the number 14. I will wear four.
He looked giddy to be a Pittsburgh Steeler, Tone.

Speaker 4 Dude, it was awesome. He was smiling the whole time.
He was talking positively the whole time. Obviously, he just got engaged two days ago.
So he's in a good mood.

Speaker 4 Hey, $30 million in a good mood. Got number four, looks great, and in a good mood.

Speaker 1 Vibes are high. Yeah,

Speaker 1 that looked like a different DK than I have ever seen. You know, and maybe we don't pay attention enough.
He was happy, jovial, super pumped to be a Pittsburgh Steeler.

Speaker 1 And I think Pittsburgh people were excited for it as well. Sam Darnold spoke to the media.
He chit-chatted about the last two games.

Speaker 1 Now that he's joined the Seattle Seahawks, said he's going to treat it as a learning lesson.

Speaker 1 John Schneider, general manager of the Seattle Seahawks, came out and said, we made an offer, very good offer to Gino, and it felt like that was going to be over.

Speaker 1 So a lot of people talking right now about the decisions being made. And Sean McVay and Andrew Whitworth are moving weight at 6 a.m.
at the village that we just learned about from Andrew Whitworth.

Speaker 1 Have this safety squat bar, squat rack. This is at 6 a.m.
They're doing this. This is Whitworth.
Obviously, he's got probably a Cardillo late belt on, if I had to guess. So many plates.

Speaker 1 Obviously, he said he's staying in shape as if it was still football season, working out every morning at 5 a.m. or 6 a.m.
And the guy's dumper is still a real big.

Speaker 1 You know, whenever you're judging offensive lineman, defensive lineman, you're looking for some explosion. How do you do it? A lot of people say like, well, what's the

Speaker 1 they got a big, yeah. How big is his ass? You got a big ass? Shit, caboose.
Whitworth's ass is obviously gigantic. I literally sent him a text immediately.

Speaker 1 Actually, I called him immediately after seeing this video, and I'm like, yo, I need to be doing whatever you're doing because you still got all the explosion.

Speaker 1 It is very evident with how you're doing it. He's not the only one.
McVay's moving weight in here as well. McVay's getting under the bar, squatting.
Not as many

Speaker 1 weights as Andrew Witworth, but still a shit ton

Speaker 1 for a coach in the NFL at 6 a.m. at the village.
The boys are getting after it. Ryan Sorensen, I do believe, is the trainer in there.
So I love seeing it.

Speaker 1 Lane Johnson also did, posted some massive squatting video yesterday with him using a safety rack as well. It feels like this is the thing.

Speaker 1 And I have not gotten under a squat bar since I've been forced to do it back when I was playing because I didn't want to put the bar on my spine.

Speaker 1 I just don't, I know it's, sorry, I'm not as tough as everybody else. This thing seems like the thing.
Yeah. So we got one of those on the way.
Don't you worry about that. Okay.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 I see everybody doing it. It's like you guys make, you guys are more jacked than I am.
You got to be doing it for a reason. Let's go ahead and check it out.
Love the guys getting after it.

Speaker 1 Love the team mindset. And I love guys sticking with it.
What's up?

Speaker 4 Say you're going to get some No Bull lifting shoes too.

Speaker 1 I do love the no bulls. That's no bull, baby.
I'll get that cardillo weight belt. All right, hour one wrapping up here on this feel-good Friday, March 14th, 2025.
Hour two will be on the other side.

Speaker 1 Once again, thank you all so much, whoever bought big night

Speaker 1 tickets. It's gonna be a blast on April 9th.
Can't wait to see you in Pittsburgh. Who will the quarterback be for the Steelers by then?

Speaker 1 Maybe we find out,

Speaker 1 maybe we don't.

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Speaker 1 Rules and restrictions apply.

Speaker 1 Sports are fantastic. We're incredibly lucky that we get to talk about them every single day.

Speaker 1 We, it's not just I, obviously, it's also the toxic table at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt, sweet glasses.

Speaker 3 Thank you very much. Yeah, I got a new pair of glasses, a new prescription.
I'm sick and fucking tired of squinting at that TV every single day and then just having the worst headache ever going home.

Speaker 3 So I said, you know what?

Speaker 1 I got my glasses. I'm aware.
I think they look good. Thank you.
I like them. Thank you.

Speaker 1 I had glasses on the other day. I don't believe you were here.
It was on Monday. I wore glasses because I had a little thing going on with my eye.
Sure.

Speaker 1 And I'm like, well, I don't want that to be obviously a distraction for what I'm talking. So I'll put these glasses on, the blue light glasses, you know.

Speaker 1 And I feel like I was really taking care of myself and also covering up some of those evidence. Then I woke up the next day, it just stopped doing it.

Speaker 1 So I was like, all right, yeah, we're not wearing glasses anymore. And I'm just going to act like it didn't happen.
Why was my eye doing that for that long?

Speaker 1 Don't know, but also not even going to care about it. I think you look good.
I think glasses are a good look.

Speaker 1 I think it's a good thing.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I've worn them quite a bit in the past, and then I kind of just, my prescription was so old, old, I was like, well, I'm not going to wear these because they're basically like blue light glasses, but then they just give me a really bad headache.

Speaker 3 So I said, you know what? I'm going to go to the optometrist.

Speaker 3 And sure enough, you know, if you have bad eyes, you can't wait 15 years to go get your eyes checked again, you know, because they will get worse on you.

Speaker 1 So your eyes got worse, yeah.

Speaker 2 They did.

Speaker 3 They did, but no, got a new prescription.

Speaker 1 Can we see the screen? Oh, yeah. You kidding me? I mean,

Speaker 3 you can have to read what's going on up there. Don't have to.

Speaker 1 That's a good day. Yeah,

Speaker 1 let's put up a graphic.

Speaker 1 Let's Let's put up the...

Speaker 1 Can we put up the, I think it was the Big 12 basketball tournament graphic? Oh, that one.

Speaker 6 I deleted that, unfortunately.

Speaker 1 Oh, okay. That was a terrible graph.
Big 12, really? That was good. Whoever in there was like, you know what? This is a good idea.

Speaker 1 We'll put out a white graphic with white boxes on top of it with maybe even white font. I mean, that was, here it is.

Speaker 1 Oh, this is not the same one. This is a random.
This is just an Excel spreadsheet that was created to probably make fun of the the Big 12 one. You can read that though, right?

Speaker 3 For the most part, I mean, that's still very small, you know, very small.

Speaker 1 You can't see the bottom row at the eye doctor's test right now?

Speaker 3 Oh, no, I mean, I can, but it's still, you know, I mean, you got Texas Tech up there.

Speaker 1 I can, I can see. Texas Tech playing.

Speaker 3 Texas Tech is playing Arizona.

Speaker 1 Oh, what is the rank of Arizona?

Speaker 1 Oh, man.

Speaker 3 That I can't. I couldn't tell you.

Speaker 1 If you had to guess, if you had to guess, what would it be?

Speaker 3 Well, I think I'm guessing Texas Tech is near the top. I'd say Arizona is maybe like a seven seed.

Speaker 1 Okay, Arizona is a three seed. Okay.
Texas Tech is a seven. No, sorry.
Texas Tech is a two. Yep.
So twos look like sevens and

Speaker 1 threes look like eights, you know, especially if you're from far away. Sure.

Speaker 3 So let me just do like like that is I can't see anything.

Speaker 1 That's just a white screen.

Speaker 3 Yeah, pretty much, just with like a little bit of like smears on there. When I go like this, I can at least, I mean, in like the bottom line right now, the bottom bar.

Speaker 3 Like that, you know, you can, I mean, I can see it, you know, because it's bold, but when, I mean, I can read every I can read everything.

Speaker 1 God, welcome to a whole new world.

Speaker 3 Driving is really, is where it really, you know.

Speaker 2 Nice.

Speaker 1 Being able to see?

Speaker 1 Yeah, you and Foxy are a liability, bro.

Speaker 3 I don't think my eyes are as bad as Foxy's, but it's when you when you get a new prescription, you put them on, it's like, Jesus Christ, I probably should have been driving with glasses for a while.

Speaker 1 Not great. So this is a message to everybody.
If you can't see shit, they make things. that make you to be able to see things crazy and it's much better when you can see stuff.

Speaker 1 I have some friends that have have like i'm not wearing glasses i'm like glasses aren't that bad of a look and also speaking of looking you're going to be able to see stuff that's probably a good good life you could have i'm not going to become a glasses guy i'm like well then do contacts i'm not dealing with those every single day it's like

Speaker 1 you can't see anything like what are you you can you can easily get this fixed as somebody that was blind for a long time and had contacts that I didn't want to change and I just left in my eyes for years and years and years.

Speaker 1 Once you can see things actually, because even those contacts, to your point, they were way behind. So I couldn't really see much.
And I used to walk into physicals where they would have the eye test.

Speaker 1 The quotes would have like an eye test every year.

Speaker 1 Obviously, I'm walking by the thing and I'm reading that bottom line and I'm memorizing the letters and then I'm sitting down and just poof, battling off. All right, good.
This guy's eyes are great.

Speaker 1 Wow. And then you're just rolling along.
Don't have to do that. You can actually see the world and it's a beautiful one if you're able to get it.
So Foxy.

Speaker 6 I go to the eye doctor every single year.

Speaker 1 And they say what? You should not be in public with how bad your fucking eyes are?

Speaker 6 They give me contacts, they give me glasses and send me on my way. It makes no sense.
That's why I'm going to get the LASIK done. I would have absolutely no chance to reading that screen.

Speaker 6 I think about you every single day when I pop stuff up and I'm like, how is he reading this?

Speaker 1 So I got the LASIK, you know, LASIC is,

Speaker 1 it's a,

Speaker 1 it,

Speaker 1 you felt like, I felt like I became a superhero overnight. I feel like I have two good eyes now.
I can like actually see everything. Yeah.

Speaker 1 They say that I'm going to have to redo it at some point because I got it done rather young. Right.
But yeah, it is cool to be be able to see stuff. That's what I'm saying.

Speaker 6 It's on the way, it's on the way.

Speaker 4 Wait, I just learned that you do get contacts and glasses, though, so you still can't see with your contacts and glasses at night.

Speaker 1 Contacts are tough because lights, it's the rays, the rays of the light are brutal.

Speaker 1 They have a name for it.

Speaker 6 I always forget what it is, though.

Speaker 1 Stigmatism, right? Say, like, this was a light. Say this was a light.
What's it called? Stigmatism. Stigmatism.
Maybe, I don't know.

Speaker 1 That doesn't sound like that. I believe that is.
That's what it is on the other side.

Speaker 5 Your eyes are shaped like footballs instead of round.

Speaker 1 Okay. Shout out to football, by the way.
I'm happy we did that.

Speaker 1 But say this is the light, okay? This is what you see

Speaker 1 when you have context.

Speaker 2 That light is

Speaker 1 like this big.

Speaker 4 I can do that if I squint my eyes and make it happen.

Speaker 1 Yeah, so that's what it is all the time. So, like, if there's lights next to each other, what's that? That's just a big fucking blob.

Speaker 1 That's why, like, the indoor facility that I went to, the Colts, they have lights all over the ceiling.

Speaker 1 I had never been able to see the ceiling because it was just all lights over on top of each other. And then, whenever I got the LASIC done, I'm like, wow, this is really, wow.

Speaker 1 It's like taking a jump from like the

Speaker 1 box televisions to like

Speaker 1 1080, not even like 8K or 4K or whatever the case is. So I'm happy you're doing that.
I think it's good look, Ty. I appreciate it.
And this is a message to everybody. You're not too cool for glasses.

Speaker 1 Life is much better whenever you can see shit.

Speaker 3 Yeah, I mean, I couldn't give two shits what people think.

Speaker 1 Well, I think you look cool right now.

Speaker 3 Well, and I think, like, I think I kind of am a glasses guy. I mean, I started wearing them when I was in like seventh grade.

Speaker 3 So, you know, if you don't care then, you sure as shit shouldn't care when you're no, you're 34 years old.

Speaker 3 So, I mean, it's, you know, hey, like you said, it's better off to be able to see things and kind of be able to experience the world around you. Yeah.

Speaker 3 Then be worried about how other people think you look with glasses on.

Speaker 1 Here's, Zito found a picture. This is kind of what lights do.
Yes. That is, that is kind of what lights do whenever you have contacts.
That is like what contacts are.

Speaker 1 I don't know about whenever you're just blind because I just always had contacts in my face whenever from what I remember, but that is literally what it is. And that can carry too.
That can drag too.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 6 And so when it's rainy and it's wet out, it's reflecting on

Speaker 1 everything. So, yeah, that's what contacts are.

Speaker 1 If you have bad eyes, I don't know about like average eyes with contacts, they're good, but like bad eyes with contacts, it's fucking that is life right there. Yeah, that's what I have.

Speaker 2 I have average eyes with contacts, and it's not that bad. I mean, it sucks, like it becomes like that if you wear them.
Like, say I sleep in them and I don't wake up and change them.

Speaker 2 I'm just like, screw it, let's just roll and we'll see how the day goes. By the time the night comes, then it's just like terrible.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and typically, those typically those day goes by pretty terribly

Speaker 1 I don't know. I'm being honest.
You really forced that one. Yeah, well, the first one I sucked by.
I need to get another.

Speaker 1 You got green either.

Speaker 2 I have no idea, but that's a green jacket. You know, that's what's going to happen when you're wearing a jacket like this.
And, you know, maybe you look like...

Speaker 2 No, but it's nice having contacts. It's much better life.

Speaker 1 Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a guy who has had hawkeyes since he was a child. That's right.
Been able to see everything. What a gifted man this man is.

Speaker 1 He's a college football national champion, a Super Bowl champion, Roger Cup winner, father of 10, ladies and gentlemen, A.J. Hawk.

Speaker 1 Mazel, AJ, Mazu,

Speaker 1 shalom, how are you?

Speaker 1 You've always had 20, 10 eyes, perfect vision?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I've been lucky. My eyes have been good.
My left eye is my,

Speaker 8 you know, my non-dominant eye.

Speaker 8 It's always been like pretty apparent. My right eye is better, but my left eye is still legit, so I don't have any issues.

Speaker 1 I was walking around seventh, eighth grade, I think, maybe even ninth grade, just like this, everywhere.

Speaker 1 Teachers are like, you should get glasses or contacts. I don't have time.
Okay.

Speaker 1 I buy it. I'll make you okay.

Speaker 1 And then you get contacts. They get contacts and you like see stuff.
You're like, yeah, it's nice that I don't have to have my face scrunched up like this to see everything.

Speaker 1 That is a nice little thing, though. Scrunch your eyes a little bit.

Speaker 1 Shout out to

Speaker 1 the human body being able to do that. AJ, what's Aaron doing, bro? I'm sick of it.
Come on, man.

Speaker 8 What's going on? I don't know. Like, what's the deadline? Is he going to wait till the big night out and he's going to be a big surprise and say, hey, I'm coming home, guys.
Here I am.

Speaker 8 He comes out like in a jersey.

Speaker 1 In Pittsburgh? Oh, my God. Could you imagine that? April 9th.

Speaker 1 How many days?

Speaker 1 We've got a

Speaker 1 ways to go. How many days? How many days is that until April 9th? Steelers would be okay with that, right? Just wait until April 9th.

Speaker 4 Shockingly, the fan base would.

Speaker 1 What's that?

Speaker 4 I saw a poll. Now, listen.
If you obviously, NFL fans are going to think this is wild, okay?

Speaker 4 Pittsburgh fans are super, super happy to have Mason back and potentially to have Mason as a starting quarterback.

Speaker 1 I saw a poll this morning.

Speaker 4 Who do you want as your starting quarterback? It had Mason and Aaron and Russ and someone else. Mason was like six, Mason was like 60%.
Rodge was like 25%, something like that. So

Speaker 1 yeah, it's wild.

Speaker 1 Isn't it amazing how you can shape how people feel about something?

Speaker 1 Legitimately, now, granted, it has been reported that the Steelers are waiting on Aaron Rodgers. Then it was reported he's looking for $90 million.

Speaker 1 Then it was reported, like, yeah, basically he's just holding people hostage right now. Like, whenever you throw those things in there at some fan base, it's like, I don't want to deal with this guy.

Speaker 1 And it's like easy to think like that because it's kind of true. You know, kind of is happening if you look at it that way.
But like, not even a thought of like, hey, this guy maybe has a lot going.

Speaker 1 Like, this is a pretty big decision in this entire thing. This is, he has to weigh a lot of different options at this moment, including retirement.
Have we ruled out AJ?

Speaker 1 Has there been a ruling out of retirement yet in your conversations with him?

Speaker 8 No, I guess there has not. Like, we've never officially ruled it out, but that would, that would definitely surprise me.
But yeah, nothing would shock me.

Speaker 8 You know, nothing, nothing would be shocking, but that is something that we don't talk about, right? Like, is anyone saying, like, do we know if he's going to come back and play?

Speaker 1 No, the only conversation is, this son of a bitch won't answer which team he wants to play for. It's like, I have not talked to him.

Speaker 1 I don't know how much AJ has talked to him, but the last time we talked to him, he's like, there's a lot of things that have to be decided here because he is and in the last two years have not been fun a lot of people think like he just you know enjoyed seeing the jets fail like that is not an accurate depiction of how he views that at all he wanted to go back because how shitty it was no matter what the situation was and there's going to be some people that'll never believe that because of how they feel about aaron rodgers because you know he was immunized for a little bit and everything of that nature but it's like i think he's got a lot of shit that he's weighing on him right now and you can tell that in the picture whenever he's waltzing around the beach, I saw some guy in my comments whenever we posted this reel.

Speaker 1 I can't wait. And he said, this is a staged photo.
It's like, okay,

Speaker 1 you think this is what Aaron would stage a photo? But he actually believes that

Speaker 1 that guy actually believes that that is the case. And it's like, it's amazing how you can shape your opinion about somebody if enough shit is said and you read it and don't.
even look into it.

Speaker 1 And it's like, some of it's true, based in truth.

Speaker 1 But the way it has been kind of like, this guy's an asshole kind of angle on it has set up for all these things that are happening around the league right now.

Speaker 4 To be honest, I think the one team that Aaron is, is not, he's not holding any team hostage, but the least hostage would be the Pittsburgh Steelers because, you know, they signed Mason Rudolph.

Speaker 4 Russell Wilson is not coming back. Okay.
You cannot walk back into the

Speaker 4 locker room after they are waiting for Aaron's answer. They signed Mason Rudolph.
Like, Russ can't walk into that locker room, I don't think, personally.

Speaker 4 I think he's either going to the Browns or Giants, whatever. They're not going to sign Joe Flacco to play over Mason or whatever.

Speaker 4 So I think the Steelers organization is fine waiting on Aaron at this point, to be honest.

Speaker 1 Our source

Speaker 1 have told us that Aaron walks the beach at sunset every night. It's part of the reason why he has that house.

Speaker 1 California,

Speaker 1 the sun rises in the east. It sets in the west.
That is the last place that the sun is seen in the United States of America over there.

Speaker 1 And also our source

Speaker 1 says every night is a thinking session about what life is supposed to be or whatever.

Speaker 1 That's all the source said? Yeah, that's all the source said. Son of a bitch.

Speaker 1 Tony, come on.

Speaker 2 Tony, I thought you just said it was okay.

Speaker 1 You said you're fine with the case, Tony. No worries.
No rush. Real quick, let him know.

Speaker 1 I've been sending a lot of messages, okay? This has been a one-way street here. I've been sending a lot of messages because a lot of things are being said that I don't think he knows about.

Speaker 1 I don't think he has any idea.

Speaker 8 I don't think he cares that much.

Speaker 1 Agreed.

Speaker 1 That's kind of how he is, but I don't think he has any idea about some of the things that are being said you know i i don't think he knows that like pittsburgh people now are at the point where like we don't want him like if you don't want to be there like like so that's not what they're saying if aaron's watching that's not what they're saying they want him to definitely not watch it because he would have known this uh through the entirety so i like send a message like yo this is what's being said this is what's being reported just so you know like what's going on never get a response but i'm just hopefully that cracked into his world so he understands that this is kind of happening and then i sent him the reel of the you know the the beach walk thing and then that was the response that was the response I do that every single night you know so this is kind of

Speaker 8 probably a lot more people taking pictures than tonight I guess

Speaker 1 yeah and I think you should probably take a week off

Speaker 1 stay on the paddock

Speaker 1 different route maybe walk the shores of the mon or the allegheny tonight and with where he lives

Speaker 1 the

Speaker 1 I mean the the lens seems gotta be such a big lens has to yeah but somebody I mean this guy I don't know who he was I should look into into it. I should find his name.
He has like 60,000 followers.

Speaker 1 Seems to be legit. Seems to be legit.

Speaker 8 Oh, the guy who posted this

Speaker 1 picture? No, who put the comment that he did this on purpose. Like, this was a staged photo.
I've never been...

Speaker 1 For what reason?

Speaker 8 What would the stage, what would it do?

Speaker 1 I have no idea. Like, I don't know why Aaron would want that to be the stage photo.

Speaker 8 He's out there with, like, if he's out there and he has a, you know, bench press out there and he's benching and throwing a football and squatting, then I would say, yeah, this is fake.

Speaker 1 But I think people just think that about Aaron immediately. And if you're told enough things about a guy, I assume inevitably it is easy to fall into that conversation.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's what he has to do now, to AJ's point. He needs to put out a bench.
He needs to bring a football.

Speaker 2 He needs to get a tire and hang it from a tree. And he's just started throwing footballs through it all night tonight till the sun sets.

Speaker 2 Because could you imagine the photos of him in the dark doing this type of stuff? I want a helmet on.

Speaker 1 Yeah, shoulder pads. I want a helmet on.

Speaker 2 I mean, shit, put the pants on.

Speaker 1 Just no shoes. Bare shoes.
Uh-huh. Bingo.
Full pads.

Speaker 2 Doing that on the beach.

Speaker 1 He puts one of his old Packers helmets helmets on, the whole world will be like, wait a minute. He's going back.
Is he going to be a backup? Is he going to be a backup?

Speaker 2 He throws it into the ocean, swims out there in his pads, gets the ball, comes back.

Speaker 1 He should maybe tape like Steelers' logo on one side, Vikings logo on the other side, Giants logo on the back, something right off, retirement radar on the forehead, and then like throw the ball up, see which way it bounces each time.

Speaker 1 Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 Or four different helmets, and he sees if he makes it in any of the helmets. Oh, this one matters.

Speaker 1 Garbage cans. Garbage cans.
Logos on garbage can. Throwing, trying to put it in garbage can.

Speaker 1 The Steelers one. Well, go ahead.
Knock that one out. He walks down with his wired,

Speaker 1 knocks over the bucket, walks all the way back.

Speaker 2 Universe is trying to eyes closed while he's throwing it. So it's just universe balls over and over and over.

Speaker 1 Bloodboom ball is even better. Bloody ball

Speaker 1 throwing that type of thing. That's what he needs to do.
All right, I'll send that. So

Speaker 1 send that.

Speaker 8 What if he jumped in there? Like, give me some good pictures. If he jumped in the ocean, he's swimming full patch.
Next thing you know, he's holding two fins.

Speaker 8 fins, he's riding dolphins throughout the wild ocean, not even the trained dolphins.

Speaker 2 Well, that's what happens if he doesn't make any of them.

Speaker 1 You need to go out there in full pads

Speaker 1 and start spinning it

Speaker 1 into trash cans.

Speaker 8 Yep, into trash cans, maybe some flaming loops, some big old circles that are that are on fire.

Speaker 1 Make it sweet. Oh, yeah, you're right.
We want smoke and team logos and uh pyro.

Speaker 1 Okay,

Speaker 3 that's actually not a bad idea. It's like do it like the Pope.
He could just do black smoke every day from his house.

Speaker 1 Purple smoke. Exactly.
When he makes

Speaker 1 boom.

Speaker 3 You get

Speaker 3 yellow smoke for the Steelers.

Speaker 1 What if he does, and this will be the last time we hypothesize about what he should be doing at sunset on the beach that he lives a house on? Surely this will be the last time we talk about it.

Speaker 1 He should come out in a full Pittsburgh Steelers uniform.

Speaker 1 Do a throwing session, see how he does. Sure.
Next night, come out in full Giants uniform.

Speaker 1 Throwing session, see how he he does. Then put the Vikings one on, see how, and then let that be the judge.
Are you your best you in those colors? He can find out on the beach tonight at sunset.

Speaker 2 And then the retirement one, he can just come out like butt naked with like a paintbrush and something and draw something. And if it's like a great painting.

Speaker 1 No, he'll wear one of those ghees.

Speaker 1 Sure.

Speaker 1 The ghee thing. Oh, he can wear his jersey slots.

Speaker 2 Jordan Poyer ayahuasca jersey.

Speaker 1 He's a t-shirt thing.

Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, he can wear that one out.

Speaker 2 And we need oh headband the necklace you got the necklace over i think i think it might be the vodge the vodes necklace i think it might be by the for the brand helmet in the corner but yeah that yes it is actually good eye now that would be something uh that would play connor wears it on the weekends that puts it back yeah that's the reason i knew it was over there

Speaker 1 there to the tassels yeah he comes out like this with a headband on here maybe an acoustic sure that entire thing yeah maybe that's the play sage burning all right just let us know what you're doing at sunset tonight bub or tomorrow night we'll see it on the photos yeah we'll see it from the creepy paparazzi that you're setting up, Bub.

Speaker 1 That's what people are believing. Weirdo.

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Speaker 1 Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a senior insider for ESPN for the NBA, friend of the program, going to break it all down for us, ladies and gentlemen. Sham Sharania.
Yeah, Shaman.

Speaker 1 Seam.

Speaker 9 Pat, the boys, yo, congrats on the sell art, by the way. Is that how you say sell art?

Speaker 1 Sell art. Yeah, you're close.
You're close. I mean, you forced it a little bit, but I appreciate your attempt at that.

Speaker 1 I really do. You sent me a photo the other day of a five-year anniversary.
Was that the first time you were on a program?

Speaker 9 That was a person. Yeah, March 12th.
I think that was the day after the Rudy Gobert positive test for COVID and

Speaker 9 his whole incident and the world shutting down, the leaks shutting down at that point, suspending. So that started, you know, a good, a good so far five-year run, great relationship here.

Speaker 9 So, you know, I appreciate you guys.

Speaker 1 Now, we're very lucky and thankful for you, buddy. You've been our NBA guy.

Speaker 1 And then, obviously, you getting the senior insider gig at espn we've been nothing short of proud of you now with that being said let's start talking a little bit of ball from me i got one question one question alone zion williamson triple double the other night has 22 assists guy had 22 assists whenever he's playing he's a triple double machine the conversation has always been will the pelicans let him play tonight is he in better shape now is he more healthy now why is he on the court and when can we get him to another team to do this whenever it matters in the playoffs

Speaker 9 So, yeah, I mean, he's had two triple doubles in the last couple weeks. We know when Zion Williamson's on the floor and when he's healthy, all you get from him is elite play.

Speaker 9 And, you know, the last few weeks, he's averaged 24 points, Pat, in 28 minutes. So you're talking about a point a minute.
And so for him, I think you're going into this offseason.

Speaker 9 It's going to be a big one. I think him, the Pelcans, they have to sit down.
They have to figure out what is the path forward here. What is this franchise looking into? What's the level of commitment?

Speaker 9 And Pat,

Speaker 9 I agree. Like, there have been points where they have to let him go and let him play, but it goes both ways, right? He got suspended a little while ago for being late to a team playing.

Speaker 9 It was a pattern of tardiness that he had. You know, for Zion Williamson, the next step for him is showing that commitment, showing that devotion, continuing to grow as a professional.

Speaker 9 And that's a part of that is

Speaker 9 being on time all of the time.

Speaker 1 Because listen, one thing we know. Oh, really?

Speaker 9 Everyone in the nba knows this a devoted committed healthy zion williamson is a problem for the nba for every team in the league and we he hasn't gotten to that point clearly from a health perspective he's been hurt at different points in the year and that's unfortunate for basketball fans and everyone yeah i agree and hopefully you know zion will lock in you talk about being on time okay so now we're hearing some more stuff you know these are like more pieces of information that we didn't necessarily have for a long time because all we had known is that the pelicans just don't want want to play him because they think he's going to get hurt.

Speaker 1 So they're trying to conserve him. They're trying to conserve him.
It's like, well, how long are we just going to conserve a guy that says he can play?

Speaker 1 And inevitably, is a career just going to be wasted conserving a guy because he has been playing like this since we've seen him on the internet.

Speaker 9 Unreal. And look at him.
Look at him. I haven't seen him look this good since his rookie year slashes Duke year.

Speaker 9 Like, I'm watching these high, like, he hasn't been doing this since his rookie season in the NBA. The way he looks to, and I mean, he's definitely hovering around like sub-280.

Speaker 9 He's listed at 284 pounds. I can't say

Speaker 9 he's lower than that now. Let's go.
He is physically. I think the Pelicans are as thrilled with him as they've ever been.

Speaker 9 But again, Pat, you guys know it from a professional athlete perspective, greatness and

Speaker 9 that super stardom level, that elite all-NBA, all-world level of play, that comes with commitment, that comes with devotion.

Speaker 9 And clearly, from a health perspective, he's had some bad luck, the hamstring over and over again. But part of that is preparation, too.

Speaker 9 And if he can put all of that together, and yeah, he was suspended. This is public information.
He was suspended. I broke it.
He was suspended. He was late to a team flight,

Speaker 9 I want to say a month and a half, two months ago-ish.

Speaker 9 And he was suspended again. And that was the first time the Pelicans reprimanded him for tardiness.
And that goes on throughout the NBA, but it was eye-opening to see.

Speaker 9 And he needs to be on time. He has to be committed.
He He has to be devoted.

Speaker 9 All that comes into play because if he can get there, Pat, we're looking at a player that has the chance to be a top three to five player in the NBA.

Speaker 1 Come to the Indiana Pacers, too. We're ready and excited for you here.
You'll love it.

Speaker 9 He'll be on time in Indy.

Speaker 9 He might end up being on time to everything in Indy. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa. Listen, Indy's good city, too.
There's

Speaker 1 a lot of good people like the Times. Aiden Naruto, I think is the name of the tattoo he got around his belly.
He can do this out here in Indiana, no problem

Speaker 1 at all. AJ has a question for you, Shams.

Speaker 8 Shams, what's going on with tanking in the NBA right now? I know Utah got fined 100K or something because Markinan, they're trying to hide him and say he's not healthy.

Speaker 8 And there's some other teams that are sniffing around like they may be doing similar things. Is this a problem and how are they going to fix all this?

Speaker 9 Yeah, the NBA is keeping a very close eye on this. Lowry Marketing was being sat a few games.
The league determined as a star player. There's a player participation policy.

Speaker 9 And when there's a star player that's healthy enough to play that their doctors deem and the team withholds them, you get fined $100,000.

Speaker 9 It goes up in escalation as far as a fine with every game and every potential situation. So if the Jazz get hit again with a fine, you're looking at $250,000 and it keeps going up and up and up.

Speaker 9 You know, the Mavericks were fined a couple of years ago for, I think it was $500,000, $700,000, almost a million dollars for essentially openly,

Speaker 9 I don't know if tanking is the right word. I don't know if people would be happy if I use that, but openly picked up.

Speaker 1 Are they going to get that today? Are they going to get that this year? Draft pick.

Speaker 9 The Mavericks, no, I don't think the Mavericks.

Speaker 1 Everybody would just say, listen, shitty moves doesn't mean you're trying to lose. Like, this guy thought

Speaker 9 everyone is legitimately so hurt in Dallas right now. You have Anthony Davis, Derek Ladley II, Daniel Gafford.
They've had PJ Washington, Kyrie Irving, Torney ATL.

Speaker 9 He's going to be out pointing,

Speaker 9 you know, at points into next year. So, yeah, I don't know about the basketball.
The basketball guys, they might be looking at Dallas in a few different ways.

Speaker 9 But I will say, going back to your question, though, AJ,

Speaker 9 the NBA is looking at a couple other teams. I'm told the Philadelphia 76 are another team the NBA has started an investigation on and looked into just based on you've had Tyrese Maxi missed time.

Speaker 9 You know, we know we know Paul George has missed time. But I think with Philadelphia, it looks a little bit more legitimate, maybe, because you think about Tyrese Maxi, he's been banged up all year.

Speaker 9 And Paul George, he's been playing the five games before the all-star break in February, guys. I'm told Paul George was playing with painkilling injection.

Speaker 9 He had to get injected for essentially for painkilling for five straight games just to play. You know, with groin injuries, knee injury, a finger tendon injury.

Speaker 9 And so, Paul George, I'm told he's going to visit with doctors in the coming days and potentially need a procedure, which obviously would then sideline him, you know, likely for the rest of the season.

Speaker 9 So, and Joel Lembi's already shut down. We know how that went.
So, you know, they've looked into Philadelphia a little bit and seen, you know, are they potentially also in a position?

Speaker 9 They've got a top six protected pick that could go to Oklahoma City if they don't keep it. So this is something that the NBA is definitely keeping an eye on.

Speaker 1 I appreciate the NBA looking into this stuff because that became a lot of the conversation at the end of every NBA season is like this team is openly trying to lose so that they can gain maybe, what, 4%

Speaker 1 chance in the lottery to get a better pick. It was like not a guarantee.

Speaker 9 That 4% could go a long way, though. That 4% could go a long way.

Speaker 1 I agree. I say that the blackjack table every time and the craps table and all that, but that was like literally what teams were doing.

Speaker 1 And then we get to the draft lottery and the team wouldn't, they get like the fourth overall pick or something like that instead of the first overall pick.

Speaker 1 And it's like, okay, so you just pissed off all your fans and put out shit product for the last half of the season, pretty much, and it didn't work out for you.

Speaker 1 It felt like that was kind of becoming an NBA routine conversation that we were having. When did they decide to start cracking down on this?

Speaker 1 You might have said it in your answer and I might have missed it there. But did Adam Silver say, we're not, this can't be what our league's known for? And how did it kind of come about?

Speaker 9 Yeah, Adam Silver, the NBA, the board of governors, NBA teams, GMs, like they all came up with a strategy and the player participation policy in particular for star players, for players resting, things of that sort.

Speaker 9 There's it's a wide range of things that fall into that policy, and that has allowed, like for the Sixers in particular, their season started with an investigation, Pat.

Speaker 9 Like, they had an investigation at the start of the year around the health and the player participation policy of Joelle and B. And what the league found is there was no violation.

Speaker 9 He had a legitimate knee injury. Well, the violation was, is the team saying publicly that he's fine, that there's nothing going on with him.

Speaker 9 And so if you are saying that publicly, but if the player, the league, their doctors determine this player is dealing with an injury, so it goes a bunch of different ways and it gives the league a lot of latitude to look into these teams and players and who's openly sitting a guy that could be healthy and not.

Speaker 1 I'm going to need two doctors saying this guy's hurt. I'm busting it.
So this guy's the highest paid guy, the best guy, and he's not playing? Who's making that decision? Well, we all talk.

Speaker 1 I'm going to need two doctors. Need him in an x-ray.
Get him in an x-ray.

Speaker 1 And then they show it back. Pow!

Speaker 1 Guy's got a hairline fracture in his knee. All right, we were wrong.
Okay. No, no, no penalty in there.
Just keep it moving. That's how it's going.
Shout out to the NBA trying to crack down on that.

Speaker 1 Gonna need to see the x-rays. Gonna need to see the scans right now.
We aren't doing that. I appreciate that they're trying to,

Speaker 1 you know, fix or correct maybe some narratives that are about their league. But if you talk to Tyrese, Tyrese played through like a strained groin for a while.

Speaker 1 Paul George playing five games while getting shot up with vitamin T? Is that Toradol that they were using there? Did you know?

Speaker 9 I can't confirm what it was, but Paul George needed five consecutive games of painkilling injections just to play. And that's what goes to Sixers

Speaker 9 from an injury perspective. They have been so beat up from Joel to Tyrese Maxie to Paul George.

Speaker 9 These guys are just I mean, for him to need painkilling injections for five straight games, that goes to show Paul George, obviously, was trying to make himself as available as possible.

Speaker 9 He signed a massive max contract last offseason. And that's an extreme length to go and try to be available for your team.

Speaker 1 Agreed. Painkiller is not normally how you would describe Tor Dahl, although Toradal does do that.
So maybe it was something even stronger than that.

Speaker 1 And obviously, that's not what we're looking for, you know, in professional sports.

Speaker 1 But hopefully they're able to get healthy and shout out to the NBA saying, you ain't going to suck on purpose anymore. Okay.
League sucks enough.

Speaker 1 We don't need you trying to suck anymore. We got some good momentum going right now.

Speaker 9 There's a lot of stuff going on right now, Pat. You got the Cavaliers.
Hold on, hold on.

Speaker 1 Hold on, Shams. We'll ask you about it, okay?

Speaker 1 We will dive into it because the boys have these questions for you. But there is a lot of momentum for the NBA right now.

Speaker 1 And I want to say, finding a team for trying to suck, I think that adds to the momentum of the league as a whole. I like this.
I don't hate this. Now, let's talk about some of those stories.

Speaker 1 Connor has a question for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, sad state of affairs just because, you know, going into the season, I don't know if you guys remember Shams was on here like, hey, Connor, you worried about the Sixers?

Speaker 2 Like, no, this is what happens with Philly. It's sad, but you know, this is just the reality of it, Shams.
You kind of look like an idiot.

Speaker 1 But I don't like it. I don't like it for you, Shams, not one bit.

Speaker 2 Because, you know, it is what it is. It sells each other the best.

Speaker 9 But look, you know, in that way, BC, your bias definitely helped you a lot in that project. Yeah, yeah.
Sixers season.

Speaker 9 I'm just crediting your bias. I'm not crediting you for it.

Speaker 2 Yeah, typically it does. It is what it is, Seams.
Sorry.

Speaker 2 This trophy is here for a reason.

Speaker 2 Looking at the West, though, the Warriors now are unbelievable. I think they've won, you know, nine of the last 10.
Not sure if it's now 10 of the last 11 after Steph goes.

Speaker 9 You scared the Warriors, BC.

Speaker 2 They're in the West. I don't worry about them.
I just worry about getting to the finals. But with Steph hitting his 4,003, obviously hell of a year for him going all the way back to the Olympics.

Speaker 2 He's, you know, now being considered in the GOAT conversation that's being brought up, it feels like every day. day, which is definitely rightfully so.
How do you feel about the Warriors now?

Speaker 2 And has Jimmy Butler's camp been able to reach out to you and apologize? Because obviously you were getting killed during all those trade rumors.

Speaker 2 And then of course, per usual, you were a thousand percent right. These celebration videos are awesome.
It's cool to see Steph with another sweet achievement. But how are the Warriors as a whole?

Speaker 2 And do you see them making a massive run now?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I'll start with we need to get at community notes. You know, I'm a big X fan.
Community Notes, we got to go back to that tweet I had about Jimmy Butler and the trade saga.

Speaker 9 So, uh, community notes really needs to go and fix that. ASAP, we need to get that handled when there was some denial, uh, we should call it.

Speaker 9 Um, yeah, speaking of the war, I mean, they're 13 and one with Jimmy Butler in the lineup. This team is totally different with him there.

Speaker 9 And last night, BC Jonathan Caminga got back in the lineup, and he had a great game. His ability to slash and play in the dunker spot, he came in and he

Speaker 9 averaged 21 points a game in his last uh 10, 12 games before his ankle injury in January. And I think he has the ability to make this team an X Factor, make them even more dangerous.

Speaker 9 But I think the Jimmy Butler entrance to this organization has changed everything.

Speaker 9 You know, the question that I kept getting around the league was like, him and Draymond Green are going to get into fights. Like that relationship, you're talking about two alphas.

Speaker 9 How are they going to get along? How are they going to coexist? And everything I hear, they're as tight as ever.

Speaker 9 They've bonded so much, and that's as tight of a relationship, and that's what's really going to drive that engine in Golden State.

Speaker 9 And here's a good story for you guys: so, Stephan Curry, he had a birthday party.

Speaker 1 Oh, I like good stories.

Speaker 9 The entire team was there, from what I'm told.

Speaker 3 And,

Speaker 9 you know,

Speaker 9 the party went pretty late into the night, you know, 2, 3 a.m.

Speaker 9 The last three people there. Can you guys guess who those people were?

Speaker 1 Steph Draymond and Jimmy Butler.

Speaker 9 Draymond and Jimmy Butler.

Speaker 1 They're spending time, they're vibing, they're talking, getting

Speaker 9 their camaraderie, they're playing cards to end the night. And I think you're seeing how that looks right on the floor.
You're seeing these guys smiling. You're seeing them laughing.

Speaker 9 You're seeing them really come together as a group, and it's translated onto the court. And what word did Jimmy Butler use when he was trying to get out of Miami? He's using the word joy.

Speaker 9 I think his joy is back now

Speaker 9 in Golden State. And I think the Warriors are playing like they thoroughly loved each other.
So when I look at the West, Oklahoma City, definite contender for a championship.

Speaker 9 The Denver Nuggets, Nuggets, definite contender for a championship. You look at that standing.
I think Memphis, you have to put them in there. What can they do?

Speaker 9 What do they look like with a fully healthy John Morant going into this playoff run? The Lakers, before their recent injury run, they were up there as well.

Speaker 9 And now you have to put Golden State into that mix. I think this team is serious.
I think they're legit. I think they have a real chance.
to make a deep run in this playoffs.

Speaker 1 Okay, so obviously the Luca trade to LA was talked about. Jimmy Butler trade to Golden State, huge, huge for all the storyline, especially because they've been healthy.

Speaker 1 And let's talk about the Los Angeles Lakers and what you just chatted about there. I got some Hembo stats here.
The Lakers are 8-3 in games in which LeBron and Luca both play.

Speaker 1 They combined average 51, 18, and 14 in those games. Okay, so obviously that's great news whenever they're on the court together.

Speaker 1 LeBron, we had Rich Paul on the show earlier this week, and he said, like, you know, LeBron knows his body better than everybody, better than anybody.

Speaker 1 So, you know, we're kind of taking it at his pace.

Speaker 1 I don't know exactly what that meant, but I think it means like LeBron is a very durable person, and he has obviously transformed his body a couple different times. He pays attention to it a lot.

Speaker 1 He invests a lot of money into his body. He'll know when he's available to come back.
What is the story with this Lakers team, you think? And when does, you know, the magical duo come back?

Speaker 9 Yeah, so let's start with the team itself. Anytime you're without LeBron James, Jackson Hayes, Rui Hachimura, those are three starters.

Speaker 9 In the NBA, if you have three of your starters out like that, it's very, very, very hard to win games, especially when you're talking about LeBron James, who has been dominant on both ends of the floor.

Speaker 9 He was on pace to make an all-NBA. If he gets back in time to qualify for all NBA, he has to play seven more games.
He's going to be on an all-NBA team.

Speaker 9 He might even make an all-defensive team at 40 years old in year 22. That's impressive.
They need him back bad, but they also can't rush it.

Speaker 9 So you hope you're going to get Jackson Hayes, Rui Hachimura back in the coming days. Those guys are more day-to-day than I think LeBron James is.

Speaker 9 I still expect, you know, I reported last weekend on Sunday that he's going to miss one to two weeks at least.

Speaker 9 So this Sunday or this Saturday, Sunday makes it one week.

Speaker 9 He's not expected to play Sunday on ABC against the Phoenix Suns from what I'm told. I would expect him to still miss another week.
So that would put him at about two weeks.

Speaker 9 And yeah, I mean, LeBron James knows his body better than anyone else in the NBA might know theirs.

Speaker 1 I would hope everybody knows your body more

Speaker 9 I don't know if anyone can probably diagnose themselves as much as LeBron can, but he also had this injury already. He had

Speaker 9 a bad strain groin.

Speaker 9 He had a torn groin muscle in 2018 that he missed about a month and a half for, then came back and struggled a little bit, if you want to call it, and then he had to get shut down for that season.

Speaker 9 And so I think LeBron James knows exactly how to handle this. This is not as severe.
This is not as bad.

Speaker 9 I would expect to take another week, which would put him at about two weeks, and we'll see how much longer than that.

Speaker 1 I know not everybody loves this. That's deep in the NBA world.
And I'm not just talking about Charles, who we love. We love Chuck.
We love the TNT team. Shaq was on yesterday.

Speaker 1 That beatbox was pretty alcoholic. Yeah.
Yeah, I'd say. There's a lot of alcohol in that thing.
Tastes great. Chugged one of them.

Speaker 9 Shaq's in Vegas doing shows every now and then.

Speaker 1 130 shows a year, brother. 130 shows a year is what he does.

Speaker 1 Yeah, DJ Diesel's doing his thing.

Speaker 9 Hard worker.

Speaker 1 Spinning. Yeah.
I mean, I don't think he watched the OKC Celtics.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I know. We know.
He actually said he wasn't going to watch it.

Speaker 1 Which was wild, which is the entire thing.

Speaker 1 But like Barkley was trying to stick up for the whole league and trying to stick up for like the storylines that are already awesome in the NBA that don't involve like the big markets or the Los Angeles Lakers and LeBron.

Speaker 1 So I respect where he was coming from.

Speaker 1 But like us as football people, with the Lakers resurgence there, with that massive trade that you broke where you said your palms were sweaty, knees weak, arms were heavy, whenever you put that tweet out, I heard, I think, in an interview.

Speaker 1 But nonetheless, as soon as that happens, a lot of the casuals like us were like oh let's see how this goes and then the way it was going was awesome so if the nba obviously can continue to have that with the sga led okay ct i watched them get to celtics the other night they are so good they're great they are so so good hey hey what do you say sga all the way potentially mvp uh maybe

Speaker 2 oh

Speaker 1 oh we'll see okay

Speaker 1 bars from sham sharani

Speaker 1 i love everything about it, but this guy, fun to watch, and his braids are always twisted real tight. I mean, it is some of the best hair that we've seen in professional sport in a long, long time.

Speaker 1 I don't know if he's getting that twisted every single day, but it does feel like he must be.

Speaker 9 He must be getting it right because that does not impact his game. It doesn't come in his, it doesn't come in his tight.

Speaker 1 I mean, it is

Speaker 9 tight, doesn't impact anything, does it swirl anywhere? Like, he's locked.

Speaker 1 It never looks loose.

Speaker 1 He has great hair. He's seemingly very charming.
I mean,

Speaker 1 affable. Everybody like, I mean, seemingly in all of the aspects, SGA is a superstar.
He's not the only one on that OKC team. Ty has a question for you.

Speaker 3 That's right, Chumps. OKC got back there, seven foot one, 105-pound phenomena.

Speaker 1 Mr.

Speaker 3 Skeletor himself, Chet Holmgren, he's back.

Speaker 3 How much does this change everyone's perception of Oklahoma City moving forward, save one of his skinny little legs snaps in half like a toothpick.

Speaker 9 I mean, him and Jalen Williams, aka J. Dubb, those guys are stars as well.
And Jalen Williams got named to the all-star team.

Speaker 9 If Chef Holmgren was healthy this season, he would have been an all-star in all likelihood as well. So they would have had three all-stars in the all-star game.
And this is a perennial team.

Speaker 9 This is a team that's potentially set to be together for years and years and years to come. And that starts with SGA, though, right?

Speaker 9 Like the way they developed him, they traded for him after one year with the Clippers.

Speaker 9 I think SGA learned a lot from Lou Williams in the Clippers, but he learned even more and he really developed with the okloma city thunder in that regime they gave him a max contract when no one really knew is he a max player but they believed in him and they got him and i really look back when i think about this from a business perspective all of this with okloma city though started last season when they

Speaker 9 when they were homegrowing uh josh giddy and they were able to trade him for alex caruso uh you know like that's a young player that you have built in your system and you're able to have the value and go get caruso And then they made a trade at the deadline.

Speaker 9 They got Gordon Hayward last year at the deadline, $30 million

Speaker 9 that they sent out

Speaker 9 in future salary. And they got Gordon Hayward.
And I think there was a lot of criticism. Why did they make this trade? And there was some back and forth.

Speaker 9 Gordon Hayward didn't really understand why he was there. And Sam Presley was like, I don't know if this was a good idea.
But why, though?

Speaker 9 They made that because they were able to open up a $30 million slot. that they gave to Isaiah Hartenstein, who was a big part of this team, too.
This is a team.

Speaker 9 And I think it starts with SGA, starts with Chet Holmgren, as well as Jalen Williams, aka J-W. But they're 8-9 deep.

Speaker 9 And I think this is a team in the playoffs where if some of those guys can step up to the challenge, I mean, they're one of the favorites as well, along with Glee.

Speaker 1 Hartenstein's got a mask on, too, I believe, right? He has a nose. I think I saw him in the Batmobile the other day.

Speaker 9 He's got a nice nasal fracture, I believe, or some nasal injury. But

Speaker 9 he's been balling. He's been doing his thing.
Obviously, he's missed in New York, but

Speaker 9 he's going to have a big role on this team.

Speaker 9 Having him finish games with Chet Holmgren,

Speaker 9 you know, who is much more than 105, but as

Speaker 9 our guy Ty is referring to,

Speaker 9 he's on the slender side. He's still growing into his body.
These guys are a young guy.

Speaker 1 He had a little beard the other night, I think, when I was watching.

Speaker 1 Sick hair. I mean, he was stroking from

Speaker 9 he's a monster. Just think about it.
If they had him healthy all season, could this team have won 65, 68, 70?

Speaker 1 I think it's going to be, be, you know, and I know Kevin Durant, who's 6'11, doesn't want to say he's a seven-footer, but in Wemby Sams, I think, if you're able to keep somebody that's built like that, obviously a weapon in basketball, healthy for the entire season, that's, that seems to be a modern Marvel as well.

Speaker 1 Like, I think at OKC, they're assuming the chet's going to miss some games because of just, I mean, how can you be that tall in your joints?

Speaker 1 Like, there has to be something that's going to, that's just my natural thoughts, you know, and, and that goes for anybody, I I think, that's ever been overly, I don't want to say overly sized, but overgrown,

Speaker 1 tall, big, like Andre. That's always, yeah, anytime I'm going back to Andre the Giants, season three,

Speaker 9 you're dealing with foot injuries, you're always dealing with something, and that's always the worry. And thankfully, Victor Woman Yama hasn't had anything severe.

Speaker 9 Obviously, he has the blood clot in his shoulder now. We wish him the speedy recovery.
Chet Holmgren had a freaked fall on his hip, fractured his hip.

Speaker 9 Like, those are things, thankfully, like, these are freak situations. It's not like he's had a foot injury that's, you know,

Speaker 9 continues to linger year after year after his, you know, rookie year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but you talk about Wemby there. His family, like, knew about all the foot and the ankle stuff.

Speaker 1 Allegedly, through high school, they were like training his feet and his ankles and like trying to make the things that are going to take a much bigger beating than they would with most other humans be as healthy as possible.

Speaker 1 It's a real thing you got to think about. That's why Kevin Durant, with how much he's been able to just move.
Now, granted, he has had injuries. Obviously, injuries are going to happen.

Speaker 1 But with how long he's been playing, with how he's been able to move in his build, it's like what an absolute well.

Speaker 15 How about the

Speaker 9 return from Achilles? I don't think we're ever going to see a return from Achilles to that level of Kevin Durant. He had the Achilles injury at 30 years old.

Speaker 9 Usually, after you have an Achilles tear, your career goes on the decline or you're steady at best. He's been playing his best basketball, and he's now the 36 years old.

Speaker 9 No one has played at this level after an Achilles tear, that's for sure.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, Wemby's able to just do it.

Speaker 1 Hopefully, Wemby's the because he's special, He's fun to watch. He is.

Speaker 1 It's like you're watching

Speaker 1 a movie.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and he's the guy on San Antonio. Like, Holmgren's awesome, but like SGA is obviously scoring 30, 40 points a night.

Speaker 1 Yeah, SGA is the guy. Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 And OKC could be the team to turn the tide on the Celtics as far as the Celtics being, you know, kind of babyfaces all of a sudden because a lot of people feel the way Ty feels about Holmgren.

Speaker 2 And then SGA, the style play SGA plays, that if

Speaker 1 there's more eyes on it, people might start homegirls.

Speaker 9 He's scared of OKC.

Speaker 1 I want OKC.

Speaker 2 I want to play OKC. They're so young.

Speaker 1 You played them the other night. It did not end up well for Boston, but obviously regular season, having to win in a series is vastly different, especially if it was in the finals.

Speaker 1 But let's stay in the East. Big storyline coming out or coming once again that kind of ended last year's season as the storyline in the God and in New York.
A.P. Tone has a question for you, Shams.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Shams, you talked about Hartenstein and the Knicks missing them.

Speaker 4 It feels like they're missing anyone who can play 40, 45 minutes a night uh you know the knicks they were worn down in the playoffs they had a lot of injuries at the in the playoffs last season it's coming up again mikkel bridges and tom thibodeau potentially are not just not agreeing on on playing time and minutes and stuff like that thibodeau's been like this everywhere he's been how do you see that going in new york

Speaker 9 I think these are healthy conversations. If I'm looking at Mikhail Bridges, he has clearly felt this way for a while.

Speaker 9 And for him to say it publicly, I'm sure this is stuff that he's tried to get across privately as well.

Speaker 9 And I think for him, this is more of a resort of like, listen, I've probably tried to say things privately.

Speaker 9 And now, like, if we're going to try to get this right and turn this season and try to be at that level and get that trust in our bench, like we have to challenge and we need to have these conversations.

Speaker 9 I think it is healthy. I think it's productive.
And it sounds like, from my understanding,

Speaker 9 him and Tom, they would have had productive conversations in the aftermath of all this.

Speaker 9 So now you move forward, and we won't know how this stuff is all going to get impacted until we see the return of Jalen Brunson. How does Mitchell Robinson get utilized come playoff time?

Speaker 9 And at the end of the day, will the starters get worn down? Will those players not be able to finish the season at a high level? One thing about Tom Thibodeau,

Speaker 9 he always has his team play at elite levels, especially in the regular season.

Speaker 9 And they've always been there in the playoffs, too. I mean, just from the Bulls teams to the Minnesota teams, like he always gets his teams to overachieve in the regular season.

Speaker 9 And then in the playoffs,

Speaker 9 things have to break right. And unfortunately, some of his teams have had a lot of bad luck.
Like the year Derek Rose tore his ACL, they were a favorite to win the championship. You can't really,

Speaker 9 you know, it's hard when you have a torn ACL. That could be a freak thing, could be a wear and tear, whatever.
So

Speaker 9 I think it is healthy to have those conversations. I mean, from a professional athlete perspective like you guys,

Speaker 9 you have to have these moments and challenging each other.

Speaker 1 And that's what I was going to bring up is like when Chip Kelly came to the NFL, everybody was like, this guy's going to change the NFL because he's going to bring this up-pace, high-speed offense from Oregon to the Philadelphia Eagles.

Speaker 1 They got LaShawn McCoy, who can play running back. They got all the pieces.

Speaker 1 And the boys, once we started, I think everybody around the NFL, and I don't want to speak for AJ in the Packers' locker room, but everybody in our locker room, whenever we were watching them, like the first five, six weeks, with how many plays they were running and how upset, it was like, they're not going to be able to survive.

Speaker 1 Like these dudes are not going to be able to survive how long the NFL season season is, let alone at the end of the season. That's when the most important football is.

Speaker 1 And that was the same exact convo that was happening with NBA guys that we were talking to, retired NBA guys and guys that were currently in the league.

Speaker 1 They're like, this Knicks team has to break at some point. Like, there's no way a human body can go as hard as they have gone.
And then it happened against the Pacers. Like, you saw it happen.

Speaker 1 I think Jalen got hurt in that series.

Speaker 1 And it was like things like, I don't, ACLs, I think, can happen to anybody. Achilles can happen to anybody.

Speaker 1 But it'd be like a muscle strain or something happened that is like wear and tear, exhaustion kind of thing. And it was almost like the convo about the Knicks end of their year.

Speaker 1 And then going into the season, and I'm a doofus, obviously, but I do remember that happening because it was like the Pacers benefited from that conversation.

Speaker 1 I was like, is Tibbs going to, is he going to change the way? Are they going to not play as much? Disappear. That was at the beginning of the season.
And then now it's like a talk again.

Speaker 1 It's like, no, yeah, they're running that shit back. Literally.
They are.

Speaker 1 They are.

Speaker 9 Well,

Speaker 9 the season was like, I remember at the first first month of the season, what I was hearing from other team execs or like other scouts and people at these games, like, have you seen the Knicks rotations lately?

Speaker 9 And I'm like, yeah, I've seen the boxers. Like, have you noticed like their starters are literally playing like 38 to 40 minutes? It's like a seven-man rotation the first month of the season.

Speaker 9 And I'm like, yeah, that's pretty crazy to think about. You know, early start, early part of the season, like, you know, you have eight, nine, ten-man rotations.

Speaker 9 But I will say, that's kind of shifted a little bit ever since that first month of the year. And I think

Speaker 9 for the the Knicks, it's all going to, we're going to see answers in the playoffs. And I do think these conversations are healthy.
And it sounds like they've handled it the right way in the aftermath.

Speaker 1 Two, keeping people healthy. Like, we want people to play.
I think that's why everybody wants the NBA to play. But it's like, if you literally, what just happened last year was the reason.

Speaker 1 It felt like that was literally the only reason it was being talked about why the Pacers beat the Knicks, right? Wasn't that the story that you guys, Knicks fans, were saying, Bruce?

Speaker 1 Wasn't that kind of the thing?

Speaker 16 Yeah, I mean, Julius Randall fell and dislocated his shoulder. Jalen Brunson broke his hand.

Speaker 16 OGN and Obi with the hamstring strain was probably the only injury that you could point to and say, that was too many minutes.

Speaker 16 This season, Precious Achua was injured to start the year, so we didn't have much depth. But we do need to play Deuce McBride more.
Like, he's a great backup guard.

Speaker 16 And Tibbs just, he's one of those coaches, it's not so much like he just wants to play the starters 48 minutes a night. He just won't watch bad basketball.

Speaker 16 So if you come in, turn the ball over, and don't play good defense, he's putting Brunson and the boys back out there, you know, as soon as he can.

Speaker 1 I love that. I hope they end up winning.
You know, I do. I hope they end up winning, and I hope there is like a marathon ability from these guys.

Speaker 1 But everybody that's in the basketball world says that that's potentially an issue.

Speaker 1 We'll find out. They could be built different.
I also love the Tibbs. Like, I ain't watched it.
Yeah. Okay.
This sucks. Get these fuckers off the court.
They're not representing my team.

Speaker 1 I can't take it anymore. I respect that.
I appreciate that. Jumps, what do we have not brought up that we should whenever it comes to NBA storylines?

Speaker 9 Yeah, Cavs going for their 16th in a row. Congratulations.
Tonight, I think against Memphis.

Speaker 9 They've been, you know, you think about it in the Eastern Conference, the Cavs, the Celtics, the, I mean, you have to throw the Bucs in there.

Speaker 9 Pacers, could they make a run? Yes. New York, can they make a run?

Speaker 9 You know, so I think the Eastern Conference,

Speaker 9 you know, if you're looking at the Cavs and the Celtics, if you're looking at this standings right here, and we end up with the Cavs-Celtics Conference finals, like, that's going to be a bloodbath.

Speaker 9 That's going to be an amazing series. Another guy we haven't given much love to, obviously, Donald Mitchell, we you know gets a lot of love everywhere.
Darius Garland, all-star guard, Evan Mobley.

Speaker 9 Like, you think about those types of bigs, you think about Chit Holmgren, Victor Romanyama, Evan Mobley is in that category as well.

Speaker 9 He's a guy that can defensively on offense, he's dynamic, playmaking, he's dynamic.

Speaker 9 He's had a few almost triple-doubles this year as well, and he's played at an elite level from a big man perspective.

Speaker 9 He's what, seven, seven, one, so uh, or eleven seven foot one so he's he's also a beast inside all right we appreciate it all i know you have espn nba full court press saturday

Speaker 1 yeah nba countdown with shams kendrick malika stephen a and bob myers that starts at 8 p.m on abc and then obviously nixon warriors with mike bring doris burke richard jefferson and lisa salters on the call at 8 30.

Speaker 1 we can't wait to watch shams are you at the desk now we got you at the desk

Speaker 9 You know, here and there. You know, I play the role.
You know, I play

Speaker 1 it. No, let's keep working, Shams.

Speaker 9 When we're ready to deliver information, I'm ready, baby.

Speaker 1 Maybe you get another Luca biggest trade tweet of all time out there, and maybe you'll get an opportunity to speak, okay? Let's fucking head down, keep grinding.

Speaker 1 Like you were five years ago whenever we first saw you on March 4th.

Speaker 9 Hey, I was in like a spaceship five years ago. So, you know, I think

Speaker 1 we've come a long way. We've come a long way.
Wow. We have.
Look at that. Look at you.
Simple mobile hotline. That is.

Speaker 1 Think about whoever was selling that. That's a young pat, though.

Speaker 9 That's a young pat.

Speaker 9 I don't know if you've got some,

Speaker 9 you've got a little bit more hair.

Speaker 1 I was probably 285.

Speaker 1 I was probably 285 in this. 275, 285.

Speaker 6 Right after the 2019 season. That was a tough one for us.

Speaker 2 Is that the same watch, too?

Speaker 1 Nope, different watch.

Speaker 1 That was probably you and Zion,

Speaker 2 both at the lowest weight of your careers.

Speaker 1 Interesting. I'm probably 255 right now.

Speaker 1 I played at like 230.

Speaker 2 So well in a soccer photo.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I was not well

Speaker 9 played at less at Duke, but I'm saying for your career, this career.

Speaker 1 Yeah, this career, this is probably the lightest I've been in it. No, no, no.
I got real light for NXT with Adam Cole. Definitely light.
I got real light with WrestleMania of Ross and Theory.

Speaker 9 But those are reasons. You got light for that.
We're talking life for for living.

Speaker 1 For real, for real. Life for living.
Yeah, we're living here, Sean.

Speaker 1 Just like you, we'll watch you this weekend. We appreciate you, ladies and gentlemen.
Sean Shirani. Thank you.
It is coming.

Speaker 1 Hey, big weekend of basketball, AJ. Obviously, we got the NBA Full Court press Saturday on ESPN.
Should be great. College ball conference championships happening all weekend.
Golf happening.

Speaker 1 Hockey happening. Have a great weekend.
We'll see you Monday. I hope it's the best weekend ever.
Oh,

Speaker 1 yeah.

Speaker 8 Of course.

Speaker 8 Should be.

Speaker 1 I'm so pumped for the golf. Yeah, it's real golf.

Speaker 2 Yeah, this is like the first one where it's like, okay, so you can get behind.

Speaker 1 Speaking of Tiger Woods, heard he's in

Speaker 1 potential happy place. Personally, that's what the internet's saying.
We're not going to talk about it because who knows, somebody will try to sue us out of the entirety of it.

Speaker 1 Heard Tiger's got a new lady.

Speaker 1 But also,

Speaker 1 Achilles. That is a, I don't think we've talked about it on this particular program.
Tiger Woods towards Achilles. That is a...

Speaker 1 That is brutal. That's a great way to describe that, especially after all the injuries and all the things that have happened.

Speaker 1 For him to have to to fight back the amount of times that he has, that car crash was crazy. We thought he was potentially dead, right? That was being talked about there.

Speaker 1 Instead, it was just massively damaged to his body, his lower body, his back, and everything. And then now an Achilles tear.
And we know Tiger Woods will do the Tiger Woods thing.

Speaker 1 You know, he'll do the Achilles. He'll commit fully to the recovery.
He'll come back and be super jacked, you know, try to golf and get through it all again. That's like Tiger Woods' mentality.

Speaker 1 I think it always has been. But that sucks.
That sucks for him, especially with, you know, TGL happening to him.

Speaker 8 So much. That dude has so, like, I just think of him as a human trying to walk around and live like a normal life.
Like, he already is very, like, we know he almost snapped his leg in half.

Speaker 8 And he has those crazy back injuries, too. When you have a, like, we know, like, if your back hurts, everything sucks in life.
It's impossible to do anything.

Speaker 8 That dude has a, doesn't he have his back fused? And he's had multiple surgeries now with the Achilles leg snapped in half. Like, he has just absolute massive amount of things to his body.

Speaker 8 Like, I feel bad for the dude when it comes to that.

Speaker 1 Me too. We appreciate it.
And obviously, he's been paid very, very well for everything he's done.

Speaker 1 So we're not saying that he, you know, is living a tough life compared to other folks, but he has given us so many years of entertainment. And obviously, his body has taken a beating through it all.

Speaker 1 The Achilles is the most recent, but you think about that. Like, so when he comes back, back issues.
Anytime you see somebody with a back issue, the way they walk is very obvious.

Speaker 1 But he can't walk certain ways because how fucked up his legs are. So now his back is potentially going to get fucked up because how he's going to have to walk with the Achilles, let alone the leg.

Speaker 1 I mean, it's just everything kind of feeds into the other. You know,

Speaker 1 why will he walk fucking 18 holes? It's like, all right, the fact that this guy's still walking, I think we should all be pretty pumped for it. And then on the other side, it's Achilles.

Speaker 1 I can't wait to see him win his next major.

Speaker 9 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Why are you guys going to be able to do that?

Speaker 3 I hope he goes to the champions tour because I think he's just, like, he is, he's too jacked for one. Like, he needs, I think he needs to lose.

Speaker 3 Like, he just, he can't be that jacked with how old he is. It's just his body just breaks down.
So when he does come back, like, is he going to have to change how he plays?

Speaker 3 Like, I don't want to want to see Tiger going out there getting out driven by three-fourths of the field. Like, these guys are just getting too really good.
Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 3 And it's like, so it's just not the same. And granted, like, when you...

Speaker 1 Akshay Bhatia right now, who dropped out of like high school to try to become a professional golfer, is now like top five at the players.

Speaker 2 He's a stud. He is.

Speaker 1 It's a next generation.

Speaker 3 Like, I like Akshay, but like, I don't... I don't want to watch Akshay beating Tiger because then for me, that's like,

Speaker 3 you know what I mean? Like, if Scotty beats Tiger, if Rory beats Tiger, sure.

Speaker 1 Stop ruining the game, brother. Exactly.

Speaker 3 But, like, if he's going out there and it's kind of like what it is right now, like,

Speaker 3 you just, it's not fun watching Tiger at the Masters when you hope he goes out and shoots like a 68 the first day, and then you see him kind of start to break down the second day and either makes a cut and then has to like withdraw on the third day because he just can't do it, or he shoots like an 83 on the second day and misses the cut.

Speaker 3 Like, that's just not the Tiger I want to remember when we all saw him with how dominant he was.

Speaker 3 So I hope he goes to the champions tour where he can get it in a cart, and then then he's playing, you know, Freddy Boom Boom Couples, and he can, he's kind of that guy again.

Speaker 2 Yeah, or he goes to, you know, he joins Turkey, the crown prince. God bless him.

Speaker 1 God bless him.

Speaker 2 You know, and then, yeah, it kind of just goes that route. Maybe unites live and PGA being the final guy to be like, hey, it's time.
It's time to just screw all this bullshit.

Speaker 2 Thinking about the players. It's awesome watching the players so so happy about it.
It would be better with Bryson and Brooks and those guys who are over there.

Speaker 1 DJ Cup.

Speaker 2 It would be awesome if all those guys are playing the players and if Tiger were to be that final piece to be like, hey, my final kind of

Speaker 2 contribution to the game of golf, exactly, is I'm going to be the one that just says, enough of this. You guys are now the same league.
We're doing this.

Speaker 2 The live tournaments that are in the United States, those are just going to be a part of the PGA now. And if there's one in London, that's just a normal.

Speaker 2 PGA event, not a major or anything like that, like we're going to do that as well.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and you can turn some of these tournaments into a live style of golf. Exactly.
Yeah. You know, some of these PGA off-weekend ones, you know, and those PGA are eventually like that.
What's that?

Speaker 8 What happened? What do you mean? Like a year ago, two years ago, they said they came to an agreement. Like, where did that?

Speaker 4 It's three four different times now, remember?

Speaker 1 There was a coffee meeting in Italy. That was the first one.

Speaker 1 Whenever the president of the PGA, who was Monaghan? Yeah, Jay. Monahan.
Monaghan.

Speaker 1 Remember, he came out early and was just high-horsing to hell on all the golfers that were getting multi-generational wealth laid in their lap for the first time ever in the golf world we learned a lot about the life of a pga golfer about what's guaranteed what's not guaranteed oh everything is not guaranteed uh we will certainly make money off of you this weekend you not necessarily will make any money no matter how great you are or how big your name is so there were some holes in the professional golf world that were certainly taken advantage of by a big money partner but said big money partner was obviously cast aside and said we're never doing business with this person if you do business with person you are the devil devil actually you are the worst person on earth you can't you shouldn't be able to sleep at night let alone hit a golf ball if you do this and then what like a year later maybe 13 months later there was a secret meeting between the crown prince and the director of sports for saudi arabia and jay monahan he comes back he goes and takes a leave he leaves because they like kick him out basically because there was a lot of pga golfers that were offered 80 90 100 million dollars to go join live and they said no because they were riding with the pga and then the PGA all of a sudden is going like, well, wait, how much money do you have?

Speaker 1 We will potentially take that. So that was like a big, that was a big thing.
And then there was the government trying to get involved with a monopoly.

Speaker 1 There was a lot of, a lot of stuff that was kind of happening.

Speaker 1 But yeah, two to three different times it has been in our world, what we have seen and talked about, they've had an agreement where they've come together and we're all pumped.

Speaker 1 We're like, okay, so now the PGA is getting access to money. Like everything is going to,

Speaker 1 everything's going to get better.

Speaker 1 And all the best golfers are going gonna be there and yeah i don't know if anything's ever really come of it and what it means you know it's always how long are these live deals like i know brooks recently said he has for life he still has to fulfill his obligation right like for his contract with live and then after that he doesn't know what's going to happen but are we going to see some of these guys not renew with live and come back to the pga i think allegedly i read something that the shambeau contract is up to soon with live maybe this is last season or something i read that as well i don't know the details though i guess there was an amount of money that he asked for and he said that was not true okay so he said that's not true okay so yeah, these contracts, I guess, are coming up.

Speaker 8 Can they just come right back to the PGA and get their card and every, like they never left? Will that work?

Speaker 1 No, because remember at one point it was said, if you do this, you're never welcome back. Yeah, you're banned.
And then the masters were like, uh,

Speaker 1 all the majors were like,

Speaker 1 we're starting to let them. Yeah.
Yeah, we're going to let them play. We don't care.
Yeah. PGA is your guys.

Speaker 2 You want to see the stuff that we're doing behind the scenes?

Speaker 1 We don't.

Speaker 2 You want to dive into the history of Augusta real quick?

Speaker 1 You want to do that? No, what a beautiful place, obviously. Beautiful place.

Speaker 1 New trees every day somehow the the um the whole um the whole the whole golf world is obviously been shaken up a bit over the last couple years tgl was the most recent attempt to kind of make golf uh different form and enjoyable playoffs coming up i'm sure those guys really care golfers are getting testy going on stuff like that too what'd you say h sorry ty there the golfers getting testy with the media is he calling more moricawa said he doesn't owe anything to the to these people like rocco didn't it's getting weird man yeah rocco came right back rocco western Pennsylvania guy.

Speaker 1 He's the man. The photo that I saw of his quote had him with a stogie.
Yeah, me too. Gray beard, backwards hat.
He looked like a G. Shades.
Like an absolute G. I saw that.

Speaker 1 Arnold would have ran his ass down.

Speaker 4 Speaking of what, Tiger won that one with a tornado or whatever.

Speaker 1 We have some breaking news out of the college basketball world.

Speaker 1 Pete Dam was reporting that Iowa is dismissing basketball coach Fran McCaffrey after 15 seasons. We literally just talked about this.

Speaker 1 We literally just talked about this about an hour ago. He reached seven NCAA tourneys in his 15 years and is the school's all-time leader in wins with 297.
Iowa finished 17 and 16 this year.

Speaker 1 Obviously, they lose to Illinois last night and he got ejected during the game. In his last game as head coach of the Iowa Hawkeyes, he got kicked out.
Pretty gangster way to go out, Fran.

Speaker 1 Hell yeah, Fran. Way to go, coach.

Speaker 1 I asked the question, I was like, okay, so does the basketball team like mirror the football team, like good, but never really gonna go because Fran's been there a long time Kirk's been there a long time is that just kind of what it is Ty you actually said like this is kind of what the Iowa basketball team is you've said they've choked a couple times they've had a couple good teams what are your thoughts immediately here upon hearing that Fran's on his way out of the men's basketball program yeah I mean I think I definitely knew it was coming so I'm not really surprised I love Fran McCaffrey a lot of people don't like him because he he is like there I guess people within Iowa I think like him a lot of people outside don't like him because he is he's He's fiery.

Speaker 3 He's a psycho, but he's always got his guys' back. But when you like, you meet him, like, he is the most, like,

Speaker 3 he is one of the most level-headed, you know, like, just good to people. You know,

Speaker 1 he's not from Iowa.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like, shit like this is awesome. Like, and he used to do stuff like this all the time.
So he's just a great guy. And then, like, off the court, like, good, good, just a good dude to everybody.

Speaker 3 And, like, Steve Alford, who people in Indiana, like, a lot of people, like, Iowa fans, like, he was a prick to everybody off the court as well.

Speaker 3 You know, like, like Iowa was winning at the time and people liked him, but like he was a very well-noted, like, this guy's an asshole. This guy sucks.

Speaker 3 Fran wasn't that way, but it's one of those things with like Iowa football. Like, they have the, they have the NFL success.
Like, they get guys into the NFL.

Speaker 3 So, like, the recruiting footprint is much different. It's a lot different with Iowa basketball because

Speaker 3 they'll get good dudes, but like, Iowa State is kind of like that. And, you know, like they, Tyrese, you know, and guys like that, like, they get transfers in.

Speaker 3 So they don't really send a bunch of guys guys to the pros, so they kind of have to, like, their whole model is, hey, yeah, we might get, you know, a good dude from St.

Speaker 3 Louis or a dude from Illinois, but most of the people who are playing basketball for Iowa are kids from Iowa, white kids from Iowa. I mean, that's, you know, a lot of people make that joke, too.

Speaker 3 Like, you watch a Big Ten game, you're not seeing a whole lot of Big Ten teams trotting five white dudes out there who, you know, but Iowa has just,

Speaker 3 well, I mean, it's just, it's just the truth.

Speaker 1 Well, they got the Iowa exciting whites every single year as well. It is what it is.

Speaker 3 And it's like, so they do what they can. Like,

Speaker 3 they've always been one of those teams where if they shoot really well, they can beat anybody because they shoot a shitload of threes. But that's what happens in the tournament.

Speaker 3 You go cold and you end up getting beat by 20 because you can't shoot at all. So it kind of, it had run its course.
Like, he coached two of his kids all the way through there.

Speaker 3 He had another kid who's a senior in high school right now, and he didn't commit to Iowa. So I think a lot of people saw that and were like.

Speaker 3 The end's probably near. I mean, it's just what it's just, it's a little bit different than football.
I think they'll stay with Kirk forever because he's won a couple BCS bowls.

Speaker 3 Like, he's kind of entitled to that, I think. Basketball, it's just, like, and I don't know if

Speaker 3 NIL and stuff like that, like, the football team is always going to be, like, I don't know how much the facilities are nice and everything, but I don't know how much boosters around the state of Iowa, like, they care, but if it's a pecking order, like, money and resources and funds are always going to go to the football team.

Speaker 1 And women's basketball. And wrestling maybe.

Speaker 3 Now, now, for sure. Wrestling, yeah, wrestling just got a new deal.
So it's like, it's one of those things where that's crazy to think about.

Speaker 3 Yeah, like, and if they won, that would probably change a little bit.

Speaker 3 But I think it is one of those things, like, they've had a couple of these teams and they just haven't had the success in the postseason.

Speaker 1 Him staring at that ref,

Speaker 1 not saying a thing.

Speaker 1 You proud of yourself?

Speaker 8 Got his player comes to tap him to try to pull him away. Nah, don't even think about it.

Speaker 1 No, no, thanks. I've got to let this fucker know with my look that I will not appreciate the way he's doing whatever the fuck is.
So awesome.

Speaker 8 You feel good? That looks like Shifty. The ref kind of looks like Shifty.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and the ref steps forward too. I appreciate it.
Because the ref will move up too. Yup.
What? Yup. What?

Speaker 1 Frank, don't you say you step in me, motherfucker? Yeah. Get off the court.
I'm just kind of waltzing over. I can't believe you.
That's what he's saying with his whole body right there.

Speaker 1 You can't eject me. I'm not going to say anything, but I just want you to know I'm not happy with what you're doing.

Speaker 8 I love this play. Come on, here we go, coach.
Come on.

Speaker 1 Here we go. Yeah, I'll be here.
Hold on one second.

Speaker 1 What? What if you were to hit the ball out of his hand? Oh, that would have been the ball out of the hands. It would have been great right there.
Hell of a run, Fran. Yeah, to his credit, too.

Speaker 3 He got hired my freshman year of college in Iowa

Speaker 3 after the basketball season, my freshman year. Iowa fucking sucked before he got there.
Todd Lickleiter, who used to be the coach at Butler Small School, you know, took him on like a couple runs.

Speaker 3 He came in. He went like,

Speaker 3 I think he won nine games his first year and like eight games his second year. Like Iowa basketball was in a really bad spot.

Speaker 3 And Fran, you know, I mean, leaving the all-time wins leader, took him to seven NCAA tournaments. Like, you know, I think a lot of people will look very fondly on his time in Iowa City.

Speaker 1 All right. Well,

Speaker 1 that's good.

Speaker 1 You know, good thing they're in Programme. Hell yeah.
Got a great weekend ahead. Conference basketball games are on right now.
Pumped. A lot of things are happening.

Speaker 1 Diane Rossini is reporting some scoopage from Scoop Town.

Speaker 4 Scoop Town.

Speaker 1 Now, granted, News changes every day, I think, with teams and everything like that.

Speaker 1 So what information is being said today is maybe not the same as it was two days ago or maybe even this morning, you know, as things continue to evolve.

Speaker 1 Allegedly, what she is now reporting is that the Minnesota Vikings are trying to figure out what they want to do with Aaron Rodgers or J.J. McCarthy or what they want to do with their team.

Speaker 1 So Aaron's given them time to make their decision. And now the Vikings have yet to make a decision.
So we all wait.

Speaker 1 Okay, so...

Speaker 1 Bunch of nothing. It seems to be what's going on right now.
Is that real? Possibly, maybe. I mean, Diane Rossini has a lot of inside sources.
Is that real right now? Maybe. Will that change tomorrow?

Speaker 1 Good. And yesterday was a day.
Maybe. Who knows? Who knows what's happening behind closed doors in all these buildings? Who knows what text messages are being sent?

Speaker 1 Who knows what emails are being kind of passed back and forth? Who knows what agents are saying to different teams? I mean, it's pretty.

Speaker 1 Pretty chaotic business in the NFL and free agency as a whole, let alone whenever you got a guy who's a Mount Rushmore player, first Ballot Hall of Famer, potentially making a decision for the last time of his football life on what jersey he's going to wear, which is obviously a big moment for him.

Speaker 1 And if he will play football again, that's right. But what we do know is there's a chance there's going to be a sunset walk

Speaker 1 because source says have told us that that's the MO.

Speaker 1 Get a blanket, it's a little chili out of here.

Speaker 8 We'll go see the sun good. He's got to set it up.
He's got to make it make it a good one to do it, Aaron. He's got to really do something for them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because Aaron's like, when the sun goes down,

Speaker 1 I'll be moving down the beach sometime.

Speaker 1 That's what he's doing.

Speaker 1 Just contemplating things.

Speaker 4 That just beautiful.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 we saw the Zillow.

Speaker 2 That's pretty beautiful.

Speaker 1 That's a part of it, though. That whole.
Exactly.

Speaker 1 Staged it. Staged the photo.
Walking on his beach with his wired headphones. With that blanket wrapped around him.
That's what he wanted. Backwards hat.
Wants people to think he's cool.

Speaker 2 It's crazy.

Speaker 1 All right, let's get to a break we'll see you on Monday thank you all so much for allowing us to do this for a living remember big night

Speaker 1 on April 9th will be a great time are we streaming that show oh we shall see be a friend tell a friend something nice it might change their life on that note boys in the back great work boys all you great work boys graphic boys great work great boys

Speaker 1 Mitt you fucked up a podcast upload, but everything else you did great. Good night, man.

Speaker 1 Great night.

Speaker 1 That's on everybody else for having you do that. Just want to let you know, I did not know that was the case until maybe 12 hours later.
So that's not on you, that's more so on me.

Speaker 1 But say, see, also, group decision there, Mitt. You're doing great, Mitt.

Speaker 1 Doing great. Let's drink some more water, Mitt.

Speaker 1 AJ, great work this week.

Speaker 9 Thank you.

Speaker 8 Does Mitt not drink water or what?

Speaker 1 This morning he was just sitting there. He's 26 years old and just said about a coughing that the doctor would kill him.

Speaker 1 And then after it was done, he just sat there,

Speaker 1 took it, and then just kept working. Didn't even look for a water.
Eyes running at that point, obviously, because he was choked.

Speaker 1 Didn't even think about like getting a water or drink anything, just kept on working. Foxy actually had to get up, get him a water,

Speaker 1 dry. You, yeah, this helps.
Probably sick of hearing him cough. Yeah,

Speaker 1 no shit. Thanks, man.
Drinks it, obviously, stopped. It's like, all right, what would Mitt be doing if he didn't work here?

Speaker 3 Probably be dead.

Speaker 1 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 1 I hope not. Come on.
I hope not.

Speaker 1 I hope not. And that was all.
Keep him out of the car.

Speaker 1 Out of cars, keep him a lot of things. Let's also keep him out of uploading podcasts.
Okay, let's make sure that's the case. We learn that.
Maybe next year.

Speaker 1 Maybe next year we'll get into that stage of life. And,

Speaker 1 you know, it's been a great week this week. We appreciate you all for allowing us to do it for a living.
Thank you to all of our guests that stopped by.

Speaker 1 And thank you to everybody that bought tickets for a big night out. All right.
We're in this thing together. Team on me,

Speaker 1 team on three.

Speaker 1 One, two, three. Team.

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