PMS 2.0 1283 - UNC Football GM Michael Lombardi, Shams Charania, Daniel Jeremiah, Coach Chuck Pagano, & AJ Hawk

Speaker 1 Hello beautiful people and welcome to our humble abode the thunderdome on this sports Thursday January 23rd 2025 this program starts now

Speaker 1 It's wonderful and obviously we got championship weekend and championship Sunday ahead in the NFL and there is so much to talk about happening around the NFL college ball we got signings we got coaches we got general managers we got rumors we got this we got that we have a fantastic show today.

Speaker 1 Michael Lombardi will be joining us in about 20 minutes. He's currently the general manager for the University of North Carolina Tar Heel football team.
How's life in college, Baizan?

Speaker 1 But also, he is a guy that's pretty plugged in basically everywhere around the NFL. What's he hearing, especially about that Raiders job?

Speaker 1 You know, Michael Lombardi speaks about the Raiders a lot because that's where he got to start.

Speaker 1 And I think he has so much respect and appreciation for the Davis family and everything that Al did for him and the Raiders as a whole.

Speaker 1 And what he's been seeing out of them the last couple years, he says this is crap.

Speaker 1 He says that Raiders fans get mad at him. I think they hate him.
But now his guy, Tom Brady, is one of the owners and running everything.

Speaker 1 So it's like, I feel like Lombardi is going to be pretty dialed in on what's going on there. How about all the other coaching hires?

Speaker 1 What about all the other general manager hires that need to take place? What does Paison say about any of it? We will talk to him in about 19 minutes. I cannot wait to hear from him.

Speaker 1 Last week, he had his hair a little disheveled. He did.
Oh, yeah. Looked like he was in the middle of it a little bit.

Speaker 1 FaceTime with him this morning. Feels like he's okay.
Feels like he has found.

Speaker 1 He's back in it. Yeah, he's found air.
You know, he's back because they have a lot to do in a very short amount of time as they try to, you know, kind of get used to the college football.

Speaker 1 Lifestyle, we'll be joined by Sean Shirani in the second hour. Okay.
Basketball's happening. Sure.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 2 It must be.

Speaker 1 Oh, pacers are in Paris today. Oui, we, au jourdui, bonchams, en pacers, en paris.
You know, like, there is a lot going on here.

Speaker 1 Tyrese Halliburton, king of Paris, this past summer, as you recall, didn't sweat one time, but he still walked out of there with gold milk.

Speaker 1 Nobody did that. He was having a blast.
Happy birthday, 5th. You know, the whole thing was happening for Tyrese Halliburton.
Taking on Wemby in his home country.

Speaker 1 I believe Netflix is also having a docuseries released at some point about the Olympics where they go into the locker room of the French and the Americans and Serbians and everything like that.

Speaker 1 So I think basketball is kind of happening, especially internationally today, 2 o'clock on NBA TV.

Speaker 1 Everybody has that. Everybody has that.
And I believe they're playing again on Saturday. Saturday, and I think that one's going to be on ESPN.
But basketball is happening.

Speaker 1 We'll talk to Sham Shirani about the drama.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Have to.
Jimmy Butler down there in Miami.

Speaker 1 Remember, Shams came out and said, hey, Jimmy Butler wants out of Miami. Okay, breaking.
And then Jimmy Butler's agents say, Shams is the new guy on block. He doesn't know anything.

Speaker 1 Try to discredit Shams. Oh, yeah.
Tried to bury Shams. Shams in a new location, a new network, at a new senior role.
And this guy tried to bury Shams.

Speaker 1 And all Shams did was sit in the pocket and say, nah. My sources are good.
It's been triple stamped, double stamped. Jimmy wants out of there.
Then as it kind of unfolds, Jimmy wants higher.

Speaker 1 And it's getting ugly. He talked on First Take this morning about how it's like a divorce.

Speaker 1 You know, right now it's just like, is this going to be a messy divorce or are they going to figure out how to make this happen? Jimmy missed the plane. Happens.

Speaker 1 He's planning on showing up on his own plane. You know, it's nice of him.
Yeah.

Speaker 1 He's been suspended nine games over the last two weeks by Pat Riley in the Miami Heat or whatever.

Speaker 1 So this is basically a Shams story from day one, even though his agent and everybody else, Pat Riley, even, I think everybody tried to bury Shams.

Speaker 1 Shams just kind of, you know, stayed in the pocket, kind of taken it all and now only elevated himself, which we're proud of shampoo because we've known him since they won he'll join us in a second hour and then daniel jeremiah of nfl network mr move the sticks a draft analyst and scout formerly in the nfl now in the media world he'll do the play-by-play of the combine with rich eisen will be joining us in a second i'm gonna ask him some questions

Speaker 1 i have some

Speaker 1 everybody's talking talks to was here at boss coder and i told you man

Speaker 1 One half of the hammer.

Speaker 1 Cowboys, AP Tone is here. All the finalists for the awards that you voted on are out.
Yeah, they are. 36 years as a football coach, 18 in college, 18 in the NFL.
Chuck Bagon's here.

Speaker 1 Chuck, everybody's talking about this Borganzi quote and Brinker quote down there in Tennessee. Now, Borganzi has been brought in as the general manager.

Speaker 1 Brinker is the president of football operation. Borganzi is handling the drafting free agency.
Brinker is the one that's going to cut it down to the final 53. They're very tight.

Speaker 1 They're on the same page. Brinker was on a local radio station with Ramon Foster and a few others.
And this is what he had to say about that number one overall pick that they have.

Speaker 1 Are you going to trade it or are you going to utilize that pick that you have down there in Tennessee? Here's the president of football operations for the Tennessee Titans, Chad Brinker.

Speaker 3 Yeah, we got to look at all the options, but the one thing I will say, if there's a generational talent, you don't pass that up. You can't pass that up.

Speaker 3 And if we feel that there's a generational talent right there, what we call blue player, a guy that is a franchise type player,

Speaker 3 the player that tips the field in your favor every time they step on the field, like you cannot, you cannot pass that up.

Speaker 3 But we'll also look at all the options, not only at the number one overall pick, but in all the rounds.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 3 we got to see what the value is. We got to see what's on the table.
We got to

Speaker 3 do what's best for the Tennessee Titans and helping us build

Speaker 3 a football team that can sustain over time. And

Speaker 3 I've emphasized how important the draft is, that the core of this roster is going to be built through the draft.

Speaker 3 So yeah, we're looking at all those options.

Speaker 1 It's very interesting. He was brought in 2023.
Callahan was brought in last year. Now the GM, Borganzi, Frida Boston's been brought in,

Speaker 1 you know, this year. So everybody's at different times.
Allegedly, Borganzi and Brinker are on the same page. They'll be the ones creating the Ross.
So what's that mean for Callahan? We shall see.

Speaker 1 But a once-in-a-generation type player potentially at number one. Now, this has obviously sent ripple effects through it all.
And we'll talk to Daniel Jeremiah in a second.

Speaker 1 Is that Travis Hunter is he's talking about? Abdul Carter? Who's the once-in-a-generation player that we're potentially missing or not thinking about?

Speaker 1 And how come every time they talk about quarterbacks, it's Cam Ward, Shador Sanders, insert name a quarterback, insert name a quarterback, insert name a quarterback, and there's never a Will Howard.

Speaker 1 What am I missing about Will Howard in this entire thing?

Speaker 1 Ever since you told me to take a peek at him a week ago, 10 days ago, and I took a peek at him, and then I watched him, you know, watch you guys on the Manning Cat.

Speaker 1 You guys crushed it again, obviously.

Speaker 1 The numbers speak for themselves. The numbers speak for themselves, yeah.
Amen, amen.

Speaker 1 But anyway, I know you don't like any flowers being thrown at you guys.

Speaker 1 Keep it moving. Yes, yes.
But yeah,

Speaker 1 he was absolutely just incredible in that game. And he's played so well.
And I don't know.

Speaker 1 I don't see it. He just,

Speaker 1 the metrics were all there, right? He's 6'4, 245, 240 pounds, mobile enough. He can get out of harm's way.
Quarterback runs. Certainly accurate.
Got the arm talent, make all the throws.

Speaker 1 Yeah, why not a big, smart, physical, I mean, and and a dog? And a guy that

Speaker 1 apparently like all those studs around him, like they love him and they play for him. So that's the biggest thing, like generational talent.
Brinker's talking about it. Like I got very lucky.

Speaker 1 No pun intended, you know, when I got the job here in India 2012. Andrew Luck sitting there, right? Yeah, we're going to pass on Andrew.
No. Generational talent, to say the least, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, so.

Speaker 1 If there's a guy there and this may be the guy after they do the vetting process, I don't see why this guy, I think, ap tone you got him wearing the fourth i got a couple times that's what i'm saying let me talk to daniel jeremiah about this what do we so i don't i don't know what i'm missing and me neither and i've already set the table with daniel jeremiah like hey i just want to let you know there's some heat coming you know because all you draft experts have left this guy out i just want to know why i i just want he's liked by his teammates he's big he shows up on the biggest stage and he was on our show just cool he's one of the lads awesome yeah he's one of the lads i i don't i don't fully get it now granted shador can spin it and obviously his dad is one of the greatest football players of all time, one of the greatest athletes of all time.

Speaker 1 And we've seen him have to grow. And he's been very mature for a while.
I'm not saying anything against Shador. I'm not saying anything against Cam Ward.

Speaker 1 He's played a lot of football, obviously, went down to Miami, changed their entire culture, and did a great job this season. And he led an offense that was very explosive.

Speaker 1 Not saying anything about Cam, but just a lack of respect at all for Will Howard. I don't, it doesn't make any sense because he's being treated as somebody that's like 5'11.

Speaker 1 He's being treated as somebody that's like 5'10. Maybe he doesn't have the physical stats to be able to keep up with all the stuff he's been able to do on the field, field.
But he's huge.

Speaker 1 He's gigantic. He can run.
I don't, this one doesn't make any sense. And I guess it's going to be because he's surrounded by talent.
But when he was at Kansas State his final year, he wasn't.

Speaker 1 He was a Big 12 player of the year. And that's over Quinn Urs.
That's over everybody at Texas. That's whenever, you know, Oklahoma's in a Big 12.
Obviously, West Virginia was in a Big 12.

Speaker 1 So somehow he won player of the year over everybody that was with the Mountaineers. It's like, this guy's a good player.
He's played a lot of ball. Seems to be cool.

Speaker 1 I just want to hear from Dan Jeremiah. We'll talk to him in the next hour.

Speaker 2 Well, and it's trying to buy talent thing. Like, sure, you can get that.

Speaker 2 But Shadur Sanders, they're talking about Travis Travis Hunter being that generational player, number one, and Shadur play with him.

Speaker 2 So I don't know why that isn't a conversation at all when it comes to him.

Speaker 2 And I believe some of the other wide receivers for Colorado, they're pegged to be drafted, you know, second, third round, too. So they're great players.

Speaker 2 And then you think about Cam Ward, like, sure, ACC, maybe he didn't go up against the best guys, but also he was throwing to, you know, Restrepo, and Restreppo is considered to be.

Speaker 1 The greatest Miami. He has the most yards, most receptions, most touchdowns.
I think for a wide receiver in Miami history. Yeah, and he's considered like one of the top slot receivers.

Speaker 2 And we've seen how some of these slot receivers, Lap McConkey, have done in the NFL. So it's not like he's throwing the slouches either.
So it doesn't really make sense.

Speaker 2 But, you know, that just happens with guys like that who transfer and then have one good year. And, you know, you can throw Chip Kelly into that, too.

Speaker 1 He had two good years, though.

Speaker 1 Kansas State, he was like, he had Kansas State in it. And I guess the Big 12 doesn't get talked about that way.

Speaker 1 I guess it doesn't. Even though Arizona State took Texas to the wire.

Speaker 1 It legitimately took him to the wire. There, the champion came out of nowhere.
BYU, I think, could have held their own against a lot of different teams.

Speaker 1 Big 12 obviously loses Texas and Oklahoma, and everybody thinks that they're a weaker conference or whatever. It's like, this dude was great at Kansas State.
That's why Miami wanted them.

Speaker 1 That's why Ohio State wanted them. And then he goes into a system that is obviously more conducive for him to be a pocket passer because of all the weapons they have.

Speaker 1 He hasn't even really showcased his running. He started during the playoffs there, but like,

Speaker 1 I don't get it. I don't think that's it.
Maybe that's the thing.

Speaker 1 Maybe because of the evolution of the quarterback and the quarterback play, and you see the Lamar Jacksons and whatnot, the type of offense that people want to run maybe that's maybe that's got a little bit of but he can he can move yeah he can move but I don't see him moving like those guys move like Lamar moves and some of these guys running the RPOs and the read option the zone read I see some quarterback run some traps and powers he's big he can get the third and ones like Josh Allen yeah

Speaker 1 tell me some yeah he is pretty good not bad in Wyoming

Speaker 4 you also you also said it like them like the whole Big 12 thing like he he didn't play in that Big 12 12 that everyone's like,

Speaker 4 Texas and Oklahoma were in the Big 12, and he was the Big 12 player of the year. And also, for all the talent, you still have to show up.

Speaker 4 They beat three top five teams in a row when he was the quarterback.

Speaker 4 I don't know.

Speaker 4 I mean, I still think, I think he's going to go to the combine and just absolutely light it on fire, not just in the interviews, but I think it's going to come out that he's a much better athlete than people give him credit for as well.

Speaker 1 I think so, too. I can't wait to talk to Daniel Jeremiah in the next hour about it all.

Speaker 1 Big news today, all the finalists for the awards have been announced. Congrats to the AP getting that done.

Speaker 1 Congrats to AP Tone getting your votes in.

Speaker 1 Offensive Player of the Year is obviously a massive one because this normally goes to the person that isn't a quarterback because the quarterback normally going to win the MVP.

Speaker 1 We all assume Saquon Barkley is going to win this, but hey, could be anybody else. Could be.

Speaker 1 And Josh Allen, not even being a finalist for the Offensive Player of the Year, tells you a little something, something too about this entire voting process.

Speaker 1 Lamar Jackson, finalist for Offensive Player of the the Year, finalist for NFL MVP as well, which is Josh Allen, Saquon Barkley, Joe Burrow, Jared Goff, Lamar Jackson. These are not in any order.

Speaker 1 These are just a list of the finalists. And then Defensive Player of the Year obviously was announced.
Zach Bond getting in there. Shout out to him having a massive year.

Speaker 1 Miles Garrett, Trey Hendrickson, Pat Sertain II, and TJ

Speaker 1 getting in there. And then comeback player of the year also finalists were announced.
And this is a big one.

Speaker 1 This is a conversation because Joe Burrow, obviously injured, came back jk dobbins injured came back christian gonzalez missed 13 games came back tomar hamlin i think we all know what happened with it within the last two years i guess it wasn't last season sam darnold though was active i believe for 17 games last year so didn't have any injuries any sickness any death potentially that is also on this list within the last two years but he is on the comeback player of the year finalist list let's go to ap tone tone why do you think that is the case and what do you think inevitably ends up happening with this particular award?

Speaker 5 So this over the last two years, I believe it was Geno Smith

Speaker 5 and then Joe Flacco. Neither of those guys were coming back from injury.

Speaker 5 They were coming back from, you know, they just weren't playing, whether it wasn't good, they were old, circumstances, situations happened.

Speaker 5 We all know when Joe Flacco went over DeMar Hamlin, there was a lot of people talking. Even Joe Flacco said like, hey.

Speaker 5 Not comeback player of the year. DeMar Hamlin's comeback player of the year.

Speaker 1 Yeah, come back from what? Ubering my fingers around. Exactly.
That's what he said.

Speaker 5 So then there was the AP kind of put out earlier this year, you know, the

Speaker 5 kind of how the award, the rule should have been taken.

Speaker 5 The spirit of the award is to honor a player who has demonstrated resilience in the face of adversity by overcoming illness, physical injury, or other circumstances that led him to misplaying time the previous season.

Speaker 5 Now, other circumstances, I guess you can take that however you want, but you know, a lot of AP voters took the spirit of the award, overcoming like an injury illness, something like that, not just not playing, not playing.

Speaker 1 But he's a finalist.

Speaker 1 Even as a finalist, not as many AP voters as we had thought decided to put the guy who didn't play just because he wasn't the starter, and then now he plays great into the comeback player of the year.

Speaker 1 You AP people, are you guys all on the same page over there? What's going on?

Speaker 5 It doesn't feel like it. I'm not allowed to reveal who I voted for yet or the top five, I don't believe.

Speaker 5 But, you know, I asked the AP about it

Speaker 5 and this, you know, situation as far as Sam Darnold goes.

Speaker 5 And they said, you know, everyone in the NFL is eligible for comeback player of the year, unless you're a rookie because you weren't in the NFL last year.

Speaker 5 But we hope the voters, you know, take the spirit of the award as how it should.

Speaker 1 Okay. So we should

Speaker 1 assume with that message being sent multiple times from the AP, that although Sam Darnold is certainly a finalist here,

Speaker 1 And Tone won't give away his votes. No, he won't.

Speaker 1 But as somebody who's been very lucky enough to ride alongside an AP voter, they've changed this this year. Like this is a this year change thing.

Speaker 1 So whenever the sports books had Sam Darnold as the favorite to win the entire thing because of how he's playing, they were going off what previous awards were like. People were taking their bets.

Speaker 1 Sports books were accepting the bets. You name it.
And then once again, had to come out and say, hey, what the voters are being told is it's not like you stink, now you're good again.

Speaker 1 It's like, hey, did you go through some shit and now you're back? So we can assume that's what the award's going to be and who it's going to go to.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and I tweeted it out earlier in the year when I saw that he was a favorite. And I said, I think the sports books, this is kind of misleading to people.

Speaker 5 You know, a lot of people reply with that. Other circumstances are that he was on the Jets, the Jeffs drafted him.

Speaker 5 That's, you know, that's, that's a pretty big other circumstances or things like that.

Speaker 1 I mean, yeah, the more we learn.

Speaker 1 Yeah, the more we learn, it is tough circumstances.

Speaker 1 Argue that. Yeah, I agree.
Brick Johnson comes in there, tells you he's stink. It's going to be tough to respond from.

Speaker 1 It's like when you're playing Call of Duty and a guy in the lobby says something that hits a little bit too close to home. That's Brick Johnson football.

Speaker 1 I think Brick Johnson is a motivator. I think if we were to understand the story from the New York Times as athletic, he wants to celebrate people and everything.

Speaker 1 I assume he didn't just crush Sam Darnold. But I guess you could other circumstances into this guy was in a terrible situation.

Speaker 5 You could if you wanted to not pay attention to the spirit of the award, sure.

Speaker 2 But you have to. Like, this is a two-horse race.
It's J.K. Dobbins and, you know, Joe Burrow.
And I'm a Christian Gonzalez guy, but like J.K.

Speaker 2 Dobbins and Joe Burrow, unless I'm mistaken, haven't really won any all-pro or anything this year.

Speaker 2 So I feel like sometimes with these awards, like they're almost, you know, rewarding guys when they don't get rewarded in other places. Like Joe Burrow had an unbelievable season.

Speaker 2 Is he really going to win nothing? Like you would assume they're going to give him...

Speaker 1 There's a chance Saquon wins nothing. Yeah.
Yeah. There's a chance it wins.

Speaker 2 That's why to that point, that's why it's like, hey, he's going to win Offensive Player of the Year because he can't just win.

Speaker 1 Well, what if Josh Allen wins the MVP? Then Lamar Jackson wins nothing? Yeah. Well, yeah, yeah.
There's a chance.

Speaker 1 If Lamar Jackson wins the MVP, which all Pro Football Writers Association of America has deemed Lamar Jackson the MVP. I didn't do enough research on how much that matches up with the AP.

Speaker 1 I should have. First team all-pro quarterback, though, Lamar Jackson, which is voted on by the same AP people that are voting for the awards.
So let's assume Lamar Jackson's winning the MVP.

Speaker 1 So Josh Allen doesn't win the MVP again. He's on up for Offensive Player of the Year, right? He's on.
So Josh Allen has another 40-plus touchdown year, has led his team again.

Speaker 1 He won three rushing touchdowns, three passing touchdowns, week 13 or 14.

Speaker 1 First time ever that has happened to quarterback. Having the year he's having with the Rosh that he's having, he's going to win nothing.

Speaker 1 You know, he's going to end up with nothing in this entire thing. Maybe the Super Bowl.
Bingo.

Speaker 1 Which he'd say, hey, I don't need that other track. Well, just like Saquon would say as well, if the Eagles are able to do it.
100%. How do you feel about these particular games this weekend?

Speaker 1 We went to NFL Plus Premium, NFL Pro.

Speaker 1 And found some of the matchups and stats that they think are worthy of being a conversation. Let's start with the NFC game here.
Let's start with the Commanders taking on the Philadelphia Eagles.

Speaker 1 The Commanders led the NFL in scoring with 34 points per game in the the playoffs thus far, while the Eagles are only allowing 16 points per game in the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Both teams have an NFL best plus-six turnover differential in the playoffs, entering the NFC Championship game. How do you feel about this? What does this stat tell you?

Speaker 1 It says Commanders are scoring a lot, but the Eagles aren't letting people score. That's why they make it to the NFC Championship game, these people.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but let's look at the last game, regular season week 16, Commanders versus Eagles. Okay.
Down in Washington, D.C. Yep.
I think that was 36-33. It was.
The Commanders.

Speaker 1 High scoring affiliate. And he threw five touchdown passes.
Who? Jaden Daniels.

Speaker 1 Speaking of, Jaden Daniels is the first rookie quarterback to have multiple playoff games with multiple passing touchdowns.

Speaker 1 And his 116.2 playoff passer rating is the best by a rookie quarterback in a postseason in NFL history.

Speaker 1 This guy's special, man.

Speaker 1 Him and Cliff Kingsbury seen the field very well. Let's go to another one here.
This one's about Saquon Barkley.

Speaker 1 Saquon Barkley is averaging 162 rushing yards a game in the 2024 playoffs, which is the most by a player in a single postseason in NFL history.

Speaker 1 Some historic players in this particular run.

Speaker 5 He went for 150 and 146 in the games against commanders this year. His over-under on rush yards in this championship game is 130, which is the highest over or under rush yards a player has ever had.

Speaker 1 And here's a big one. Great stat there from Tone.
The Eagles have the league's top-ranked scoring and total defense. including playoffs entering conference championship week.

Speaker 1 Teams with the number one scoring and total defense entering a conference championship matchup at at home are 4-0 over the last 20 seasons. Jeez.

Speaker 1 So it hasn't happened often, but when it does happen, normally very good for the team. You got a good defense, you're going to win games, especially whenever it matters.
Absolutely. Excuse me.

Speaker 1 I didn't mean to run her up. But pretty good

Speaker 1 formula this time of year is being able to run the ball, stop the run, and pack a defense, right? And Philly can do all that. That's Cohen's point.
I mean, Saquon had four touchdowns.

Speaker 1 two touchdowns in each of those games as well. Yeah.
Against the commander. Run the ball, stop the run.
That's what everybody says whenever it matters. especially in Philadelphia this weekend.

Speaker 1 It's going to be cold. Not that Washington isn't used to that, but it's going to be bad weather.
Can you run the rock?

Speaker 1 You know, you don't have to, you don't have to put it through the sky, especially in bad weather. You can be able to run it.
You're good. When games matter, it's old school football, always has been.

Speaker 2 Yeah, and there are other stats about how the Eagles' defense held the commanders to like 30-something rush yards or something along those lines.

Speaker 2 And when you think about Cosme, they're kind of starting guard in the middle of that defense or that offense going up against the Jalen Carter. Best D tackle in football, Jalen Carter.

Speaker 2 That's a huge mismatch for them.

Speaker 1 Let's go to the AFC here from NFL Plus Premium Pro. The Josh Allen Patrick Mahomes playoff matchups have averaged 63.7 combined points per game.

Speaker 1 Five points more than any other quarterback matchups that have occurred at least three times since 1950. They ended up showing up in the biggest games these two.

Speaker 1 The Josh Allen stats, although he's 0-3 in a playoffs against Patrick Mahomes, very good.

Speaker 1 He plays very well. This is like whenever people were bearing Kirk Cousins for so long in the primetime games, then you look at his stats, it's like Kirk actually bowling.

Speaker 1 Just so happens to be playing against a great quarterback on the other side. Josh Allen, same situation here in the playoffs against Patrick Mahomes.
Is this the year?

Speaker 1 Is this the year? Speaking of Patrick Mahomes, Patrick Mahomes is looking to join Tom Brady, 10, and John Elwy, 5, as the only starting quarterbacks in NFL history to reach the Super Bowl five times.

Speaker 1 He's 29 years old.

Speaker 1 He's 29 years old. Crazy.
Unbelievable. Josh Allen, after recording a career low, 22 design runs during the entire regular season.

Speaker 1 Josh Allen has recorded eight designed runs for 35 yards and a touchdown in this year's playoffs thus thus far.

Speaker 1 Over the course of his career, Allen has averaged 3.8 designed runs per game during the playoffs, up from his regular season average of two.

Speaker 1 Allen has also recorded 69.6 success for blah, blah, blah, blah. Eagan.
Whenever the games matter, they start running this guy. He's tough to stop.

Speaker 1 And the Chiefs have gone eight consecutive games without a giveaway, entering the AFC Championship game.

Speaker 1 That is the longest streak by a team without a giveaway since at least 1950, including the playoffs.

Speaker 1 Some historic stuff happening here in these playoffs this weekend, especially from the Chiefs as they look to do something nobody's ever done. Obviously, went three straight in the modern era.

Speaker 1 Josh Allen's looking to do something they've never done in the playoffs, which is beat Patrick Mahomes. And Patrick Mahomes is doing shit that nobody's ever done by the age that he is.

Speaker 1 We're talking about history all over the place for the AFC Championship game. Yeah, no question about it.
Like you mentioned, 4-1 in the regular season.

Speaker 1 Josh Allen is, you know, 4-1 against Mahomes, 0-3 in the playoffs against Mahomes.

Speaker 1 But to your point, you said, okay, he's got to go up against Patty Mahomes, Hall of Fame head coach in Andy Reid, right? Hall of Fame defensive coordinator in Spaggs.

Speaker 1 You know, so there's just, there's Hall of Famers all over the place. And, you know, who are you going to put your money on?

Speaker 1 Who are you going to trust in a game like this at Arrowhead in those elements? AQ Shipley says, don't think about putting money on that offensive line for Kansas City.

Speaker 1 AQ says, this Kansas City offensive, this is what he's saying. I'll be.
I'm just telling you what AQ says. Well, he also had Philly's whole line,

Speaker 1 you know, at

Speaker 1 one and then six all of a sudden. Yeah, yeah.
He doesn't really know what he's doing. He had some teams that were ranked ahead, right? I mean, he was off.
He was the, I love the shot yesterday.

Speaker 1 He was unbelievable. Great shot.
Great shot. 30 people, $500.

Speaker 1 I mean, beautiful. Great time of year for it.
Taxes are coming. All that shit.
Yep.

Speaker 1 But he's crying about the flag that was thrown. You know, I'm talking

Speaker 1 about the chop and the snatch. Well,

Speaker 1 his finger got caught in.

Speaker 1 His finger got caught in this thing. He wasn't a crab.
But you know how these refs are taught, right?

Speaker 1 Did not do.

Speaker 1 Don't call anything against. No.
No. Is that what you're saying? That's exactly.

Speaker 1 It's a point of emphasis a couple years ago. Offensive linemen, the coaches are teaching.
They're going to chop and snatch.

Speaker 1 So what do the refs do? If it comes anywhere, looks like it. It's like roughing a passer.
If it even comes close and it looks like, guess what?

Speaker 1 They're going to throw it. They're going to protect these quarterbacks.
And that thing looked like a chop and a snatch when that guy goes down. That guy's finger got caught in the chop.

Speaker 1 That's what I've done. You slow it down and you have the angles.

Speaker 1 You have the angles that we have. Who's we? Who's we? The refs? I'm with you, Charlie.
Are you a good angle? Are you a ref?

Speaker 1 You had a good angle. I saw you talk about it.

Speaker 1 He spent a year with the refs, so he's always doing this. Oh, it's wee bullshit.
It's hard. You know, it's all you guys give credit.
We get it. It's all.
What's out of you on?

Speaker 1 It's hard to play in the NFL. It's hard to coach in the NFL.

Speaker 1 It is. It's hard to everything in the NFL.
That's why it's the NFL. It's a high school.
It's got a great appreciation for how hard these jobs are. And we all know what we signed up for.

Speaker 1 So there's going to be some criticisms at times. You're going to play really good at times.
You're going to get a lot of flowers. And then, you know what? You're going to play bad.

Speaker 1 Things are going to happen. And some of these refs, we don't know if they're ever going to play good.
Yeah, that wasn't.

Speaker 1 It wasn't like every every time they're on tv they're bad wasn't even the worst some of them not all the refs go ahead the chiefs or that call wasn't even the worst call the worst call of the weekend was on the commanders when you know dante fowler fowler jr tackled david montgomery by his shoulder and they called a face mask yeah by his chest that was crazy yeah it's unbelievable that one chucked that head it's all right the refs are gonna try and but here's the here's the deal right replay assist

Speaker 1 We're at a certain point now. This offseason is going to be a huge discussion with the competition committee and the coaches once they get to the owners' meetings.
That thing will get improved.

Speaker 1 They're going to add some things to that so that they can go in and look at, like Will Anderson's hit, you know, on Patrick Mahones. Yes.
We all saw it slowed down, right?

Speaker 1 It hit right here and he did this, where the ref is standing.

Speaker 1 He can't necessarily see no helmet to helmet. Yeah.
But it wasn't severe. But the thing that replay assists can't do is they can't come in and talk about severity.
Right now it's black and white.

Speaker 1 Did you hit him or not in the head and neck area? Period. Now they're going to take the next step and go, okay, let this guy get involved and say there was no contact to pick that up.

Speaker 1 Well, we were hoping that that's what they'd be doing this year, but I understand there's always steps to things. The NFL is like the Titanic.

Speaker 1 Not that it's going down, but to turn that thing, it takes forever. You know, and that is kind of the NFL's way.
But this replay assist is a good advancement, I believe.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but I also did read that, hey, they don't want to be doing replay assists in the playoffs because

Speaker 4 we need as many additional commercial breaks for actual capital.

Speaker 1 Oh, of course, greedy corporate fat cats.

Speaker 4 We can't have them just, hey, let's respot it right away and keep playing. We need that kind of draw out, go to a commercial, get another, you know, big-time sponsorship in there.

Speaker 1 So I don't know how much replay assistant is. As we're watching, I think Replay Assist is only going to grow, hopefully.

Speaker 1 And hopefully that's not a part of the conversation because all anybody wants is them not to slow down the game. Correct.
Which is why Replay Assist is so awesome because it's happening in real time.

Speaker 1 Like, hey, pick that thing up and you don't lose anything. How about that national championship game? 18-play drive to start that thing? Oh, yeah.
10 minutes.

Speaker 1 No commercial breaks.

Speaker 1 I i even said on air like hey they're coming they are on their way they are going to shove these commercial breaks and they did kickoff commercial second quarter was like an hour and a half oh my it's it's a bit

Speaker 1 bad for y'all i mean i'm sitting there going my god it was a lot of standing it was a lot of standing spanks at us though yeah

Speaker 1 joining us now ladies and gentlemen is a man who's going to be trying to get his team that he's the general manager of to the national championship will that be next year the year after the year after we don't know but we assume it will happen because of how big this guy's brain is.

Speaker 1 Multiple times Super Bowl champion, current general manager of the UNC Tario football team, Michael Lombardi. Yeah,

Speaker 8 it's always good to be here with you. It's always good.
Great job on the championship game. That was a long drive.
You know, that drive proves that time of possession is meaningless in football.

Speaker 8 You can have it. It matters what you do with it, right? Yes.
You got to be able to score.

Speaker 8 Look, the Eagle-Washington game, I heard you talking about the Eagles had the ball 36 minutes in that game the last time they played them, and yet they gave up 36 points to the commanders, and they only had it for 23 minutes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and that's why, you know, like scoring defense matters. How many points you give up? It doesn't matter how many yards you give up.
Red zone efficiency matters. Are you scoring touchdowns?

Speaker 1 Are you kicking field goals? Turnovers matter. Time of possession is just like,

Speaker 1 hey, dominate the game potentially, but did you do anything with it? Who cares? Let's talk about that championship game.

Speaker 1 We asked Bill, I think, last week after the playoffs, we said, are you watching these playoffs as like a coach now trying to figure it out or as a fan?

Speaker 8 He said, just watching as a fan right now haven't really dove in what did you learn from this college football playoff as you're trying to build a college football team right now what do you need what do you think you love and did you really learn anything that might have changed the way you think about the team you're building down there no i i think it still comes back to can you win in up fronts can you have good offensive lineman ohio state with the injuries in their line everybody thought the tennessee game was going to be hard or the oregon game was going to be hard and yet that offensive line really did a good job credit chip kelly for what he was able to accomplish.

Speaker 8 And I think Notre Dame's too, Notre Dame's offensive and defensive fronts. I think that's still the essence of the game.

Speaker 8 And one thing I do have learned from being in college football is depth matters, right? In the NFL, you only dress 46 players. In college, you can dress 95 or whatever the number is.

Speaker 8 And I think there's a lot of teams that are even to start a game, but the depth and the overall talent on the second and third level teams as you're rotating becomes an issue and then teams take over.

Speaker 8 And I think really, you've got to have sound depth.

Speaker 8 And so, the concept of paying one player or two players or three players, like we think in the NFL, and then going with younger guys, that's not going to work in college.

Speaker 8 You're going to have to have really good depth to compete with those great teams from the Southeast Conference and the Big Ten and from the ACC.

Speaker 1 I heard you put up massive money for one quarterback. Isn't that right? Didn't we hear that? Oh, yeah.
Yeah, like $80. Millions or millions of dollars for a quarterback.
Did you hear about that?

Speaker 8 No, we might have heard about it. Somebody offered them.
I don't know. Maybe it it was the janitor in this building who offered it.
I have no idea because I didn't offer anybody that kind of money.

Speaker 8 I think to me, we're going to stick with the Patriot model. We're going to have a good team where everybody's going to be valued.
And I think more than anything, you know, you guys know this.

Speaker 8 You can't, the locker room has to feel a sense of contentment based on what you have earned.

Speaker 8 And so if you bring a player in who's not really play for your team and pay them more than some of the guys that have based on just on a hypothetical, you run into a little bit of a problem.

Speaker 8 So this thing goes both ways. You're going to negotiate contracts both ways.
Sometimes you're going to give a guy a raise and sometimes because you brought other players in.

Speaker 8 Bill did this all the time in New England. I mean, Julian Edelman got continue raises based on what other receivers they brought in because Edelman or Brady were the best players on the team.

Speaker 1 Yeah, you don't want to disrespect your own players by bringing in somebody who hasn't done anything yet.

Speaker 1 Not that anybody's done anything for your program thus far, but when it comes to payment, there's professionalism that is around the corner, allegedly. Chuck has a question for you, Buzzah.

Speaker 1 Yes, Lambo, you talk about

Speaker 1 putting a value on your players. So we got the salary cap coming with this revenue share.
I know in April there's going to be a vote. I know there's Title IX stuff involved.

Speaker 1 I've heard somewhere like 20, 21 million. And then football is going to get the largest portion of that.
Have you guys talked about that? Like if it's, let's just say hypothetical, it's 15.

Speaker 1 How are you going to divvy that up? And have you placed a value yet on your roster?

Speaker 8 Yeah, I think, you know, that's a great question, Chuck. I think you have to do it just like the draft.
You know, the draft is money, okay?

Speaker 8 When you say the guy is going to be an immediate starter and impact the team, that's a top 10 pick. And that top 10 pick makes X amount of dollars.

Speaker 8 And if you say the guy is going to be a potential backup player who could eventually start, that's probably a fourth or fifth round pick. So that comes with a value.

Speaker 8 And so whenever you have a salary cap, you have to have a value.

Speaker 8 And so if you're taking a young high school prospect who's very good, you're going to have to give them some money to entice them to come to your school.

Speaker 8 But there has to be kind of a ceiling on what you can give them. You know, we're not like Jerry Jones.
We're not in the oil drilling business. We're not hoping to hit a well or a gusher.

Speaker 8 You got to pay for performance as you go, right? And so there's going to be a scale. You know, you come in, you earn this.
If you start to play, you're going to earn more.

Speaker 8 And then you're going to earn more based on how you start. It's got to be, there has to be a rhyme and a reason to what you're doing.

Speaker 8 But if you randomly just give out, oh, I'm paying this guy $750, I'll pay this guy a million, I'll pay, then all of a sudden you don't have any continuity within your program.

Speaker 8 And so that's what we're going to try to do. We'll bring young players in that we recruit, we'll pay them, but it's on speculation, right? And there's going to be a number.

Speaker 8 And then as they earn more based on their playtime, based on their performance here at North Carolina, they will earn more.

Speaker 8 My door is going to always be open for conversations because that's the way it is. The NFL, you know, we saw it this summer in the NFL.

Speaker 8 How many receivers redid their contracts based on what was going on around the league? Same thing is going to happen in college football.

Speaker 1 Okay, the more I learned about Notre Dame through this playoff run and Marcus Freeman and who they're trying to build, what they're trying to become, sounds awfully similar to you guys.

Speaker 1 And do you sense that, that Notre Dame and you guys are going to be in the same players pool?

Speaker 1 And how does it feel knowing that they made it to the national championship in that kind of same world that you guys are probably going to be in?

Speaker 8 Well, they've got such great tradition, but so do we here at North Carolina. We've got incredible tradition.
Now, we haven't won an ACC title since 1980, but man, we have a lot of great players.

Speaker 8 Starting with the greatest defensive player of all time and Lawrence Taylor and then going to Julius Peppers, not even talking about how many great players have been in basketball.

Speaker 8 They've got won 23 titles in women's socks. I mean, this is an incredible institution for sports, and we're going to follow that.
We believe we have a national footprint.

Speaker 8 I mean, what Michael Jordan has done for the school, what the basketball program has done. done, you see this emblem on people's chests.
You see our brand. It's a national brand.

Speaker 8 And so we need to be a national school so we're going to be foot to foot with Notre Dame we offer a lot now they've got a history in terms of winning championships and getting there we're going to have to increase our tradition there and get there but we have a lot of great players we have a lot of first-round picks we might not have had great great teams but we're going to fix that and we're going to recruit to our traditions you know you can't build a team without creating a sense of belonging And the only way you create a sense of belonging is to look to your past.

Speaker 8 So we need the Jeff Saturdays. We need the Lawrence Taylors.
We need all those Quentin Coppols. We need all these great players that played here and dominated to be part of our program.

Speaker 8 Dre Bly, there's so many of them, right? Yeah. That have been here.
Greg Ellis. They're all first round, a lot of them first-round picks.

Speaker 8 We need them to build so we can walk into a home and remind players about North Carolina's tradition of great talent here.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you took that a different way than I expected. I appreciate you going through that.
What I was saying is the type of player, seemingly

Speaker 1 be the same type of people. You guys are going to be recruiting a similar type of people.
I think there's a few schools that are looking to do the same thing.

Speaker 1 Notre Dame, obviously, national champion finalist, and they're doing it things. Like, wait, like the type of guys, I think that you guys should be trying to get pretty similar.

Speaker 8 No question, Pat. I mean, look,

Speaker 8 we are consider ourselves one of the professional organization. And like Notre Dame, we want smart guys that can get into school.
Notre Dame has the requirement. Everybody thinks getting into school,

Speaker 8 if it makes it tough on the players, you're not going to have a good team. I think that's nonsense.
We want smart, tough, dependable players.

Speaker 8 So for us, if you don't go to class and you don't work hard and your other things, you're not going to be a good football player.

Speaker 8 You know, you're not good in one area and then all of a sudden be good in another area. You've got to be a complete person like North Carolina, like Michigan.

Speaker 8 Those national schools, they recruit that, and we want to be that kind of program.

Speaker 1 How you do anything is how you do everything. You know.
And how do you find those right guys? It's certainly going to be a part of the job. How do you retain those guys?

Speaker 1 Obviously, a massive piece of the job. There is a full roster overhaul possibility in college ball.
Ty has a question for you.

Speaker 4 Yeah, Lombo, right now, a lot of people are kind of complaining that the college football season has gone on too long. It just ended.

Speaker 4 A lot of people saying, hey, this needs to end by, you know, January 1st, maybe because we have all these different

Speaker 4 deadlines for the transfer portal. Now we're seeing a lot of guys, you know, this last one here, Ohio State players and Notre Dame players entering the portal.

Speaker 4 Will you guys still be aggressive for some of those guys or is it difficult because you had to flip, you know, basically an entire roster and then now you're kind of, you know, the odd man out because you don't have very many spots left, even though, you know, you are building this brain.

Speaker 4 A lot of kids do want to come to you, but you just don't have spots for maybe some of these kids from Notre Dame or Ohio State who would be interested in North Carolina.

Speaker 8 Yeah, we're always going to save room, whether it's our cap, whether whether it's our scholarship, but we're going to go to 105 this summer.

Speaker 8 And once we go to 105, I think there's going to be a lot of teams that have to get rid of players at that point.

Speaker 8 Whereas we at North Carolina, who are building our program, we don't have that many players at that level.

Speaker 8 The teams that have been doing this and have a great bloodline of recruiting going on, they're going to have a hard time getting to 105. And we need to be able to

Speaker 8 be there to take advantage of that situation. We have to look for all the areas of finding talent.
I think that's part of what the NFL is about too, right? Bill Walsh used to say this all the time.

Speaker 8 You know, during the season was the best time to find players because everybody was content. Offseason in March, everybody was looking for players.
So you were competing at a harder time.

Speaker 8 I think that's the same thing. We've got to be able to take advantage of what our situation is.

Speaker 8 There's not a claiming order like it is in the NFL, but there's going to be a lot of schools that have to get rid of guys because they have too many scholarships.

Speaker 1 Okay, so let's pivot away from college. We're obviously incredibly pumped for you.
Good luck there. Let's go to the NFL.

Speaker 1 We are hearing our sources, not you, but our source says, are telling us that Tom Brady, very much a part of, as you might be getting a call from him or maybe a recruit at this exact time, that Tom Brady is like running the show over there for Las Vegas for the hiring process.

Speaker 1 That's what we're hearing. Are you hearing the same thing? And what do you think? Oh, somebody needs you.
You should answer that. Should you answer that?

Speaker 8 No, I'm good. Don't worry about it.
You got my full attention.

Speaker 1 Trust me. Yeah, but what if that was a booster or

Speaker 1 a recruit? You never know, Lombo.

Speaker 1 You never know, Lombo. If you need to take a call, you certainly could do that.
We don't want to hold you up. We heard Bill Belichick sign his contract, too, officially.
Hell yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 8 So we'll throw away all that nonsense about, yeah, we're going to go back into the NFL. Can we kill that for once and for all? We actually, I got a big shovel out this morning and I buried that.
Okay.

Speaker 1 That's a good thing. Okay, good.
So you guys signed your contracts at UNC. Things are good to go.

Speaker 1 But let's talk about, you know, one of the reasons why everybody thought you guys were getting back into the NFL is because Tom potentially called you or Bill who he is friends with and has a lot of respect for to ask him questions about this hiring process I don't think I fully I guess I should have kind of expected this I don't think I fully expected tom to be running that shit over there.

Speaker 1 I thought like minority owner, obviously he's going to be around, handshake, try to talk to the boys. Let's do some strategy.

Speaker 1 But from what we're hearing in the interview process, that's his meeting that is kind of happening throughout the entirety. Did you know that? Do you expect that?

Speaker 1 And what do you think about the Raiders' job as a whole now that Tom is very much involved?

Speaker 8 Well, I think Tom's never just going to put his toe in the water. I think he's going to immerse himself into it as completely because he's so competitive.

Speaker 8 He's competitive to be the best broadcaster he can be. He's looking for every way he can improve, and he's never satisfied.

Speaker 8 The one thing about Tom Brady that I've learned is there's no mantles in his home, there's no place for his trophies because he's collecting more trophies. And this whole instance to

Speaker 8 immerse himself into football, because his name is on this franchise, along with Mark Davis. And look, Raider fans get upset when I say this, but they have not been very good over the last 22 years.

Speaker 8 And they need somebody like Tom Brady who understands what it takes to win and what's the culture all about and how he can bring that.

Speaker 8 Now, obviously, John Spytek, who they just hired as their GM, he goes back to Michigan with Tom. He was also at Tampa Bay with him.
So there's some

Speaker 8 familiarity with him. And then I think they'll hire a coach that gives them some, they need some credibility, right? I think sometimes everybody wants the new bright shiny object in the room.

Speaker 8 But I think a team like the Raiders, they need somebody who's got some experience, who can understand how they're going to navigate the next three years in the course.

Speaker 8 And I would think Pete Carroll would have a hell of a chance to be the next coach there.

Speaker 1 Okay, we're hearing the same things around the coaching conversation cycle is that Pete Carroll has a legit

Speaker 1 opportunity to become the Las Vegas Raiders head coach. coach.

Speaker 1 Ben Johnson is announced as the head coach of the Chicago Bears yesterday or the day before that, gives a speech to the team, gives a speech to the building.

Speaker 1 What are your thoughts on Ben Johnson going into Chicago? How do you think it works out? Is this the right pairing for Caleb in your eyes?

Speaker 8 Well,

Speaker 8 I think what Ben said is so true. Forget about analytics.
It depends on how your quarterback plays really more than anything on what you're going to do in the game.

Speaker 8 I thought that was really an important statement and a smart statement. Look, we know this.

Speaker 8 He's done an incredible job with the Detroit Lions and how he's been able to bring that team together with balance, with the ability to run and throw.

Speaker 8 Obviously, the season didn't go the way it is, but I think what he's got to do is prove he's now a head coach. He's not an offensive play caller.

Speaker 8 He's a head coach, and he'll get the right defensive guy. Look, they've got a lot of good players.
They need to repair their lines.

Speaker 8 And if they can do that, then they can close the gap on a very, very good division. Kevin O'Connell got a huge raise, which he deserved.
I mean, that's a good team. They're going to bounce back.

Speaker 8 Same thing when you look at...

Speaker 8 Green Bay. You know, Green Bay got hurt a lot.
It was interesting.

Speaker 8 You know, Green Bay, we're having so many rematch games in the playoffs, whether it's Green Bay played Philadelphia, Washington playing Philadelphia again.

Speaker 8 It seems like there's a lot of repeats, and that's a good thing because coaches can gain an advantage.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 I hope Kevin O'Connell didn't sign his deal before Ben Johnson. You know, Ben Johnson allegedly signed for $13 million.
That's what the reports are.

Speaker 1 I don't know how accurate reports are of coaches' contracts normally are. Kevin O'Connell, I mean, he could have went in there with a blank check.
Yeah. He is so good.

Speaker 1 And then MCDC, obviously, he's going to have to to recycle. Aaron Glenn gone.
Ben, obviously, gone in the same division. It's like NFC North football is problematic.

Speaker 1 I mean, there are very, very good teams in there in the Florida.

Speaker 8 I mean, Ben had leverage, Matt. I mean, you know this as a negotiator.
Ben had leverage. I mean, so Ben could ask for it.

Speaker 8 And the Bears, you know, they needed to make a statement with their coaching hire.

Speaker 8 I mean, they've been through this, whether it's been John Fox, whether it's been, you know, Matt Nagy, whomever it's been, you know, they need to make a statement.

Speaker 8 They're taking a risk, paying them as much as they are on a first-time head coach. But I think Kevin Warren and Ryan Poles, I think everybody believes that Ben's the right guy for their job.

Speaker 8 So they've got to go all in. Look, here's what I would say.
The same thing applies to players. You can't overpay a great coach.
You cannot overpay.

Speaker 8 You know, if you hired Bill Parcels or Bill, you can't overpay great coaching. The problem you get into, like the problem with players, you overpay a good player, then it becomes a problem.

Speaker 8 A great coach, great player, you can. And I think Kevin O'Connell is great.

Speaker 1 I think Jerry Jones said everything that has ever ever been worth it, people have told me I've overpaid for. So just whatever the case.
Now, again, he's overpaid for a lot of other shit, too.

Speaker 1 You know, it doesn't work out. But the things that are great, keep them in your building.
I'm happy the Minnesota Vikings are doing that. Aaron Glenn goes to the New York Jets.
He played there.

Speaker 1 I believe Wilkes is going to join them as the D.C. Obviously, there's early reports that he would be a fan of Aaron Rodgers sticking around and then maybe getting a younger quarterback.

Speaker 1 That all has to get played out. But there's an AFC South conversation taking place.
Connor has a question for for you.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Lombo, Mike Borganzi gets hired as the GM, and now a lot of stuff has come out. I believe the president of football operations, Brink, will have final say.

Speaker 1 Brinker, Brinker. Brinker, excuse me.

Speaker 2 We'll have final say on the 53-man roster, but then Borganzi will be responsible for the free agents and the draft process.

Speaker 2 And then, of course, Brinker will report to Strunk, not sure with Borganzi. What does this say kind of about the Titans' whole operation?

Speaker 2 And then where does this kind of leave Callahan just because he is the head coach? What is his role? Is he going to be involved, you think, with the draft or anything like that?

Speaker 2 Or is this kind of a three-headed monster in Tennessee now?

Speaker 8 Well, you know how I feel about committees, you know, and they've never dedicated a monument to one. So this sounds like a committee to me.
Look, I think Brinker's been running the team.

Speaker 8 I think even when Rand Cartham was there, Brinker was kind of in charge of pretty much everything. So he's going to remain there.

Speaker 8 And obviously, his background is going to have to find a way to utilize his skill set as a guy who can draft and develop a team.

Speaker 8 I think the real question comes into what kind of team do they want to have. You know, they transitioned into a Cincinnati Bengal team, and it cost Gran Carthon his job.

Speaker 8 Essentially, they got rid of the big power back. They went to nickelbacks and Spears and

Speaker 8 Pollard. And so their offensive line couldn't really, they couldn't run the ball.
And they're counting on Will Levis to be a good player. There's a lot of calculations that need to come true.

Speaker 8 For Tennessee to be good, they better make sure they're right about Will Levis. And that's Brinker's job to do because he was there when they drafted him.
He's been a part of it.

Speaker 8 And I think that's ultimately going to be tied to what Callahan does.

Speaker 8 I think Cincinnati, if you copy their offensive program, you better be damn sure the quarterback's good because Burrow makes that thing go. It isn't the play design.

Speaker 8 It's the quarterback design and how he plays. So the Tennessee, in terms of all the moves they made in the past, they can blame him on Rand Carthon, but somebody else was signing off on him.

Speaker 8 So it's going to be interesting to see how it goes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and what do you think about Callahan, Chuck? What do you think about Callahan, the coach's position in this entire thing?

Speaker 1 Yeah, anytime you can tell right now, like these coaches are coming in together with the GM. Anytime it's one or the other, head coach in place, new GM, or vice versa,

Speaker 1 unless there's a prior relationship there.

Speaker 1 like whatever, like just win, Callie.

Speaker 1 Just win and win big. Yeah, you you win quick

Speaker 1 been down that road yeah you have been down that road GM comes in not with you new GM lose a quarterback yeah lose have a queue lost a few games and

Speaker 8 that was dash flame duck shock is what they were saying here Pat we'll hear everybody's on the same page but there's a difference between being on the what Pat what what what coach is saying is so true what what what you find is everybody's going to tell you in Tennessee they're on the same page until they lose a game as being on the same page is meaningless Being aligned is what matters most.

Speaker 8 And alignment can only come from the GM and the head coach being tied at the hip philosophically. Now they're going to argue and go back and forth, but they got to see the game the same way.

Speaker 8 And this is where I think most teams make many mistakes. I mean, Brett Veach does an incredible job in Kansas City for Andy Reid, but he's tied to Andy Reid philosophically.

Speaker 8 They see the game the same way. And so that allows you to find players.
Because remember, scouting is not about finding. Scouting is about eliminating.
And so you eliminate players you don't want.

Speaker 8 You don't find players. You eliminate the guys that don't fit.
And when you're not on the same page, you argue about who you're eliminating. And that becomes a rift within the building.

Speaker 8 Look, I think Tennessee went through it. They wanted a change to become Cincinnati's offense.
I don't see how anybody can be Cincinnati's offense unless they bring Joe Burrow with them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and Joe Burrow, obviously, is a weapon, and we'll be excited to see what awards he wins, if he wins any awards that NFL honors up for comeback player of the year, and I believe offense, whatever the case.

Speaker 1 Lame duck down there is such an interesting situation because you brought up Andy Reid and Brett Feech out. They're on the same page.

Speaker 1 And Brett Feech, and obviously the Chiefs' front office, we have that here. Chris Ballard came in from the Chiefs' front office.
Andy Reid, Supreme Commander there?

Speaker 8 Absolutely. Yeah, look, and what Andy's so good at,

Speaker 8 everybody thinks when you hear Supreme Commander that they want to do everything. No, Andy Reid gets everybody aligned.
It's the most, it's what Bill Walsh did. Everybody was aligned.

Speaker 8 It's what Belichick does. Everybody has to think philosophically, this is where we're going.

Speaker 8 It doesn't mean we're not going to disagree on things, but we're going to be aligned on how we're going to get there.

Speaker 1 There's seemingly no Supreme Commander in Tennessee, right? No, but none. Borganzi said he and Brinker have great relationship and admiration for each other since 2009.

Speaker 1 Never worked together, but since 2009, they've had a lot of admiration for each other, right? Yeah, just through the through the circles and doing what they do.

Speaker 1 But this one has free agency and draft, this one has final 53, and then this one's got a coach them all.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's a lot of people that have to get on the same page. That's weird.
Good luck. I think it'll happen.

Speaker 8 I think it will happen. This whole notion about who has control of the 53 is the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard in my life.
I mean, it's so stupid, right? You can only dress 46 players, right?

Speaker 8 And so, what you what Ron Wolf did in Green Bay with Mike Holmgren is the smartest thing to do. He told Mike Holmgren, look, Mike, you got 50 players.
You dress whoever you want.

Speaker 8 Joe Gibbs did the same thing with Bobby Bethard. But player 51 to the rest of the team, that's really for the personnel department to decide on who's got a future.

Speaker 8 So we can develop talent, but you're not going to hurt your roster currently. Like I control the 53.
I mean, seriously, that's just a power grab. I mean, those seven guys can't dress anyway.

Speaker 8 All right.

Speaker 1 Sounds like it's going to go great down next. Yeah.
You know, Borganzi is from Everett Mass, which is.

Speaker 2 Great football town. A lot of history.
A lot of great players have come out of of Everett Mass.

Speaker 1 A lot of Italians, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah, not too many, some would say. Whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa, whoa.

Speaker 1 You see your shirt. Some would say.
I didn't say I did. I just want to let you know.

Speaker 1 You seemingly said that that was coming from your mouth. I said some would say.
Okay. Last question here from an Italian.
A.P. Tone has a question for you.

Speaker 5 Yeah, Lumbo. The last Jets playoff win was the 2010 season.
The OC at that time was Brian Schottenheimer. I believe he was up for some head coaching jobs at that time.
Never ended up taking one.

Speaker 5 And now 15 years later, it feels like if you read the tea leaves, he may be the Cowboys' next head coach. How do you feel about that move down there in Dallas, if it is Shoddy?

Speaker 8 I think Brian's a really good coach. I think Brian comes from a great, great tradition of coaching.

Speaker 8 His father, Marty, is one of nine human beings who won 200 games in the NFL, and he can't get himself into the Hall of Fame. It's a complete injustice.

Speaker 8 And so I'm rooting for Brian to get this job, to carry on his father's legacy, who was an outstanding coach.

Speaker 8 I mean, Marty was able to win games and Brian learned from him and so I think sometimes when you kind of have this rise and all of a sudden you don't get a job you kind of learn the essence of a job.

Speaker 8 I'm sure he's more ready to be a head coach now than he ever was. And I think it would be a smart move for Dallas because it would keep Dak in line.

Speaker 8 Plus, I know Brian understands how his father ran the operation. Brian knows that Marty was running pretty much everything.
It was a philosophically aligned organization.

Speaker 8 I think it would be a great hire for the Dallas Cowboys. I really do.
You know, people get so caught up in, well, what was his offense ranked? What was he? Does he throw the ball on first down?

Speaker 8 We're talking about leadership here. We're not talking about play design.
I think Brian can be a great leader.

Speaker 1 We had Shoddy and Indy. He was on your staff, right? Yep.
I loved him. Me too.
What do you think?

Speaker 1 I think you do a great job. Yeah.
To all the points that Lombo just made, yeah. And I don't think Jerry likes major turnover.
There's a lot of continuity that makes sense in keeping a guy like Shoddy.

Speaker 1 Especially at the age of 82. And, you know, Zimmer is down there on contract, we assume, for defense coordinator.
Zimmer and Shoddy, I assume, have a good relationship, we would assume.

Speaker 1 There was some rumor that Zim was contemplating going back to retirement. He's got a farm.
I think he's a good guy. Well, they only signed.

Speaker 8 Chuck, they only signed. Everybody in Dallas was on a one-year contract.
Zim came in on a one-year deal. They all did.

Speaker 8 So, you know, Jerry wasn't going to give more than that's what took so long to hire a defense coordinator. So now, if he wants to bring Zim back, I think certainly he could.

Speaker 8 But, you know, Zim's the good coach. There's other good defensive coaches out there that Brian could hire as well.

Speaker 1 Got it. So we don't know.
We don't necessarily know who's with who there. How about Josh McDaniels going back with Vrabes? Oh, yes,

Speaker 1 Commander.

Speaker 8 I think that's a great hire by Mike. You know, Josh does a great job with the quarterbacks.
He's been there.

Speaker 8 He's familiar with the surroundings. He's won at New England.

Speaker 8 You know, I think if there was anybody else but Vrabel, I'm not sure Josh could go back there because the Vrabel program is similar, different than to the Belichick program.

Speaker 8 And I think Josh is most successful when he's working working in that environment.

Speaker 1 All right.

Speaker 1 I got these cards, okay?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Called Head-to-Head Football Trivia.
Ooh.

Speaker 1 Goat. Sam got me these for Christmas.
I may or may not have forgotten that we got them until I opened a bag and saw a bunch of Christmas gifts in there. Sure.
Okay.

Speaker 1 So you need to tell me when to stop.

Speaker 9 Okay.

Speaker 1 I need to. Stop.
All right.

Speaker 1 What did cornerback Daryl Green stuff in his socks, claiming they made him run faster?

Speaker 8 Oh, that's a great question.

Speaker 8 I don't know the answer to that.

Speaker 8 I thought when he was coming out of college, he stuffed weights in his socks because he wanted people to think he weighed more than he actually did coming out of Texas AI.

Speaker 1 Totsy rolls.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 here, this is the second question on here. Super Bowl Sunday is the second largest food consumption day in the United States behind Thanksgiving.
Is that fact or fiction?

Speaker 8 I would say that's fact.

Speaker 1 Really? That is correct. Wow.

Speaker 1 Next question. Over 67,000 high school football players in the U.S.
suffer what each year?

Speaker 8 A concussion?

Speaker 1 That is correct. Sounds like they're trying to build a nerve now.
Hold on.

Speaker 1 I don't believe that. Throw that one.

Speaker 1 I don't like that one.

Speaker 8 I'm just giving you the answers. I'm not giving it.

Speaker 1 No, yeah. I don't like that it was in there.

Speaker 1 What is the name of the position player who lines up with the lineman but can also run out to receive a pass?

Speaker 1 Tight end. What is the name of the orange markers in each end of the corner of the end zone?

Speaker 1 Pylon.

Speaker 1 Who was the 2020 regular season NFL most valuable player? We know that. Come on, we know that.
During COVID.

Speaker 8 Tom Brady.

Speaker 1 Nope. Aaron Rodgers, the king of toads.
There we go. Was the MVP.
We appreciate the hell out of you, Lombo.

Speaker 8 Thanks, guys.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, Michael Lombardi. Yeah, Lombo.

Speaker 1 Tough questions in here. Let's have some total

Speaker 1 Sam.

Speaker 5 D-Buts knew it. He texted her.

Speaker 1 Did he really? Yeah. He knew exactly.
Yeah, okay.

Speaker 1 Okay, that's too easy. What was the nickname for the St.
Louis Rams high-powered offense in the early 2000s?

Speaker 1 Who has the nickname Easy E?

Speaker 1 Edrin James.

Speaker 1 Final answer? Rapper from NWA. Earl Campbell.

Speaker 2 S.Y.

Speaker 1 Easy E. Oh.

Speaker 1 E-A-S-Y-E.

Speaker 1 Eli Manning. Ah.
That's not true.

Speaker 2 Oh, because he's throwing a big easy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, because he's New Orleans. Exactly.
Have they got the snow cleared up, Donner? Yet, I don't know. They're 10 inches yesterday in Florida.

Speaker 1 In what year did the NFL have a team on the West Coast for the first time? Ooh.

Speaker 5 1949.

Speaker 1 K?

Speaker 2 72.

Speaker 1 K?

Speaker 1 68. 35.

Speaker 1 K.

Speaker 1 1926.

Speaker 1 Wow. I assume that too.
The Niners?

Speaker 1 That's why I said Oakland.

Speaker 1 I don't know. I don't know.
No idea. Who, yeah, nope.
That one's tough. When a referee puts both hands on his hips,

Speaker 1 okay, just like this.

Speaker 1 And then points to the team playing defense, what penalty has he just called? That would be a neutrozone infraction. Encroachment.
Offside. Offside.

Speaker 1 Who was the NFL leader in rushing yards during the 2020 regular season? COVID. Ooh.
COVID.

Speaker 2 COVID. It was Josh Derrick Henry.

Speaker 1 Bingo.

Speaker 1 Donovan McNabb vomited in three out of the four games he played in the state of Florida. Is that fact or fiction? Fact.
Fact. I couldn't think.
It was too hot.

Speaker 1 Too much soup. Yeah, too much Campbells.
Also with the humidity can't do it. If all 256 regular season NFL games finished in a 7-7 tie, how would the playoffs be determined? Coin flip.

Speaker 1 Coin toss is the answer. That's good work.
That's good trivia. That's a good trivia.
Hour one, wrapping up here on ESPN. Hour two, we'll have Sean Shirania and Daniel Jeremiah.
A.J.

Speaker 1 Hawk, Coach Pagano, is here. Are you going to give picks for these championship games? Huh? Absolutely.
I hope so. How'd you do last week?

Speaker 2 Sucked. Not good.

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 7 Absolute shite.

Speaker 1 No, I think he actually did do well. He took the dogs, I think.
Yeah. And they all 3-1.
So Houston. Yeah, yeah.

Speaker 2 Houston, Washington. The Rams and Baltimore.

Speaker 1 Rams was a push. I want the opposite way on all of them.
I want one and three. I think I lost one.
Yeah, you did good. I did bad.
But next hour's. And I picked Ohio State.

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Speaker 1 Football! It is wonderful. That's 36 years as a football coach, 18 in college, 18 in the NFL.
Chuck Pagano is here at NetCoach College.

Speaker 1 Chuck! The talks and tables here at Boston Connor and at Ty Schmidt. Sweet Sea Turtles, pal.

Speaker 2 Hey, thanks, man. I figure, you know what? It is cold out down there in Florida and New Orleans.

Speaker 1 The sea turtles are probably not doing too well. You know, you know, you used to just wear a t-shirt.
You remember that tie? It used to be like a t-shirt thing. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Now he wears these hoodies over top of these t-shirts.

Speaker 2 Hey, look, it's cold out. I'm not afraid of it.

Speaker 1 It's not cold here, though. It feels pretty good.
Yeah, it feels okay.

Speaker 2 I'm still when you wake up, and granted, 21 this morning felt like 50.

Speaker 1 All the snow melting somehow. Fantastic.
Even though it's still below freezing. I don't know how that works.
Get that sun out.

Speaker 1 It's like the snow got sick of how cold it was and was like you know what it's it's not above freezing but it's definitely warmer than it was we're gonna just fear i looked out and saw grass and i'm like how the hell did i get grass did it go above freezing and i looked never no no it's still very much below i don't know how that works i don't know science but i do know it has been cold is i'm actually getting a little yeah because of the cold i think it's that time of the year i think it is nah fight normally during football season is when i get it this

Speaker 1 the fact that college football i guess we're in football season but the fact that college football season ended and then immediately afterwards i gotta think good timing. Great.

Speaker 1 Shout out to my body for doing that entire thing. But I woke up this morning with an ah, you know, a little bit of that.
And I think everybody's probably gonna have to go through that.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's true. December, we did have a couple colds running through here when it kind of stopped.

Speaker 1 Remember, we had people showing up sick and spitting in everybody's drinks.

Speaker 2 Saying that they're going to quit soda and not. Yeah, I remember.

Speaker 1 Oh, well, that's two different situations, but same person. Yeah.

Speaker 4 We usually get the reprieve, too, of like when we go do these games. Like you go to Miami and it's like, okay, we're going to get an 80-degree day here and we're going to be good.

Speaker 4 Everywhere we went, the weather was shitty and it was cold.

Speaker 1 Woke up on my bus 49 degrees. The generator died.
Exactly. That's how National Championship Day started.
It was 4:45 a.m. Yeah.
Probably why.

Speaker 1 Legit. Actually, I legitimately think that was the case.
I might as well have just been sleeping outside. And it was cold as hell down there.
It's been cold everywhere. We hope everybody's okay.

Speaker 1 Also, Southern California, still very much sending our positive vibes and prayers. I don't know how the recovery is going to go there.
And then also North Carolina, everybody going through it.

Speaker 1 Just know that we love you. Yep, we love you.

Speaker 1 One after the hammer, die, Cowboys AP Tone is here. Tone, what'd you learn in the first hour? Anything sweet?

Speaker 5 I learned a ton in the first hour. A lot of those NFL Pro Plus, Premium Pro, Plus, Premium stats were unbelievable.

Speaker 1 It's very disrespectful to do that to their grid.

Speaker 1 As an APL voter, too. Yeah, AP voters should have a little respect.
NFL Plus is the origin.

Speaker 1 Then you get the premium version of that. You get NFL Pro.
So it's NFL Plus Premiums. premiums NFL Pro,

Speaker 1 which is worth it.

Speaker 5 The fact that the Chiefs haven't turned the ball over in eight games, I did not know that was okay.

Speaker 5 Oh, is it playoff?

Speaker 1 No, eight consecutive playoff games, yeah. Eight consecutive games? Oh, I thought it was eight consecutive playoff games.

Speaker 2 Yeah, they haven't.

Speaker 1 Eight consecutive games without a giveaway entering the AFC championship. So eight consecutive games.
Okay. And also,

Speaker 1 I believe we go back to his playoff runs, too. I think some sort of game.
I know Pat hasn't.

Speaker 2 Yeah, in the division round, that was the thing. No picks.
But then also,

Speaker 2 we don't have it. Josh Josh Allen's had like the lowest percentage of turnovers in his entire career this year.

Speaker 1 What an unbelievable run

Speaker 1 for these dudes. Josh Allen's going to win no awards.
He's going to win the MVP.

Speaker 1 I think.

Speaker 1 So you think the AP voted Lamar Jackson first-team all-pro quarterback?

Speaker 1 And then they said in the same exact vote, in the same exact time, they said we're putting Josh Allen over Lamar, though, for the MVP.

Speaker 2 I think he should win the MVP. I'm hoping that he wins the MVP.

Speaker 2 Now, maybe he doesn't, but I think there would be enough people who maybe put Saquon one and then Josh Allen two because of the new ranking system.

Speaker 1 You think like a voter

Speaker 1 eating people's votes. Exactly.
The point

Speaker 1 has come in and really affected.

Speaker 2 Especially if there's some absolute doofuses voting for Sam Darnold to win Comeback Player of the Year. I'm sure that there were some.

Speaker 1 Talking about people in the AP?

Speaker 2 Yes, completely not understanding the spirit of their own award. But again, that is besides it.
And even DeMar Hamlin, I get it. But this is the previous season.

Speaker 2 What happened to him was two years ago. Unless we want to do a handout award again, that's also possible.

Speaker 1 He's named after him.

Speaker 2 But I just personally think Josh Allen should squeeze it out because Lamar's team.

Speaker 1 I understand. You're saying if you had a vote, that's what you would do.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Okay. Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, we're trying to say like what we think.

Speaker 2 No, I know. That's what I'm, I mean, I think people might have put Saquon one, maybe Josh two, Lamar three in a couple of days.

Speaker 1 And then they put Lamar first team all-pro quarterback. Yeah.
Over Josh.

Speaker 2 Some people. I don't know how those votes are.

Speaker 1 How many are there? 50? 50. I guess there can be a lot of...
That's what I mean.

Speaker 2 If you get 30 people, well, that have.

Speaker 1 You know, Vinatari was in that top 100, first kicker ever to get in there. I voted him the number one player.
How many points did he get? Probably could help

Speaker 1 from the number one player. Like, I went to the Pearl Bowl, first time I ever got to vote.
They're like, put your top 10 players in the NFL or whatever for this top 100. I vote Vinatari at number one.

Speaker 1 I said, every time he walked on the field, but one time this year, he scored. Is that the purpose of the game? I don't know.
You told me. Is that what we're trying to do? Are we trying to score?

Speaker 1 I think he's the best player in football. So I put him as a number one player in football.
I couldn't even fathom how many points he got off of that. He ended up being like number 70 or something.

Speaker 1 I lost a lot of sleep during my six-year tenure, but it wasn't because of Adam. Ever.
Ever. Yeah, we should have had that perfect season.
That sucks. We missed one against Tennessee.
Week,

Speaker 1 second to last week, maybe. Had a perfect season going.
Extra points and field goals. Rolling.
Only been done once before, Gary Anderson, I believe, Minnesota Vikings.

Speaker 1 Then he ended up missing a kick in the playoffs for them to lose a game. That was his first miss of the year, and people wanted to kill him for it.
Oh, yeah. First kick.
Get this guy out of 10.

Speaker 1 He still broke the points record that week, though, right? Down at Tennessee, because we gave him a game ball, and I fucked it up. I said, it was points for this.

Speaker 1 And you got, no, coach, it was like all-time leader.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, that's that one, too. No, no, it wasn't all-time.
It wasn't all-time leader. I know that, because I wasn't around for that.

Speaker 1 I was trying to, I was literally thinking about just staying to be there for the all-time leading scorer record. God, I wish you would have.
I'm pretty happy with what the decision was made.

Speaker 1 And I think Vinny ended up making it out pretty good. I tell everybody, you mapped this out when you came in and said, hey, I'm done.
I said, what?

Speaker 1 And I said, you could kick for another 20 years, Pat. Yeah.
And you go, here's what I'm doing, coach. Bop, bop, bop, bop.

Speaker 1 And lo and behold. Love and behold.
It didn't have a church in there. There you go.
You know, it didn't have the thunderdome in that particular idea. It was pretty close to what you told me.

Speaker 1 It felt like there was a

Speaker 1 easily seeable kind of path. It felt like you had it.
A lot of work was going to happen.

Speaker 1 But with that being said, I almost stuck around Fort Vinitari to be your all-time leading score. So I wasn't there for that.
So there was probably some other record that he broke.

Speaker 1 I also do appreciate and remember you panicking one time because Vinny didn't even get on the field one game.

Speaker 1 So like consecutive starts, Vinatieri had this consecutive starts record that was just like

Speaker 1 whatever it is, you know, like numbers that will never be eclipsed. One game, we got shut out completely.
So Vinny didn't even get on the field.

Speaker 1 So Chuck, like with a minute left in the game, I think he's talking to Conte. He's like, do we need to put,

Speaker 1 or appearances in game, do we need to put Vinny in this game? Like, just at some point, do we mess something up? They're like, no, since he never showed, since he never went on the field, it doesn't

Speaker 1 count. It doesn't count as a game or something.
He was like, sweet. When you guys came up to me with that, it's like the game.

Speaker 1 It was like a minute left and we were getting, okay, we got beat, whatever. But I mean, at least Vinny's good.

Speaker 1 His record's good.

Speaker 1 I may get run out of town for this loss, but Vinny's good. Yeah, that was, those things are.

Speaker 1 I mean, when you're talking about history,

Speaker 1 there's a lot of ways to handle that. And coaches are right in the middle of it all.
But Vinatari was so sweet. He's going to be first Ballot Hall of Famer.
Absolutely. He should be.
Isn't that crazy?

Speaker 1 As a kicker, he's going to be first Ballot Hall of Famer. There's some people, I guess, that do the voting that don't think a kicker should ever be a first Ballot Hall of Famer.

Speaker 1 So they'll be battling against it in the quiet rooms or whatever the case is. But it's like, if anybody was ever to be, he would be the one.
And we're pulling for him.

Speaker 1 Joining us down, ladies and gentlemen, is the all-time leading tackler for the Green Bay Packers. Ladies and gentlemen, national champion, A.J.
Hawk. Yeah, Walker.

Speaker 1 Walker, how you doing, brother?

Speaker 13 Oh, I'm doing great. How are you guys doing?

Speaker 1 Yeah, fantastic. You know, we're chit-chatting about all these awards.
Obviously, you and I both are guys that didn't win a lot of these awards.

Speaker 1 So throughout our, I mean, maybe throughout your life, you did. I did not.
I was.

Speaker 1 I was runner-up for male athlete of the year of my high school.

Speaker 1 I think I was the only person that could have had scholarships in three different sports.

Speaker 1 Didn't win it. You know, Mike McKee.
Who won it? Mike McKee, who I have a massive respect for. He went to Kent State to play basketball.
Guy had a silky. McKee, four,

Speaker 1 three.

Speaker 1 I mean, he was awesome. I love Mike McKee.
Have no beef with Mike McKee, but certainly could have had a scholarship in three different sports. Plum isn't like a factory of things.

Speaker 1 I think I probably should have been male athlete of the year. Kind of forced me to go to this thing, didn't win it.
All right, fuck these people. You know, that's right.

Speaker 1 Go down senior year of college. Come down to this award show in Orlando.
You're going to win the Ray Guy Award. You know, do the whole song and dance.
Go get a suit that you can't afford.

Speaker 1 Do the whole thing, have your dad miss work, your mom miss work. It's going to be fun.
Come down here. Some guy that only had like 15 punts on a season wins Ray Guy.

Speaker 1 Well, it's like, okay, it's bullshit. I hate this thing.
Then there's numerous other times where, so I'm an anti-awards guy, strictly because of my life with awards.

Speaker 1 But with that being said, these things mean a lot to legacy. These things mean a lot to the future of how people are viewed in their time.

Speaker 1 What are your thoughts on all the finalists that have been mentioned? And what are your thoughts on awards as a whole, AJ Hawk?

Speaker 13 Man, that's a good question. I guess it always,

Speaker 13 how many people are voting on him, I think is a big thing. Some awards, there's like 20 people people that vote for him.
I think in college and different things, which seems crazy to me.

Speaker 13 I think 50 is a decent number for like tone and the AP voters, but you're right. Like if Lamar is AP, first team all pro right from the AP, how would he not be the MVP voted on by the same people?

Speaker 1 Well, what Connor's saying is that Saquon Barkley might steal some of the votes. You know, Independent Party in here are coming in to eat up some of the votes from the one particular party.

Speaker 1 So he's saying maybe that'll benefit or help out Josh Allen in this entirety. What has been proven over the past is the quarterback that's first team all pro is normally the MVP.

Speaker 1 That is normally they go hand in hand. But because Saquon had such a great year, they're thinking maybe there'll be other votes going other places is what Connor's kind of spinning.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 And I don't know if this is the first year, Tone, maybe you can say, even though it was your first year, is this one of the first times they've done like the list one through five who the MVP is instead of just write in one name?

Speaker 2 I believe it is.

Speaker 5 And the only way I know that, and we'll say this because JJ brought it up on our show and said it was one of the first. I don't know, to be honest, I don't know.

Speaker 1 I could ask and find out.

Speaker 2 And so, because of that, I think people might have put like Saquon one, and some people would have Josh two and then Lamar versus having like Lamar have the most because if it was just one name, yes, I would think Lamar would win it.

Speaker 2 But just thinking about, especially after seeing who some people voted for for the comeback player of the year, like I would assume there is going to be some final tally, very close race to it.

Speaker 1 Maybe if Josh Allen is asked to donate like a weight room back to the NFL someday, he can say almost MVP weight room. Like I was going to do a poem.
They asked me if I could donate a weight room.

Speaker 1 Do I want to title it? I said call it almost male athlete of the year

Speaker 1 weight room or whatever. And they're like,

Speaker 1 really?

Speaker 1 Like, yeah, put it on the wall. They're like, okay.
I'm like, don't do that.

Speaker 1 But just know that I've never forgotten. You know, I have never forgotten.
It's not the kids' fault, but it is something I think about.

Speaker 1 The awards are so interesting, man, because then you have to take into account who's voting. Like, do I want to put enough stock into this person's opinion to actually care about it?

Speaker 1 But players do, mostly because whether or not you're going into the Hall of Fame, whether or not you're being talked about as one of the all-time greats.

Speaker 1 I mean, old buddy there is still pissed at Brett Favre for laying down for Strahan

Speaker 1 because he wasn't able to sign autographs to make money on it. I mean, there is, these awards mean something.
You know, they actually do. I hate that they do.

Speaker 1 I think it's good that we celebrate people, but they legitimately matter whenever you're talking about who matters in the history of the league.

Speaker 5 Again, I tried taking it as seriously as one possibly could because I know it means so much. And I tried using, like, I used every single resource that I could.

Speaker 5 I talked to all players at the positions with the voting and coaches and things like that. So, you know, hopefully you take it right.

Speaker 5 And if you don't take it right, if you don't do it right, we kick you out.

Speaker 1 Thanks for your service, Tom. Tony, Tony.

Speaker 13 Tone, are you on a one-year deal? Sorry, are you a kind of one-year contract? If you don't do a good job, they boot you? I believe so.

Speaker 1 Yeah, we had a conversation with the AP this morning. Turns out not everybody was thrilled that Tone got an AP vote from what we've been told.

Speaker 1 But what Tone has exhibited this year is nothing but full-on research and effort to get it right. So we appreciate your representation of this program, Tone.

Speaker 5 Yeah, and hopefully I'll be back next year.

Speaker 1 Hopefully you will be, because you know what? They need you. Bingo.

Speaker 1 Especially because there's people putting Sam Darno on the comeback player of the year whenever they're like, no, that ain't the rules anymore. So

Speaker 1 I don't want to hear it from these AP people.

Speaker 2 Yeah. Same with DeMar.

Speaker 1 Yeah, bingo. Like, Damar.
And he's up there because they knew they messed up a year ago with Joe. And Joe was the first one to say, Flacco, I don't deserve this.

Speaker 1 It should go to DeMar. You know, and so DeMar's up there now.
So, okay, we screwed this up a year ago. So, two years later, can we make it this year?

Speaker 1 A lot of AP people, they don't like the grandstand, right? That isn't everything.

Speaker 1 It's not like the Associated Press or Media's thing, right? To do that? Sure. I don't think so.
Well, the Pro Ball.

Speaker 1 It's just a popularity contest. Which one? Pro Bowl back in the day.
Well, Pro Bow still, you know. You get grandfathered in.
Once you get grandfathered in,

Speaker 1 you could miss half the season, and they'd still put you in. Especially at offensive line positions, which we can ask A.Q.
Shipley his thoughts on it all.

Speaker 1 I mean, he would probably echo my sentiments on a lot of these things. but nonetheless, congrats to you.
Thankful for you. Congrats to the NFL as well.
It is a powerhouse.

Speaker 1 Have you seen what the projected salary cap is for next year, AJ?

Speaker 13 I have not.

Speaker 1 No, what is it? Projected salary cap next year, $275 million.

Speaker 1 Now, here is the salary cap growth since the year 1994. Okay, not that long ago.
1994, I was seven years old. $34.6 million is how much you were allowed to spend on your entire roster.

Speaker 1 Then obviously you see the growth. 2010 was an uncapped year because there was a CBA lockout.
There was no agreement. So they could have spent whatever.
That was an uncapped year.

Speaker 1 2020, obviously, you see it go down. That's because they weren't able to have anybody in the stands.
But if you look from like 2013 to like 2025, the growth of this league is unbelievable.

Speaker 1 The amount of money going out to players, significant. Now, how will it continue to grow? How do they continue to expand?

Speaker 1 Well, if they add a game and add a bye week, that's two more weeks of prime time games that they can sell to these new streaming devices. That's two more weeks of concessions.

Speaker 1 That's two more weeks of merch. That's two more weeks of ticketing.
That's two more weeks of money, which is probably what they're going to sell. $275 million is the projected cap for next year.

Speaker 1 And in 1994, it was $34.6 million. Big shout out to all the players and coaches that have put this league on their back and,

Speaker 1 you know, made it a very profitable business. We appreciate the hell out of you.
Hell yeah. Chuck, what do you see here? Because in 2013, $123 million salary cap was huge.

Speaker 1 People are like, holy shit, $123 million in a salary cap. Now, $275 is the projection.
That is absolutely insane. Now, the 2023 to 24 jump.

Speaker 1 224 to 255, they're saying that's like a make-good from the 2020 jump. You know, 2020 had a downfall because there was no tickets.

Speaker 1 Remember, they had the cardboard people in the stands, and they said, there's going to be 30,000 cardboard members in the audience. And there's going gonna be 10 actual members in the audience.

Speaker 1 So there's gonna be 30,010 people at this particular game. It's like that's not how that works.
Come on. So the salary cap drops a little bit, but then it finally catches up in 2024.

Speaker 1 Now it's off to the races. What a league, Chuck Bagano.
What is your biggest takeaway as you look at this graph? You look at, I mean, it was just... what, 8, 10 million a year, pretty much.

Speaker 1 I mean, then you talked about COVID where they missed, and then these huge jumps, even 2024 to 2020. What is that? 20

Speaker 1 million. $20 million, right?

Speaker 1 Yeah. I mean, it's incredible the way this league, we didn't know any better.

Speaker 1 Like in 2011, when I was at the Ravens, like $120 million, and again, we weren't paying quarterbacks $60 million a year or what we're paying them now.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but as that salary cap has gone, that's where quarterback contracts have gone as well.

Speaker 1 You know, and the new CBA that was negotiated there during that lockout, and then obviously post-that, the new CBA had like a veteran min.

Speaker 1 If you've been in the league for at least five years, here's what your veteran min is. Rookie min is like half of that.
And what ended up happening is quarterback money went up.

Speaker 1 And then the veterans actually started getting cut because all the rookie mins would be the case. So there was like some backwards effects that they thought it was going to be.
So much money, AJ.

Speaker 1 So much money. Now, granted, players are always going to want more, which I hope happens.
I hope players are going to continue to get more. The league's obviously going to want more.

Speaker 1 But 275 million split 50-50 amongst the NFL and the players for the salary cap. You can build a good team there, Age.
You can build a good team down there.

Speaker 13 Yeah, I can imagine you could you you better be able to build a good team with that much cash but do we know how much or what this chart would compare to say like the nba and their salary cap or other professional sports interesting we have not there's i wonder how like are theirs trending in this direction as well yeah and obviously we have 53 man rosters and everything like that versus the nba who has what 15 guys on there so per player i think we would have to do a lot of you know like kind of get it Accurate.

Speaker 13 Well, just see if theirs is going up as much as the NFL, like each year after year, or do they continue to grow?

Speaker 2 Yeah, theirs is definitely on like a per-year basis. Like Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown, same team, they both signed damn near, or one of them did sign a $300-plus million dollar contract.

Speaker 2 The other was right on the line.

Speaker 2 And then they're talking about SGA, Oklahoma City star, who I don't believe has had his super, super max yet, but they're saying he might be the first ever like $80 million a year player.

Speaker 2 So I think as far as money-wise goes, they're close just because, like Pat said, 15 players.

Speaker 2 but I guess here it is right here.

Speaker 13 Guaranteed as well, though.

Speaker 1 That's a big deal.

Speaker 2 Guaranteed is a massive difference.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and I mean, these are the luxury tax in the NBA.

Speaker 1 Yeah, 58 million there. It's 140 million now, so it looks like it's going up.
You go down to 2010 to what it is 2024.

Speaker 1 Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who might know, senior NBA insider for ESPN, the ever-handsome Sham Sharani. Yeah, Shaman.
Shams, you look so good. You bring the boom.

Speaker 9 That's all I got to say. I saw the video that you did.
Shout out to them.

Speaker 1 Come on. All right.
I'm happy you got your gimmick. You reset.

Speaker 1 I'm happy you got your gimmick in. I like the leather jacket.
Hey, you know,

Speaker 1 I like what you're doing here, Shams. We just did a graphic on the NFL salary cap and how the projected next year is $275 million.

Speaker 1 The only thing we ever talk about with the NBA is the fully guaranteed contracts and how seventh man on the bench is making more money than starting linebackers in the NFL.

Speaker 1 Is the NBA salary cap climb like this, or how does it work each year?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I mean, I think next year's is projected at around 154 salary cap i mean luka donchich this offseason is going to be eligible for i believe a five-year 350 million dollar super max contract extension che gills alexander similarly is going to be eligible for a massive uh super max as well nikola yokic i mean there's there's going to be a point in time here where 80 million per year 90 million per year and and dare i say 100 million per year at some point i'm not saying that's going to happen in this decade, but the way the numbers are escalating, I just remember

Speaker 9 when guys like Eric Bledsoe, Derek Rose, players 10 years ago, eight, 10 years ago were signing max contracts. Their deals were $70, $80, $90 million.

Speaker 9 These super max max contracts are much higher now. So I think we're only going to see it escalate.
And obviously the TV money is going to be flushing in as well.

Speaker 1 Especially with TV rights doing what they're doing. Now, they're going to have to get the ratings back.
And maybe when football ends, it'll go go through the roof.

Speaker 1 But also seems like there's a fascination with the NBA right now, especially revolving around a story down there in Miami that you reported on early into your tenure at ESPN.

Speaker 1 You're a senior NBA insider. You have to go into another team's world.
Okay, Woge retires. We know the Woge bomb, Shams bomb history.
We understand all that. You come into ESPN, senior NBA insider.

Speaker 1 You have news on Jimmy Butler. You say, hey, Jimmy Butler's trying to get traded out of Miami.
Everybody tried to kill you. Jimmy Butler's agent tried to kill you publicly.

Speaker 1 Pat Riley tried to kill you publicly. Other insiders tried to kill you publicly.

Speaker 1 And here we are about a month later, six weeks later, and it seems like it's at a boiling point with Jimmy Butler in the Miami Heat. What's happening down there?

Speaker 1 I know you talked about it earlier on First Take where you said it's basically like a divorce. Is it going to be messy? Is it going to be quick? How's it going to work?

Speaker 1 What inevitably happens with Jimmy Butler in the Miami Heat? And also, congratulations, Shumps. Oh, yeah.
Sitting in the pocket is everybody trying to tear you down in this thing.

Speaker 9 You stick to the facts and you trust in the reporting. And I knew knew the truth of the situation.
And sometimes you can't fully report what you know.

Speaker 9 You can go with what you have right now, and then you let things play out the way they're supposed to. Because this stuff is all fluid at times, and things can change, things can move quicker.

Speaker 9 The Heat, there was a world the Heat could have, when they initially started listening to trade conversations in December, they could have eventually traded him.

Speaker 9 But as his trade desire became more known with the Heat, we saw Pat Riley come out with a statement, we are not trading Jimmy Butler.

Speaker 9 And that was at a point where I think the Heat were still trying to figure out a way. How can we get Jimmy Butler back engaged with this team?

Speaker 9 He had taken about two weeks off from play in mid-December for an illness and reconditioning, as they called it, quote unquote.

Speaker 9 But he made it back, and there just wasn't that same level of engagement. And the stats, there's some stats that you can point to that show that

Speaker 9 his touches, his dribbles, the amount he's running, it's just, it's not the same. Like something is off with Jimmy Butler.

Speaker 1 He's not trying. He wants out of there.
He possesses

Speaker 1 classic NBA. This is classic NBA.
This is what it is, right?

Speaker 9 He requested a trade earlier this month. He told Pat Riley to his face, I don't want to be here.

Speaker 9 He told Mickey Arison and Nick Arison, the Heat owner and team CEO, to their face that he wants to be traded. And still, you know, the Heat are listening to trade.
conversations.

Speaker 9 They are engaged with multiple teams. There is no Jimmy Butler deal yet.

Speaker 9 So when two people are in in a relationship that they probably don't want to be in, what we're seeing play out is a divorce in real time.

Speaker 9 And the longer it continues to go, I think the nastier it gets, the uglier it gets.

Speaker 9 But the Heat also can't just trade Jimmy Butler to say we're trading him. They want to get some value for him.
This is a guy. Pat, five years in Miami, Jimmy Butler has spent there.

Speaker 9 And this is after LeBron James is gone. It's after Dwayne Wade is gone.
And he leads them to two NBA Finals runs, another Eastern Conference Finals birth.

Speaker 9 Over the course of five years, they had tremendous postseason success. And obviously, he was behind a lot of that.
He did not get extended in the offseason.

Speaker 9 He didn't get the respect, I think, that a lot of people in that position probably do get. And we're seeing right now how this season is playing out.
Pat Riley called him out after the season.

Speaker 9 And I think everything has kind of escalated since that point.

Speaker 1 Pat Riley kind of called out everybody down there, right? Durability, his question, and Jimmy Brothers' leadership.

Speaker 1 I think like everything kind of got called out publicly by Pat Riley, who's known to run a tight ship. That's kind of the way the Miami Heat are known about.

Speaker 1 So, will they handle this like other teams have handled it in the past when our superstar won't out? Let's make a deal done by any means necessary.

Speaker 1 I know they suspended him twice within the last two weeks for like nine games. He missed a flight.
I assume he was going to take his own in its entirety. How does this end between Jimmy and Miami?

Speaker 1 And how easy is a deal to make? Because we've seen shit like this in the past. Superstars won out, bang, let's get him out of here no matter what the cost is.
Is that how this is going to go in Miami?

Speaker 9 I mean, listen, there's two weeks before the NBA trade deadline on February 6th. And until that point, I mean, usually deadlines create urgency.

Speaker 9 And right now, the heat from the teams I've spoken to, they're not operating with tremendous urgency, but they are engaging with teams. But they have a price too.

Speaker 9 And they have a price that they want to trade Jimmy Butler for that hasn't been met yet. I think they're going to continue to be active because this is the reality of the situation.

Speaker 9 Eric Spolstra, Tyler Hero, Bam Autobio. This whole situation has really turned into

Speaker 9 a battle, battle, a war, whatever you want to call it, between Pat Riley and Jimmy Butler. They're two massive alphas in that heat organization, probably two of the biggest alphas in the NBA.

Speaker 9 When you think about the legend that Pat Riley is, and we know Jimmy Butler, he's come from nothing. He's come from a player that was unranked, played at Juco,

Speaker 9 went to Marquette, got drafted in the first round, came up as a really was supposed to be a utility 3nd player, turns himself into a max contract player, an all-star player, a player on the verge of championships in the NBA, leading teams to NBA Finals runs.

Speaker 9 And so they're both very prideful. And

Speaker 9 this relationship

Speaker 9 is over with as far as where they're at. I don't think you're going to put the genie back in the bottle.
But the reality is the reality. He's under a $49 million contract right now.

Speaker 9 He's got a $52 million player option for next season. And so if they can't get what they want, what do you do? And that's the question Pat Riley is going to have to wrestle with.

Speaker 1 Well, the only reason why I just just assume it's going to get taken care of because the NFL conversation about the NBA is we're not turning in the NBA. Guys sign contracts.

Speaker 1 They don't want to be here. Too bad.
They got to be here. The NBA, it goes back to like James Harden, obviously.
Yeah, fat suit with his moves. Yeah, fat suit going to Vegas, doing his thing.

Speaker 1 Then he had a hamstring in Brooklyn or whatever. Then he goes over to Philadelphia.
Then he hates that guy. He gets bottle service.
He hates that.

Speaker 1 And James Harden just wanted, we're talking about a lot of superstars in the NBA have kind of forced moves.

Speaker 9 He did something very similar.

Speaker 9 It was very similar the way it happened in Houston where you never want to say a guy's not trying because you just don't know for real for real but you know what you what you saw from the guys before and you know James Harden in Houston I but you know I think there is something to say if a guy isn't fully engaged if he's not happy where he's at It's hard to put forth that level of effort.

Speaker 9 It's hard to be fully engaged with the team. And I think that's what we saw with James Harden in Houston.
I think, to an extent, that's what we're seeing here with Jimmy Butler.

Speaker 9 And by the the way, that missed flight that he had yesterday, he had let the team know beforehand that he was going to do that.

Speaker 9 This is not the first time that Jimmy Butler was planning to fly separately from the team. This has happened before.
It's occasionally happened with other stars across the NBA.

Speaker 9 But this is the heat, in a lot of ways, like literally no tolerance policies right now with Jimmy Butler. And they are nine games worth of suspensions just in the last three weeks.

Speaker 1 So uncomfortable in the moment, you know, for Jimmy Butler and the team. Like, hey, I'm going to his practice.
I'm going to be an asshole. Okay.
I'm going to this game. I'm not playing hard.

Speaker 9 And he hasn't even done that yet. That's the craziest part of the show.

Speaker 1 We saw that in Minnesota. Okay, so we're not saying, yeah, and he took over the team.
Remember, he ran the thing and then he left and said, I just cooked all these guys. That's Jimmy Butler's a dog.

Speaker 1 It was on ESPN. I think he was doing an interview afterwards.
I mean, Jimmy Butler's a dog. But in the moment, when you're trying to get out of there, it has to be so uncomfortable.

Speaker 1 Locker room, you know, walking up the front office. I don't like you.
Ownership. I don't want to be here.
In the moment, so uncomfortable. But then as soon as you get to a new place, it's a parade.

Speaker 1 Welcome in. Welcome aboard.
We can't wait to have you. So I guess they view it as a necessary evil that uncomfort in the middle of it.
But we hope it all works out for him. Good luck, Jimmy.

Speaker 1 You got it. Good luck, Miami.
We're pulling for you. Go ahead, AJ.

Speaker 13 Sean, staying on Jimmy real quick.

Speaker 13 Could we have seen this coming? When did everything start with them? Does it stem from them not extending him this offseason?

Speaker 13 And also, can you remember a time in Pat Riley's career where he had to deal with a situation like this where a player really doesn't want to be there and he has to figure it out?

Speaker 9 I think where this probably turned was in the offseason AJ when Pat Riley made the comments, essentially telling him to shut up and play basketball.

Speaker 9 Like, you know, if you're not going to be on the court, you don't need to be mouthing off about whether you're going to get by the Knicks or the Celtics. Play basketball.

Speaker 9 And that was one thing they didn't extend him. You know, you see, this team is really going in on Bam Autabayo, Tyler Hero, their rising young core.

Speaker 9 And both players, I mean, Tyler Hero looked like an all-star this year. So you kind of see the tide turning a little bit in Miami.
The offense more geared toward those two guys.

Speaker 9 And then as the season goes on, I think the dissatisfaction that existed, there was just something off between Jimmy Butler in the last year of his deal, a veteran at his age, 35 years old.

Speaker 9 Usually guys like that, they want to have their futures settled out. I mean, we've seen it, guys.

Speaker 9 When a player is entering the last year of their deal, they want to figure out where am I going to get the next long-term, not just money, but commitment.

Speaker 9 Where am I going to spend my next three to four to five years?

Speaker 9 And clearly, this is not it as far as jimmy's concerned and that's where we saw um this this this really escalate all the landing spots still the same that you reported early what was it uh phoenix phoenix where else there was a couple others corporate then about is it maybe los angeles towin has a question for you yeah i do about the lakers i know i feel like i missed one of aj's questions i think i just no has pat riley ever dealt with this before oh i i no i i i don't i don't think not to this extent i mean obviously dwayne wade uh left him as a free agent lebron James left him as a free agent.

Speaker 9 And that was in a very public way. But from a player there, internally,

Speaker 9 as much as Jimmy Butler has meant to that organization, I think this is something we have never seen before.

Speaker 2 When he was coaching the Lego with that team on the show, on that Showtime show, there's a couple guys like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, when he was getting started. Yeah.
Yeah, and what was real in that Showtime show and what wasn't? That was kind of the issue. Him smoking sigs in the locker room was real.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I was watching that as a documentary, and then everybody that was in it came out and was like, this ain't right. This ain't real.
That was a good show, but then it wasn't.

Speaker 2 Yeah, that's just because they didn't like the accurate depiction of them.

Speaker 1 Oh, the portrayal.

Speaker 9 We got to bring that back, though. We got to bring that back.

Speaker 1 Portrayal of Pat Riley is that he's a dog, been there, done that, worked from the bottom all the way up to the top. Obviously, a lot of respect.
Him and Jimmy Butter on the outs right now.

Speaker 1 I think that's a big deal. Where's Jimmy Butler end up? And also in the trademarket.
Go ahead.

Speaker 5 Yeah, could it be with the Lakes show? Because I know there's been a lot of talk about what they're going to do before the deadline.

Speaker 5 I know Rui Achimura's name has been thrown out there, but it feels like maybe that's not going to happen. Are they going to land a big star this year at the deadline?

Speaker 9 Yeah, I mean, the Lakers are doing their due diligence to see what's out there. The problem is, in terms of the trade market, who there can make that difference?

Speaker 9 And I think LeBron James, Anthony Davis, your two-star players, I think they want to see some urgency, some activity with the Lakers in their front office to go out and go get another piece or two.

Speaker 9 And from my understanding, both LeBron James and Anthony Davis feeling that this team with the Lakers, which is now a certified playoff team,

Speaker 9 they're not, as of right now, a play-in team. They're in the sixth seed,

Speaker 9 five, six games over 500.

Speaker 9 They feel like if they get another piece or two, that they can really be legitimate title contenders. And when your best players feel that way, I think the Lakers will be active.

Speaker 9 They'll continue to do their due diligence. They have two first-round picks they can play with.
And those picks, so far out,

Speaker 9 2029, 2031, the value on those picks is immense.

Speaker 1 And the 2029 class,

Speaker 1 They got a couple eight-footers coming through.

Speaker 9 That middle schooler right now is going to be ready to go.

Speaker 9 I think they're ready.

Speaker 9 We just saw the Suns trade their 2031 first-round pick the other day for three.

Speaker 1 That's potentially a part of the problem with the, and I love that Matt Itchmia is going to do whatever the hell he can do to win. Fuck it.
2031. Yeah.
You can take whatever you want. Send it.

Speaker 1 I don't even know if I'm going to be the owner then. I might not want to be the owner if we don't win now.
But that is a part of the problem with the NBA, I think, for us taking you guys seriously.

Speaker 1 Correct. You know, I think it is.
And by us, I mean like people that aren't die-hard basketball people. It's like, you're trading to 2031.
Why don't you trade to 2051?

Speaker 1 Like, why don't you, why don't you just go ahead and get rid of everything? Well, there's, there is parameters on what you get. Okay.
Doesn't sound like it.

Speaker 1 And then Jimmy Butler, superstar for Miami, right? He's with the Heat. He's under gun.
He's going to be gone. It's like, so is it a, what is it? What is going on?

Speaker 1 I think that's the big conversation around the NBA. Did you just get some breaking news right there? Did you get some breaking news right there?

Speaker 9 Not yet, but we might have something on this show. Not yet, though.
Not yet.

Speaker 1 Oh, really? Does it involve this potential?

Speaker 1 Is that what you're talking about?

Speaker 9 It might. It might.
But

Speaker 9 we'll see if we get it.

Speaker 1 We'll see if we get it. Him and Holland around here if we were able to get that.
Connor has a question for you, Sean.

Speaker 2 Yeah, Sean, is there reports that Maverick Carter was going to basically make a rival NBA league with Saudi Arabia, I believe, like an international type league? Is that really happening?

Speaker 2 And is the NBA screwed? Because if Maverick Carter does it, LeBron's going to go and then everyone's just going to watch LeBron over there.

Speaker 9 BC, I hate to say it. I hate to break it on this show, but LeBron James is 100% not involved in this endeavor.

Speaker 9 Maverick Carter is an advisor for this group that's putting together a league trying to get funding, $5 billion for this league, that international league that's supposed to rival the NBA.

Speaker 9 You know, the NBA is also working on a league itself internationally in in Europe, from my understanding.

Speaker 9 Adam Silver has spoken about it actually while he's been in Paris, talking about how they can build a league in Europe that's kind of going to be around

Speaker 9 the Euro league and really be able to... compete there, but eventually potentially, I mean, he didn't close the door, but eventually having maybe a team, an NBA team over there in Europe as well.

Speaker 9 And he said, you know,

Speaker 9 we'll need to figure out how the travel would work in that situation. But the NBA is also expanding in Europe as well.

Speaker 9 So there's going to to be competition for whatever this international league is okay so maverick carter is an advisor not a bad person to have in there obviously been there done it with everything lebron james not a part of the international league he still wants to own a team in the nba i assume at some point 100 and he's been very vocal about las vegas and whatever team they get i mean the the nba i don't sense the expansion front is front of center exactly right this moment but of course two three four years down the line i think it is something the nba is going to continue to take a hard look at and you think about Seattle.

Speaker 9 You think about Las Vegas. Mexico City is another place that has gotten some consideration.
So the NBA is going to continue to be mindful. But of course, Las Vegas and Seattle are front and center.

Speaker 1 Okay, I'm excited to see how it all works out. $5 billion is a lot of money, but to who?

Speaker 1 To the people allegedly potentially behind that,

Speaker 2 that ain't nothing.

Speaker 1 He could accidentally just lose $5 billion, allegedly. Trump change.
And Adam Silver knows that. He'll be able to make it happen.
We love Adam Silver here.

Speaker 2 Legend.

Speaker 1 Very tough. He's like Scott Van Peltal.
Yeah. He just kind of walks in and you go, holy shit, did not know you were that tall.
He's been very good to us. We appreciate him.

Speaker 1 We hope the NBA continues to go. You talk about expansion.
I know there's one player in the expansion draft that everybody would want because of

Speaker 1 the superstar. Uh-huh.
The branding. The name, the opportunity.
Ty has a question for you.

Speaker 4 Shams, can we get an update on Zion? I think he's back.

Speaker 1 He's looked great.

Speaker 4 He actually looked like he's in shape, which is huge.

Speaker 4 Are we hopeful that this is going to be like a rest of the season thing? Are we kind of penciling in him getting hurt again and missing the most important games of the season?

Speaker 4 Or do we not have to worry about that anymore? And this is the Zion we should come to expect kind of for the rest of this season and future years here.

Speaker 1 Schmitty, listen,

Speaker 9 we of course. We of course need and want to see Zion Williamson play and play for extended periods of time.

Speaker 9 I'll be honest, I don't know how many important games the Northern Republicans are going to have for the remainder of the season, just looking at the record, but having Zion Williamson on the floor is the biggest thing that they need for the rest of this season, and they need him to continue to build on it from everything I hear.

Speaker 9 And,

Speaker 9 you know, people might think it's crazy, but Zion Williams really is in the best shape of his career

Speaker 9 since his rookie season. He hasn't been as light as he is.

Speaker 9 He's listed at 284. He's below that right now.
I can report that. So Zion Williamson is in shape.
His conditioning is right.

Speaker 9 And I think over the last few weeks, getting a sense on where you need to be basketball shape, your nutrition, your hydration, all the factors that keep you on the floor when it matters.

Speaker 9 I think he started to hone in on that. And, you know, the Pelicans know how important he is when he's healthy.
He can, he can really, Pat, he can change a franchise's fortunes really quickly.

Speaker 1 He needs to get traded to Indiana. Come over here to the Pacers.
They're playing in Paris.

Speaker 1 Pacers are taking on the Spurs. Wemby's back in Paris here in about 22 minutes.
The Pacers are going to win the entire thing. Is that where we're at right now?

Speaker 1 Give us an update on who matters and who doesn't in this NBA.

Speaker 9 Yeah, I mean, the Indiana Pacers certainly are finding their stride again, which is good for you guys. I mean, what's the feeling, Indy? I mean, that was a slow start.

Speaker 9 Tyrese Halbert and your guy, Pat, you got off to a slow start this year. Well, traditional.
What can you report on on why

Speaker 9 he got off to a little bit of a slow start?

Speaker 1 There's a blizzard in the locker room, is what I heard. Oh, no.

Speaker 9 Was it fifth? What was it? Was it 50?

Speaker 1 A lot of people were saying a lot of things in the Instagram comments whenever they posted all their relationships that they're in over there in Paris.

Speaker 1 There's a lot of things said about this particular team. I think they've taken that in stride.

Speaker 1 I believe Tyrese Halliburton, we were very much in contact with him throughout the beginning of the season. He looked like he was patting.
Oh, yeah. Patting.
He looked like he was patting.

Speaker 1 He knew that he was letting everybody down. He knew that he was not playing great.
But all it takes for a guy like Tyrese is just a couple.

Speaker 1 Couple shows. A couple shaking bakes.
Yeah. A couple shaking bakes, baby.
No look passes, and then he's back in it. It's like the feel-round indies, we're just fine.

Speaker 1 And then Tyrese and the boys are going to show up. That's feel round indies.

Speaker 2 Yeah, I've heard the feel-round indies more so like, hey, does it really matter? Because no one's beating the Cavs or the Celtics.

Speaker 1 Well, just real quick, we beat both of them. And also,

Speaker 1 Caitlin Clark won 50 of 54 from three on her birthday.

Speaker 5 I saw that. I saw that.
That's good.

Speaker 1 So, Tyrese Halliburton, Caitlin Clark, Indiana basketball is doing A-ok. All right.

Speaker 1 That is how we feel around here. And we know when the playoffs come around, they're going to play their best ball, just like you, Sean.
So we appreciate the hell out of you, brother.

Speaker 1 Thank you for staying on the top.

Speaker 9 I do have one thing before I leave. I will say, I will say this.

Speaker 9 Slam dunk contest in the NBA.

Speaker 9 Andre Jackson Jr. of the Milwaukee Bucks has committed to the NBA Slam Dunk contest at All-Star Weekend.

Speaker 9 So now it's Matas Bezelis of the Chicago Bulls, Stefan Castle of the San Antonio Spurs,

Speaker 9 and Andre Jackson Jr.

Speaker 1 of the Bucks.

Speaker 2 Those are the three

Speaker 1 or four commissions

Speaker 1 of the All-Star weekend.

Speaker 9 Mac McClung, we'll see if he performs in this Slam Dunk contest in San Francisco.

Speaker 1 Andre Jackson Jr.

Speaker 10 Standing invite.

Speaker 1 Mac McClung, Justin. Back me up.

Speaker 1 No, he's starter.

Speaker 1 Here's Andre Jackson Jr., number 44 for the Milwaukee Bucks. It's not just this photo.
We have a highlight of this guy going up and getting. Look at him.
Watch him. He's coming into the frame.

Speaker 1 That's who's. Come on now.
Come on, bro. Come on, Pat.

Speaker 1 I see it, correct?

Speaker 9 Three inches above the rim.

Speaker 1 Gonna go dumb.

Speaker 1 Yeah, guy's got some bounce, but that white boy, Mac McCung, he also sore

Speaker 9 guy.

Speaker 9 If he does it, it's gonna be a show.

Speaker 1 Well, we know. Matas is gonna be a show.

Speaker 1 We know Matas Bouzelis is coming in with the real shit. And then Duke Stefan Castle II is coming in for the real deal.
And then Andre Jackson Jr., not to be confused with Andre Jackson Sr.,

Speaker 1 who also hit his fucking head off the rim is going to be there. This is going to be the greatest dunk contest of all time.
We appreciate you.

Speaker 9 Shout out to Andre Jackson Jr., champion at UConn. The Bucks have played very well with him as a starter.
He's emerged as a starter.

Speaker 9 He's played in most of the games with the Bucs this year, who I've turned around. They play the heat tonight.

Speaker 1 We knew that. And oh, eyes are on the heat.
What are they going to do in your superstar? That's how you bring this whole thing for real. Hey, full sir.

Speaker 1 We appreciate you, ladies and gentlemen, Sean Schroying. Yeah, dogs.
Don't you be sad.

Speaker 1 Well, you don't know who's stepping the castle? Yeah, come on, coach. I mean, I know you're like watching on the day that I mean.

Speaker 4 Boozellus, coach.

Speaker 2 He's one of the Trump.

Speaker 1 Boozellus. From Boozellus Land.
What, you want country of origin? Jeez, Louise, Joe.

Speaker 1 Buzzakistan. See a check.

Speaker 1 The way you're saying that is a little bit aggressive. Yeah, I don't think that's easy.

Speaker 1 I got some check in me. I want to know.
No, you don't. No, do you? Paisano, okay.
Andre Jackson Jr., that guy fucking flies. Holy hell.

Speaker 1 Did you see him? Look at him. Watch him cook.
This guy's in. Why are you in here? Give me that.
Don't jaw off. Stupid.
Boom. He was going dummy, dude.
Mad dummy. And then Mac McClung.

Speaker 1 We know who that is. Yeah, of course.
That's Milk Boy that goes through to Scott.

Speaker 5 You guys went last year, right? You said it was awesome.

Speaker 1 I wasn't there for the dunk contest. You were.
I was.

Speaker 2 It was sick.

Speaker 1 The big one?

Speaker 1 They need to stop with like 10 tries and act like it matters. You know, this is kind of the

Speaker 1 trick shot generation. You know, and I guess we do it every day.

Speaker 1 Every day out of here bingo his first attempt yeah if he makes a shot 30 people 500 boom shot number seven but if you make that on the first one it's much better sweet the dunk contest you see guys miss like three dunks and then they still do it and we're supposed to act like we're impressed and the internet's like this is impressive it's like in real time it wasn't though we also need the stars to do a dunk contest but why would you if you're the star why would you risk getting injured why would you do something so explosive you know until the superstars say they want to do the dunk contest again nobody's gonna take it seriously yeah and that's just matter of fact

Speaker 1 and like we got an issue with the Pro Bowl of the NFL. Like every time I talk shit to the NBA people about their all-star game, I'm always like, your guys' fucking all-star game is such a joke.

Speaker 1 You know, Tyreese Halliburton will come in here and be like, you guys are going to force people to watch your fucking all-star game again or whatever. He goes, how's the Pro Bowl? It's like,

Speaker 1 valid. Yeah.

Speaker 1 That's a very

Speaker 1 valid question. So I think the all-star games all mean something.
I think the title matters, but it is tough to get, you know, into them. And nowadays.
Back in the day, NFL-wise, star's playing.

Speaker 1 All of the studs are playing, trying to prove something. Quarterback challenge, I mean, it was like Peyton, Brett, I mean, Dan, I think all the big names were trying to throw their arms out.

Speaker 1 They were trying to throw their arms out. Nowadays, if somebody was to do that, they'd be like,

Speaker 1 you need to get out of that whole thing.

Speaker 1 Same thing's happening in NBA and everything like that. So

Speaker 1 we dunk on the NBA All-Star game a lot. I think All-Star games as a whole have just kind of not figured it out.

Speaker 4 They're never going to fix the dunk contest either. Because like you said,

Speaker 4 the stars need to do it. These guys make way too much fucking money.

Speaker 4 So, like, it's like if they put up, even if you always talk about you got to put up some prize money, if they put up like 500K or like a million to the winner, these guys will be like, fuck that.

Speaker 4 I'm making like $8 million a game. So why the hell would I?

Speaker 1 Yeah. So when Stefan Castle steps up to jump on the free throw line, let's not say.
He sounds like he's out of a movie. What was it?

Speaker 1 He's a UConn national champion. This man is a rookie.
No, that's Andre Jackson Jr.

Speaker 1 Castle all too. Oh, of course.
Yeah. Of course.
I knew that. Oh, that's right.

Speaker 2 I mean, the three-point contest has become the best one. Like, now the three-point contest is the best.

Speaker 1 Especially if we got Sabrina and somebody, and Caitlin, and somebody, and they start doing it. That's how you really bring it together.
Caitlin's missing this year.

Speaker 2 No, she's not.

Speaker 1 So, while they're all playing in a three-on-three league, she's hanging around Taylor, getting some ideas business-wise, and then she's in the gym. That's what Caitlin Clark's doing.

Speaker 1 They did change the game now.

Speaker 2 There's multiple teams who are more so doing like an NHL-type

Speaker 1 all-star game. Who undisputed? And there's like there's America, and then there's Europe, right? And don't they have like that?

Speaker 2 There's a Rising Stars game.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that whole thing going on.

Speaker 4 Also, for the dunk contest, I mean, no disrespect, but Booz Ellis can't be in the fucking dunk contest.

Speaker 1 Dude,

Speaker 1 have you seen it? You can't have that guy in the dunk contest. Have you seen Matt?

Speaker 1 That's different. He's a short white guy who can fly through the air.

Speaker 4 I don't need to see a 7-foot-two Croatian guy in the dunk contest.

Speaker 1 Why not? What if he's fucking whole?

Speaker 1 He's not good, dude. He's 7'2.
He's great.

Speaker 4 He's very tall.

Speaker 1 I want to see some explosion. I don't want to see.
What if this guy kisses the top of the backboard?

Speaker 1 The very top? Yeah. Then I'm spooching the top of the backboard.
Then I will rescind all comments. Wemby needs to be in a dunk like this.
He needs to just walk up to it.

Speaker 1 That would be sick. And not even jump.
Dribble full court and just fucking. Slow, though.
Slow. Just

Speaker 14 one of these.

Speaker 1 Yeah, that would be awesome.

Speaker 1 That would be awesome.

Speaker 14 But Zelis might be with you.

Speaker 2 Edie, maybe throw Edie in there, have him do the same thing.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Okay, so we're brainstorming.
We'll continue to do that. Let's get away from the NBA.
Let's go to the NFL. The future of the NFL.

Speaker 1 But the NFL all-star deals, like Pro Bowl. Stinks.
That is so bad. Dodge Mark.
Like, are we having egg toss again and water balloons? And it's fun. We were approached with

Speaker 1 helping be a part of the NFL Pro Bowl, like being on TV and everything.

Speaker 1 I don't think we're going to be part of the brainstorm for the games.

Speaker 1 So we turn it down. Sure.
But there was a couple of Mickey Mouse games they were doing that I did not think we need to be putting our superstars through the public.

Speaker 1 You know, we don't need to make these people look like idiots. But I like that it's competitive.
You know, dodgeball is fun. Longest drive.

Speaker 1 Yeah. That one was maybe the worst one.

Speaker 1 It's like PC or Long.

Speaker 1 Yeah, why? The coolest catch. Coolest catch, also cool.
But then when you drop one, it's not a. And they were dropping a lot of them.
Yeah, they were going back.

Speaker 1 I think Dano did try again. Offojetsky?

Speaker 1 Dano is the highlight. Danio Orlovsky doing the quarterback carnival was the highlight.
Let's talk about the future of the NFL, although we're talking about the greats.

Speaker 1 Joining us now, ladies and gentlemen, is a man who was former NFL scout, but now he does it on television very well.

Speaker 1 He hosts Combine alongside Rich Heisen. He also hosts a podcast.
He's also the color commentator for the Los Angeles Chargers. Ladies and gentlemen, move the sticks with Daniel Jeremiah.
Yay!

Speaker 1 DJ, how you doing, Bob?

Speaker 10 I'm doing great, man. I've got my phone kind of acting sideways here, so it doesn't pick up my computer.
I don't know. I don't know why that didn't work.

Speaker 1 That's okay, DJ. Tech is obviously something we're all trying to figure out.
We were just talking about

Speaker 1 the NFL Pro Bowl and the NBA All-Star game being absolute shite.

Speaker 1 I don't know if they're ever going to be able to fix it again with how much money and the analytics we have, but hopefully we'll be able to celebrate great players forever.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about great players coming in this draft.

Speaker 1 I heard Brinker talking to Ramon Foster in another local radio show down there and said, if you have a once-in-a-generation talent at number one, you have to take that player.

Speaker 1 Blue player is what we call them. Like once-in-a-generation because they have the number one overall pick.
But then also we'll listen to everything else. Who's he potentially talking about there?

Speaker 1 Is that Travis Hunter? Is that Abdul Carter? And whenever it comes to quarterbacks, everybody's still talking Shador and Cam Ward, really, the only first-round grades.

Speaker 1 And how do you kind of see it all operating?

Speaker 10 Yeah, for me, Abdul Carter is the best player in the draft. So when I heard that and just like blue player,

Speaker 10 you know, an elite player, someone who's going to step in, be a Pro Bowler, like right out of the chute,

Speaker 10 that was what I heard. And to me, Travis Hunter is so unique in how you can use him and all the different things he can do.

Speaker 10 So that was at least perked me up a little bit that this might not just be, you know, whether it's Cam Ward versus Shadur, they have a neat quarterback. It's going to be one of those two guys.

Speaker 10 That perked me up a little bit to say maybe they're taking a long-range view and just taking the best player.

Speaker 10 To me, Abdul Carter at a premier position, I would argue the second most important position on the field. To have a guy at that level of a talent, I'd be all in on that.

Speaker 1 And he played through an injury to play in the Orange Bowl, which I respect and appreciate, too.

Speaker 10 Dominated.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
He's a war arm. And Drew Rosenhaus said, I would have been disrespecting him and his family if I would have told him not to play for the good of business.
So it feels like he's a guy.

Speaker 1 Let's talk about the quarterbacks now because obviously there's a lot of quarterback-needy teams. Shador Cam Wood, the only guys being talked about.
Is that because their talent, their skill? And why,

Speaker 1 okay, you know what's coming. Why

Speaker 1 are you draft pundits leaving Will Howard out of the conversation of being a first-round guy? It's because he has talent around him. Okay, that's his fault that he has talent around him.

Speaker 1 Somebody has to, on third and 11, somebody has to get the call, know that he's going to throw a deep shot, go out there, put his thing on the table, and drop one into it.

Speaker 1 Even if Jeremiah's open, you still got to spin that thing and drop a 30-yard ball to win the national championship, which he did time and time and time again. What am I missing from you draft pundits?

Speaker 1 Why is he ranked so damn up? Fourth round, people got him as fourth rounder, six four, 240. What are you guys doing? What do I not see, DJ, in this entire thing?

Speaker 10 First of all, dude, you're like the teacher that calls me to tell me I failed the test that I haven't even turned in yet.

Speaker 1 I want to let you know. I already know.
I already know.

Speaker 10 I haven't even posted anything. It comes out next week, but top 50, Minecraft, all that stuff.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 10 here's the Will Howard discussion. He went on an epic run, and I'm excited to get a chance to go through all the all-22 stuff in these playoff games because he played great.

Speaker 10 And I'm excited to get a chance to dig in on that. The games I had watched earlier, I had watched, I'll just tell you, I got my notes in front of me.
It was Oregon, Penn State, Nebraska.

Speaker 10 The first Oregon game. So the first Oregon game made some nice throws.

Speaker 10 He had a couple that got away from him down the field.

Speaker 10 On the whole, I thought he played well. But then at the end of the game, you know how it ends?

Speaker 10 He takes off kind of a little bit of a brain cramp and slides and it goes zeros and they lose the game. Next game I watch is Penn State.

Speaker 10 Again, there's a lot of good to take from that in terms of, you know, throwing on balance, you know, some up and down throws over linebackers under safeties.

Speaker 10 But the first play of the game predetermines pick six. He's running into the end zone, fumbles out of the back of the end zone.

Speaker 10 So then I go to Nebraska.

Speaker 10 So again, I've just watched three games early in the process, and coach knows, you know, you start with three or four of these games, and then you get a chance to circle back and watch some more as we go.

Speaker 10 And Nebraska was the last one. He had a sack fumble and a ball took off on him for a pick in that game.
So the size, he's 6'037, so he's just at 6'4, 240 pounds, as you mentioned. He can move around.

Speaker 10 He can make all the different throws, and he got on an epic heater at the most important time. And

Speaker 10 I'm excited to dig into those. Pat, he's right on the borderline of a top 50 pick for me at this point in time.
But I'm telling you that because I haven't had a chance to watch this playoff.

Speaker 1 Okay, so you're saying that I'm coming at you sideways. I'm not putting him in the fourth round.
You got him a little bit higher because I've only been a little bit more.

Speaker 10 He's much higher. He's higher than that.
He's a day two guy for me as we sit right now. And we'll see, go through the rest of the process.

Speaker 10 I was a little bummed because I'm going to be at the senior bowl next week. And right, and understandably so.
He's played 16 games. He pulled out of the senior bowl at the last at the last minute.

Speaker 10 So I was excited to see him in person because I've never stood next to him and get a chance to see him throw.

Speaker 1 But I also wait to the comments. So on that note, he also carried the ball, I think, 16 times in the national championship, other than 16 games.

Speaker 1 He said on our show, Senior bowl next week i'm pretty banged i don't know if that's yeah understandable the best usage of his time he's had you know four senior bowls in the biggest moment has had an incredible game speaking of senior bowl though chuck has a question for you jeremiah yeah so dj with with nil and all these players uh deciding not to declare for the draft and stick around because of the the money that's uh available to them what's that doing to your pool we got the fifth you know senior bowls february 1st i think um are you missing out on on a bunch of guys to you know the point you were just talking about, the kid at Ohio State, but these guys that are staying in school?

Speaker 1 What's the pool look like? And then the second part would be back to Travis Hunter, put your GM hat on.

Speaker 1 Where would you take him as? Would you take him as a D-back, a corner, or a wide receiver?

Speaker 10 Well, I want to start with that one because I want to go back to you quickly on that, Coach, because most times when you have guys that can do the two-way thing, and it goes back to Champ Bailey and Woodson, all those guys, they major in defense and they minor in offense.

Speaker 10 It's just a lot easier to sprinkle them in on offense than to sprinkle them in on defense. The challenge for me, Coach, I actually like him better at receiver than I do at corner.

Speaker 10 And he's, you know, he's not big. He's going to be a little over 170, 175 pounds.

Speaker 10 So asking him, you know, even though he was able to do it in college, I think in the NFL where they're going to pull him into the run game a little bit more,

Speaker 10 I don't, you know, I prefer him on offense over defense. I'd like to sprinkle him in, but coach, I'd love to know your take.

Speaker 8 Can you do that?

Speaker 10 Can you go the other way and major in offense and minor in defense?

Speaker 1 Okay, and Chuck will give his take on that. Daniel Jeremiah will continue to break down the draft boards on YouTube, ESPN Plus, Disney Plus, and TikTok Live.
We'll see you tomorrow on ESPN. Goodbye.

Speaker 1 Okay, with that being said, Travis Hunter, easier to be offense, defense guy, or do you think you're going to see both?

Speaker 1 Hembo sent me a stat that he has been, I think, pushing throughout a lot of the ESPN, folks. You know, average top 10 wide receiver at this point, top five wide receiver, 30 million.

Speaker 1 Average top five, top 10 corner, like 20 million.

Speaker 1 There's a chance this guy is a $50 million player if he's able to be top five at both positions. I think that's going to be incredibly difficult.

Speaker 1 I think everybody that's been in the NFL thinks that's going to be incredibly difficult. There's a chance he's different, though.

Speaker 1 Is there a chance that Travis Hunter is different as a guy who grew up in Boulder and loved the Colorado Buffaloes? Yeah, I studied him. DJ earlier this year, watched all his tape as a corner.

Speaker 1 And then Jay Gruden, we do a deal on the 33rd team. He broke him down as a wideout.
This guy is a rare, rare, rare elite talent.

Speaker 1 I mean, what I saw him do on the defenses, they weren't real complicated. He played, you know, obviously a bunch of press man.
They sprinkled in some too deep here and there.

Speaker 1 So from a, you know, coverage standpoint, quarters, this, that, and the other, he's got some learning to do.

Speaker 1 But he's rare. And don't you think, I just think it's harder to find corners than it is to find wideouts.

Speaker 1 And I think you can find wideout, but the true cover guys, like if you want to be a pressure team and you want to get after people and you want to get locked down corners and take away, you know, the wideouts and play press coverage.

Speaker 1 I just think those guys are so hard to find. And to me, it would be like, go that route, put them on defense, and then

Speaker 1 have a package on. I think it's easier.
A red zone, third down.

Speaker 1 Whatever that is, and then go the other way. We've seen it go the other way.
We've seen Belichick

Speaker 1 use some guys that play nickel corner in a pinch if guys are injured and things like that.

Speaker 1 Yeah,

Speaker 1 the guy is rare. Wherever he goes and whatever side he plays on, I think he's going to be spectacular.

Speaker 10 Yeah, he's coach. I love that viewpoint.
And I think that's kind of the, you know, that's been traditional, right? Is that you're going to play defense. It is harder.

Speaker 10 Every year, we always, I always send out a tweet every year, and it's free PSA for high school kids.

Speaker 10 I said, every year in the draft room and every year I've been doing this on the media side of things, I'm trying to trim my receiver list and I'm trying to find corners.

Speaker 10 So if you have a chance to do one or the other, you got better odds if you go to corner of making it to the next level. So I'm with you on that.

Speaker 10 My only thing is I think of guys slender frame corners just has that's you know Jason Verette, I go back to him was a great, great player, just couldn't stay healthy.

Speaker 10 Denzel Ward has been beat up a lot who had a similar type frame for Cleveland. Like this is not Pat Sertan.
This is not a 200 pound, you know, big, sturdy physical guy.

Speaker 10 And I just feel more in the college game where you can kind of, you know, you can kind of be removed from the action a little bit more and he can cover like a son of a gun.

Speaker 10 But I feel like in the NFL with so many condensed formations and bringing these guys into run fits, that's where why I just worry about him holding up over the long term. That was my concern.

Speaker 1 Hey, force fumble to win a game. Big time.
He has like three force fumbles on a year. Travis Hunter is an absolute dog.
And he maintained being that Ferrari for an entire NFL season against adults.

Speaker 1 We shall see special talent. Go ahead, AJ.

Speaker 13 Daniel, what about Shadur Sanders? What do you think his outlook is? Do you think he does anything at the combine? Does he need to? And I guess

Speaker 13 a good fit would be for him.

Speaker 10 Well,

Speaker 10 there's pretty split opinions around the leagues, pretty polarizing, actually. But to me, when you watch him, the things you can't, that are irrefutable, he has got just a pure, pure throwing motion.

Speaker 10 He is a natural thrower. It is real pretty the way the ball comes out of his hand.
He's extremely accurate. He's incredibly tough.

Speaker 10 He got the living tar kicked out of him over the last few years there at Colorado. Those things you can't refute.

Speaker 10 Now, the people that aren't as high-inshooter are going to say, well, he doesn't have elite size. He doesn't have an elite arm.
And he's not an elite athlete.

Speaker 10 So it's like everything he does is is right here. He doesn't do those other things over the line.
So that's where some of the disconnect comes around the league.

Speaker 10 I think you get him in the right place. You protect him.
He's a point guard.

Speaker 10 He can be very, very efficient. So I think him and Cam Ward, that's going to be a fun discussion.
I have Cam Ward right now over him, but I have both those guys as a clear-cut top two guys.

Speaker 10 And there's so many quarterback-needy teams that are going to have opportunities there in the top 10. I think they both go up there in the top 10.

Speaker 1 Cam Ward's number one guy. Why?

Speaker 10 He's just got more, he's got more life in his arm. He's a little bit more explosive as an athlete when he takes off and goes.

Speaker 10 I just think he can expand your playbook a little bit more. Both of them have played a ton of football.
I just think I give him a little bit of check. He's about 25 pounds heavier.

Speaker 10 He's just a bigger, sturdier, stronger dude.

Speaker 1 What the fuck, dude?

Speaker 1 You know who I'm going to bring up right now?

Speaker 1 Who we got? Fucking Will Howard.

Speaker 1 You can look. Cam Ward lost to Syracuse.
No offense. No offense.
That was a shit defense. Okay.
So Will Howard, he fumbled a ball, I heard Jeremiah say, oh, he threw a bad pit.

Speaker 1 It's like, you look at anybody's tape looking for shit bad, you're going to find it, you know, on any.

Speaker 10 I mean, I don't have it in front of me, Pat, but I'm pretty sure Miami had like the number one scoring offense, the number one passing offense in the nation. Like they, they, he, he's pretty good.

Speaker 1 Yeah, playing in the ACC, they stole a win against Virginia Tech.

Speaker 1 They stole a win against cow they stole a win against i mean i don't i love cam ward i am not saying that cam ward is not a guy that i won on my team but just acting like there is because you guys are the ones say and once again you didn't put your test out yet so i guess i shouldn't judge you but all these draft people are like this is a bad quarterback class this is a bad quarterback class the motherfucker that just won the national championship who's 6'4 240 now we're here he's not a good one he's not he's not a good one he can run all over the yard yeah he did it whenever he's at kansas state was a big 12 player of the year there.

Speaker 1 He has too many weapons, though. It's like, what the fuck? He gets the NFLs.
He's going to have one.

Speaker 1 He's smart. He figures things out.
He's in a new offensive system with Chip Kelly and Ryan. Day.
He's only gotten better.

Speaker 10 Pat, we got a long way before the draft. You got to pace yourself, man.

Speaker 1 I'm not happy about it.

Speaker 1 I think it's disrespectful to this guy.

Speaker 1 So, friend, so

Speaker 1 if he...

Speaker 10 So here's an interesting one. So if you took,

Speaker 10 did you see Old Miss at all this year?

Speaker 1 Jackson Dart? Are you talking about Jackson Dart?

Speaker 10 I'm saying if you took Jackson Dart, and does Ohio State, and then AJ, I'll get your take on that as someone who's a Buckeye and watches the Buckeyes.

Speaker 10 If you took Jackson Dart and he got to throw to Jeremiah Smith and Tate and Ibuka and had those two running backs behind him and had all those NFL lines, do you think Jackson Dart would have won the national championship?

Speaker 1 That's cute. That's very cute.
We're doing that with Brock Purdy in the NFL too? Or does brain matter in this? No.

Speaker 1 No, no, no. No,

Speaker 10 I'm just saying. Look, I'm just asking a question here.
That's all.

Speaker 1 Okay. Yeah, it sounds like you're a fucking hater.

Speaker 8 I think Jackson Dart's pretty good.

Speaker 10 I think he's pretty talented.

Speaker 1 I liked him too.

Speaker 1 I like him too. I like Jackson Dart as well.

Speaker 1 I think a lot of the other stuff people are going to wonder about if he's a face of a program, face of a franchise, any other stuff is not stuff that I don't like.

Speaker 1 I love that he went out on Halloween and then two nights later threw for 500 yards or something like that. I like that he's all tatted up in the whole thing.

Speaker 1 I'm just saying there's some teams that are probably going to be like, that's not what we want for the face of our franchise. I'm not saying that's right.
I'm just saying whenever you're projecting.

Speaker 10 Is this because the iBlack? Is this because of the iBlack that we're taking them on?

Speaker 1 Yeah, I think that is a part.

Speaker 10 It is not a tattoo, by the way, Pat. That removes itself.

Speaker 10 He doesn't have the Mike Tyson tattoo.

Speaker 1 I almost kind of wish it was full-time.

Speaker 1 So now I don't know how to judge him. But I'm just saying, I'm not judging Jackson Dart for that.
I've gone to bat for Jackson Dart, but I'm saying NFL teams will, which leads back to Will Howard.

Speaker 1 This guy's a baby face, fucking just.

Speaker 2 All-American kid.

Speaker 1 Everything about him is just like, does, I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 10 I hope Jackson Dart. Pat, what state are, Pat, what state are you from?

Speaker 1 Pennsylvania.

Speaker 10 Where's Will Howard from?

Speaker 1 Yeah, Downington, motherfucker. Yeah.

Speaker 10 I'm just trying to get, I'm just trying to get to the core of this thing.

Speaker 1 Hey, if you could go down, why don't you do some research, do a little homework project? Who has the most Hall of Fame quarterbacks?

Speaker 1 Just go through what a state has it and then circle back to me whenever you get a chance. And that'll be a great convo.
Once again, love Cam. Love Shador.

Speaker 1 I mean, if we're going to throw Jackson in there, sweet. Love Jackson.
But I just feel like this guy, with we seen it. We watched it live.

Speaker 1 And that Tennessee defense was supposed to be, you know, like thumpers were fast, freezing cold, so different game. We're making excuses for everybody but Will Howard, obviously.

Speaker 1 But in that particular case, he just, he looks the part. Like everything about him just looks the part.

Speaker 13 If he was 5'10,

Speaker 13 if he was like 5'11, I would understand them saying you're like a fifth or sixth rounder because you're like, oh, he's a stud, but you know, he might not, probably don't have the height for the NFL game.

Speaker 1 But instead, he's fucking gigantic. He's a huge.

Speaker 10 Yeah, but I've never, yeah, but I've never said that fifth, sixth round. Like that's, that's crazy talk to me.
Like, I think he's going to be a day two pick, which is a second or third round.

Speaker 10 And then if he aces it, like, teams meet with him and fall in love with him and everything, then sure, who knows how high he can go. But I will say,

Speaker 10 when I'm watching him, guys, real quick, and I'm watching, God, I mean, I can't take my eyes off four. I can't take my eyes off Trayvion Henderson.

Speaker 10 That Penn State game, Trayvon Henderson, on one of Will Howard's touchdown run, he puts the freaking corner from Penn State.

Speaker 10 He just puts his face in his chest and puts him on the ground like that is a bad dude man and nobody's that's what I don't understand I'm looking like some of this stuff has come out I haven't seen everything but just some of the buzz and I'm like looking I'm like where's Trayvion Henderson in the first round of these things what am I missing on him yeah and if he's not there's another problem why is everybody because they got Jeremiah Smith on it then

Speaker 1 and Judkins on forever thousand as well in the same bat it's like that's their fault that they got put on a good roster that they put together a good roster it's like they all rallied around will too which is a whole nother and Trayvion Henderson Like, I'm cool with Judd Keep coming in here.

Speaker 1 It's like the human aspect thing. Yeah.
You guys seemingly get lost in a little bit, I think.

Speaker 10 Well, here, here's the, and it look, it's hard to separate someone from their situation.

Speaker 10 I will say, and this will be a point that is on your side of the fence for sure on this, is that there was people, it wasn't me, but there were people that with Burrow, he's got Jamar Chase and he's got Justin Jefferson.

Speaker 10 Like, how much is this Burrow? How much of this is the supporting cast? We saw it last year with Jaden Daniels with Malik Neighbors

Speaker 10 and the other other freak who went to Jacksonville.

Speaker 10 Yeah, but yeah, it was at Brian Thomas Jr. So like these things are, this is the way it works.
Most of the quarterbacks, especially in the NIL era, where you can move around, guess what?

Speaker 10 They're going to gravitate toward where all the receivers are so they can play with them.

Speaker 1 Yeah, and those teams are going to have the money. You know, and those, that money is going to be spent on probably receivers and running backs.
So I'm excited to see how it all turns out.

Speaker 1 They're not the only quarterback, so there's more. Go ahead, Ty.

Speaker 4 Yeah, DJ, obviously, this is a very quarterback-needy draft for a lot of of teams.

Speaker 4 Before the college football season started, both Jalen Milro and Quinn Ewers, you know, in a lot of mock drafts, hey, these are top 10 guys, maybe top five guys.

Speaker 4 And then as the season has went on and the process has went on, both of these guys are kind of just sliding down best available, sliding down draft boards.

Speaker 4 And now we're looking at, I don't know, is Quinn Ewers going to be a third-round pick, a fourth-round pick? Same with Milro. Why have those guys dropped so much?

Speaker 4 And do you think there is a world where one of these teams panics who needs a quarterback, and we end up having, you know, four quarterbacks taken in the top 10.

Speaker 10 Well, I can't see it being in the top 10, but I could see

Speaker 10 maybe in the first round or first two rounds.

Speaker 10 We'll take those individually. Like you were, I watched him over the summer.
I was excited about him coming into this year.

Speaker 10 And I felt I was higher on him than a lot of people, but I saw some good things from his tape. I saw someone who I thought had some twitch to him and quick eyes, quick release.
And

Speaker 10 I was hoping he was going to take that next step. Now, he got hurt.
And one of the things that I've got to try and

Speaker 10 figure out and get information on as we go through the spring is

Speaker 10 how much did that impact him because he didn't play as well. He wasn't as urgent and quick as he played.
But then he's got the oblique that bothered him. He had a high ankle sprain.

Speaker 10 So how much did that impact it?

Speaker 10 But he didn't play as well as

Speaker 10 me and some others had hoped he would based off where he was last year. And then

Speaker 10 when you get to Alabama and you watch Milro, you want him to be good so bad because everything here, he's a great kid. He's freaking jacked.
He's a big, strong physical kid. He can run like crazy.

Speaker 10 And just like, can he just take the next steps as a passer? And then, you know, just some of the decision-making, you know, Oklahoma games one that jumps out. Just kind of got away from him.

Speaker 10 And he's got a huge opportunity at the Senior Bowl next week. He's going to be down there.
So we'll get a chance to see him.

Speaker 10 I think, you know, just the traits, like, we've seen that go sideways as of late when you just kind of go all in on traits and, you know, some of the quarterbacking stuff isn't there.

Speaker 10 And you're like, okay, well, we'll just, that's going to come. Sometimes it doesn't.
So that's going to be what, you know, he's a little bit of an enigma, but somebody will do it.

Speaker 10 He's going to go on day two just because the tools are so interesting.

Speaker 1 Yeah, he's electrifying you whenever he's playing great. Yeah.
And that is certainly something you would like to bet on potential. And potential to get your ass fired.
You know, but potential is a

Speaker 1 massive piece of, you know, the entire draft process. Now, you mentioned the senior bowl there.
Chuck mentioned it, but Tone wants the hammer.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I wanted to circle back on it, DJ.

Speaker 1 I saw a stat.

Speaker 5 I think 70 underclassmen are coming out this year. And then pre-NIL, I think the last year, like 130 underclassmen came out of the draft that year.
And Chuck kind of touched on it earlier.

Speaker 5 What has that done for the draft process in general with the NIIL?

Speaker 10 Yeah, I'm glad you brought that back because I forgot to answer that part of the question. You know, it's interesting.
I think we've caught up a little bit.

Speaker 10 So what's happened is, yeah, we don't have as many kids coming out, but we also now are getting the benefit of having some seniors that would have been in last year's class that decided to stay in last year.

Speaker 10 So I feel like from a talent pool standpoint,

Speaker 10 I still think it's deep.

Speaker 10 I think especially like defensive lines loaded, tight ends loaded, running backs loaded. Offensive line is solid.

Speaker 10 It's just kind of a weird year because we've had so many years of these just incredibly deep receiver groups.

Speaker 10 But for some reason, this year it's not, you know, it's not as star-studded. But I don't think that's NIL based because, you know, most of these top guys, they came out.

Speaker 10 The problem is just the weird part of college football. The best receivers in college football right now are all freshmen and sophomores.

Speaker 10 They're all like that big wave is coming in the next couple of years. But I don't think it's as impactful now because I think we finally caught up.

Speaker 10 So where we might miss a couple kids that stayed in and took the money to stay in school, but we're getting the benefit of the kids that stayed in last year. All right.

Speaker 1 Well, there's also the guys doing seven, eight years college ball. Sure.
Congrats to them becoming doctors while playing football through the year. Oh, dude.

Speaker 10 So here's one that I heard the other day, by the way, was that these, think about the quarterbacks with NIL.

Speaker 10 It was talking about some of the movement that we've seen, and it said people don't know, like, okay, they might be getting three or four million bucks, like the top, top guys, and maybe that's, you know, Georgia kid that goes to Miami.

Speaker 1 Like, he could be getting three, you know, million bucks around there.

Speaker 10 But what people don't know is a lot of the trading card agreements that they do with either, you know, Panini or Topps, whoever they're signing their deals with, they have clauses in there that if you are a first-round pick, the value of your signature goes through the roof.

Speaker 10 So you're talking four, five, six million dollar kickers if you end up being a first-round pick.

Speaker 10 So if you're a quarterback and right, you don't have, you have a great year, or you're like, I don't know, I'm maybe a second-round pick. Like, okay, I can stay in college.

Speaker 10 I can get a guaranteed three or four.

Speaker 10 If I go in the first round, I might get a five or six million dollar kicker on this trade field.

Speaker 1 Like, it's insane, dude. Yeah, Domo Regato mr.
Robato through the end there. That was fantastic.

Speaker 1 I don't know what's happening with your audio, but I love that because that's potentially Drew Aller, right?

Speaker 1 I mean, Drew Aller goes back at Penn State, could have left one to the NFL, has the game end the way it ends where he throws a pick and then they kick a field goal, obviously, against Notre Dame.

Speaker 1 It's like, you're definitely going back to school. He can continue to grow and ascend and do his thing.
I'm excited for everybody. College football is in a great place.

Speaker 1 Daniel Jeremiah, we're in a good spot with you breaking down players. I still think you're fucking full of shit with Will Howard, but I'll be excited to see where you land on him.

Speaker 1 Legitimately, I will be excited.

Speaker 10 You're the best, man. I love you guys.
I'll see you guys later.

Speaker 1 You too, ladies and gentlemen. Move the sticks.
Daniel Jeremiah. Yeah, DJ.

Speaker 1 I call him this morning, and as soon as he answered, FaceTime, haven't talked to him in months, answers it. What the fuck's your guys' problem?

Speaker 1 He goes, what? I go, Will Howard, a fourth rounder? This is unbelievable. You guys don't know ball anymore? Is that what we don't watch film? We don't look for good players.

Speaker 1 What are we even talking about? He goes, I don't have him as a fourth rounder, just so we have that clear. I'm like, so he's a first rounder.
He goes, I don't have him as a first rounder either.

Speaker 1 I'm like, what am I missing? I did the entire thing. He obviously answers anytime we call call him.
We appreciate him. But he's like in those rooms, you know, has been.

Speaker 1 He's been very accurate too, whenever he makes his projections for drafts. So whenever he's speaking, we will certainly listen.
We appreciate him taking time.

Speaker 1 And I understand Jeremiah Smith's the real deal. He is.
Igbuka is the real deal. He is.
Cardinal Tate, he is. Judkins is.
Henderson is. Offensive line is.
But that's not his fault.

Speaker 1 Like, that's what this is going to become whenever you're a quarterback that transfers and gets paid a bunch of money because you're not the only position they're paying a bunch of money to.

Speaker 1 Ohio State's paying every position to try to be as good as possible. Now they're not the only school.
Obviously, we just learned Miami's paying three to four million down there for Carson Beck.

Speaker 1 How much you guys spend on defensive side down there, Gumpy? How much are you spending down there?

Speaker 1 Zero? Not enough.

Speaker 7 Not with that DC.

Speaker 1 Who's the new DC? Gumpy?

Speaker 7 They got him from Minnesota. He's actually very good.
Stoked for that because the last guy's stunk.

Speaker 1 You're a Miami guy. That's a positive.
They need it. Defense? Oh.
Yeah, that was tough to watch.

Speaker 7 Which is weird because Christopal was supposed to be a defensive guy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but he speaks Spanish, so he's a good fit down there. Yeah, it won't matter either way.
Cam Ward's a real deal, though. Cam Ward almost went to Florida State, right? And instead goes to Miami.

Speaker 1 Think if Miami would have got DJ Ulyungal, eh? That would have been a little bit of a different situation, we assume, going forward. Cam Ward flips that entire program down there.

Speaker 1 Then the football guns start blessing them. They were getting lucky, you know, win, win, win.
Defense wasn't able to stop anything. Cam Ward in that offense, electrifying.

Speaker 1 I'm not saying Cam Ward isn't a great player. I'm not saying Shador isn't a great player either, but it's like, you can't just play the game.

Speaker 1 You drop Jackson Dart in it, otherwise, you think they turn on Jackson Dart after the losses? You think he motivates the boys? You think he gets along with the locker room?

Speaker 1 You think he has celebrations with everybody? Maybe. I'm just saying we can't just do that, that game.
It's not Will Howard's fault.

Speaker 1 Go ahead. Sorry, A.J.

Speaker 13 No, Chuck, you go, please.

Speaker 1 No, so like when we draft a quarterback to one of these clubs, all we talk about is surrounding them with what? Weapons. Okay.

Speaker 1 So we're not supposed to give a kid in college or the NFL weapons?

Speaker 1 So he has a chance. Speaking of a couple of weapons.

Speaker 1 Speaking of weapons. Whoa.

Speaker 1 What timing.

Speaker 2 Jesus. Sorry, AJ.

Speaker 1 Tone Diggs on a diet. He's eating baby carrots for snacks.
Yep. And he's almost got me to join in.
Then Chuck Today shows up with some of these apple

Speaker 1 fritters things. Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. And then this is going to show up after the show, I know.

Speaker 1 Fat pats continuing for at least another week in appreciation.

Speaker 2 Had some MACDO.

Speaker 1 Yeah, but I took off half the muffin. Oh, yeah.
You know, it's just protein. You're good.
Yeah, just egg, Canadian bacon, cheese.

Speaker 4 That's...

Speaker 4 I'm okay. It's actually like super healthy.
It's keto.

Speaker 1 I'm trying to get better. Yeah.
Yeah, exactly. People would say that that was a smart play by me.
Right. A healthy play by me.

Speaker 4 It's like eating like a kale shake almost.

Speaker 1 Exactly. And maybe I'll take just the top of the pizza off.
It would just be cheese and pepperoni. Sure.
And I'll just eat that. Eat the cheese and the pepperoni, a little bit of sauce.

Speaker 1 Oh, so I'll tomatoes

Speaker 1 so i don't eat that but i'll tell you what team pizza or team wings how about team both how's that sound how about i'm on both sides and if we're gonna pick i'm definitely on team bone in wings yeah than team chicken nugget with sauce on top of it

Speaker 1 but mad respect

Speaker 1 for all parties it's all the goat what's the score of the pacers spurs game currently taking place in paris france bonjour messy boku we we taire

Speaker 1 highly burton i don't know if you saw that they took their families over there Yeah.

Speaker 2 Significant others. Pretty cool.

Speaker 1 They took photos, posted on Instagram.

Speaker 2 Obi Topping got engaged.

Speaker 1 Nobody has, nobody congratulated any of them for the comments I saw. The fuck? Yeah, I didn't know what

Speaker 1 they playing over there?

Speaker 1 Spurs, Wemby. Wemby's back.
Did they bring their families? I saw. So is this just a circus trip?

Speaker 9 Obi Topping got engaged down there.

Speaker 1 Congratulations. Well,

Speaker 1 he's in luck. He's in love.

Speaker 1 I haven't been paying attention, but have we won 10 or 12 in a row or whatever, so we're good with just going over and having a field trip and having fun. We played a game.
You paid.

Speaker 1 It's not mandated.

Speaker 1 You know how the NFL, you have to go play in London? Did you have to go play in London? Yeah, we had to go play Jacksonville with that. We didn't leave the hotel.
No, we didn't. We had curfew, bro.

Speaker 1 Yeah. We're over there to win a damn game.
We got a massage with Joe Philbin, remember? Yeah, goddamn right. You didn't sneak out to have a pint, Chuck?

Speaker 4 Fish and chips?

Speaker 1 Yeah, see, look, you did. Yeah, I do.

Speaker 2 No wonder you got canned. I didn't.

Speaker 1 I want to let you.

Speaker 1 You know what I was about to say?

Speaker 1 Please.

Speaker 1 When I looked over there a minute ago and I'm just looking at how sweet his hair looks right now, and I'm picturing a lot of blue paint on his face. Okay.
Yeah. Cold.

Speaker 1 What do you think? He looks like William Wallace.

Speaker 1 Braveheart. I watched Braveheart last night.

Speaker 4 It's funny you mentioned that.

Speaker 1 Did you really? I did.

Speaker 4 Every time you turn TNT or one of those, I mean, it's on can't turn it off a dozen times a year i watch how do you watch all these things oh because i've seen it like a hundred times and i just know like okay i'm gonna watch the start where mel gibson kills like 50 people very violently and then i'll kind of just zone out i'll go i'll be i'll be in bed by 9 30.

Speaker 1 got it do you watch it on like 2x speed no just normal i know where all the good parts are we need to go back and watch that last 44 minutes of top gun

Speaker 1 boom I need to go watch that. Good call.
That's good. Have you seen it? Yeah.
When they're taking off the carrier. From them taking off the carrier carrier all the way to the end.
Yep. Worth it.

Speaker 1 Just so much fucking America.

Speaker 1 So much Tom Cruise. My Ty doing his thing.
Hangman saving the day. Oh,

Speaker 1 you're welcome. Man, I kind of want to watch Richmond.
I don't believe you. They have not tipped off yet in Paris.
You know how that goes. You know how Paris go.

Speaker 2 It's that French time.

Speaker 1 It is 2-0, the Indiana Pacers. So maybe the field trip was worth it, Chuck, as you continue to question the Pacers' motives.
Wemby. Uh-oh.
Uh-oh. Cross up into paint.
Dish. Chip.
Great D.

Speaker 1 Great D. Smack the floor.
This is American power. What a shot.
Go fuck over Mathura in there.

Speaker 1 2-2.

Speaker 1 In Paris.

Speaker 13 So one game and then back home?

Speaker 1 They got a game on Saturday as well. I don't know if it's in Paris or if it's somewhere else.

Speaker 2 I believe it's in Paris. Yeah.

Speaker 4 And they play the Spurs again, don't they?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Tyree Saliburgen comes off a pick.
He needs to pull up from right there. We saw him in the Thunderdome shoot from there, and he didn't miss.
Shoot that. Bucket.

Speaker 1 Don't like the board. we didn't get we didn't have anybody really

Speaker 1 that is castle i believe right there at the dunk contest yeah just tripled out buttons bingo tell you what hard to watch here yeah this hits

Speaker 1 boy well it's in it's in france so it's a little different these guys ain't locked in well yeah they are teasing peas to greg popovich welcome to watching the nba coach best team in the city coach tease and peas to popovich load management load this no they're different not just pacers these spacers teams play they play carlisle has the boys running.

Speaker 1 Bingo. There it is.
Pop that, Tyrese. God.

Speaker 1 Myos.

Speaker 2 Yeah, right.

Speaker 1 I don't know why you're doing that in Wemby's time.

Speaker 1 I don't know why you're doing that. Take a charge.
What is that? Harrison Barnes. Yep.
Still still.

Speaker 1 Do we play Deal? Still bring him. What'd you say, Edge?

Speaker 13 Earlier, you said it's on NBA TV. We all have that.

Speaker 1 We do. Where do you find that? Where do we do?

Speaker 1 I'm not 100% sure, but I know that that is not where we thought this game was going to be. Step back.
Oh, my God.

Speaker 1 Let's go on there.

Speaker 1 It looks like AQ shooting. It does.

Speaker 1 That might be a part of the NBA's issue right there.

Speaker 1 Can't find it. And when I do turn it on, it's crop.

Speaker 1 It's absolute crop. Tyrese needs to be shooting that fucking ball.
Why is he passing it? We'll be back on the other side. Chuck's going to make his picks.
Pacers will take the lead.

Speaker 1 We're an international show all of a sudden. Boom.
Bonjour Sava. Sava Bien.
Messi Boku.

Speaker 16 A KFC tale in the pursuit of flavor.

Speaker 1 The holidays were tricky for the Colonel. He loved people, but he also loved peace and quiet.
So he cooked up KFC's $4.99 Chicken Pot Pie. Warm, flaky, with savory sauce and vegetables.

Speaker 16 It's a tender, chicken-filled excuse to get some time to yourself and step away from decking the halls.

Speaker 9 Whatever that means.

Speaker 1 The Colonel lived so we could chicken.

Speaker 16 KFC's Chicken Pot Pie, the best $4.99 you'll spend this season.

Speaker 11 Prices and participation may vary while supplies last, taxes, tips, tips, and fees extra.

Speaker 17 Get Popeye's scary good Freddy Fazburg box with garlic palm tenders and cheesy bites with marinara sauce.

Speaker 17 Or try the deluxe box with a cupcake cup and a 20-ounce drink and see five nights at Freddy's 2.

Speaker 1 Only in theaters. Love that chicken from Popeyes.

Speaker 17 Limited time at participating U.S. restaurants.

Speaker 17 Football!

Speaker 1 Football is awesome. That's AJ Hawk.
The toxic tables here at Boss Connor and I Ty Schmidt. One after the hammer.
Don't. Cowboys, AP Tonis.
You're wearing a Duke Canon football hoodie.

Speaker 1 I saw you got a ring.

Speaker 5 Yeah, I'm an A-10 champion.

Speaker 1 Wow. Where'd you put the ring at? It's still at my house, so I'm going to bring it in here.
Okay, so Duke Caton sent you a championship ring, a hoodie, and a helmet. Yeah.
Wow. Go, Dukes.

Speaker 1 Yeah, great people. Great day to be a duke.
It is a great day to be a Duke. You're a champion.

Speaker 1 36 years in football as a coach, 18 in college, 18 in the NFL. Chuck Pagano is here.

Speaker 1 Chuck, we got a chance to watch some NBA there during the break, obviously, over there in Paris. Wemby has gone ape shit since we turned the game off.
Hit a three and then followed up with a two.

Speaker 1 Tyrese has also hit a step back three. We need more of that.

Speaker 1 Has it been an electrifying day in your mind talking about this NBA, the Association? What a sport. What a game.
What a league.

Speaker 1 Jeez. What the hell? Chuck.
Jeez, Lil Winnie. I don't know.
I love it. I don't know how anybody.

Speaker 1 Until the playoffs, I will not watch a game. Okay.
Listen, that's Chuck Pagano. And to you basketball people, there's a lot of people that feel that way.

Speaker 1 And I think you shouldn't be mad at Chuck. I think you should just understand that's the reality of the situation.
But if Tyrese Halliburton starts cooking

Speaker 1 and Miles Turner starts doing his thing, and Spicy P and Carlisle, the coach, starts doing more press conferences, this Pacers team is going to be must-watch.

Speaker 1 Must watch. And you know why?

Speaker 1 We only got three football games left. Yep.

Speaker 1 Two of them on Sunday. That's so depressing.
Agreed. That's why we're starting to do this whole song and dance here about the NBA.
You know, we're trying to.

Speaker 1 Zion.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
The South Days. Yeah.
Cat. Yeah.
OKC. Yeah.
Cool story. Jackson Jr.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Houston.
That's what we're starting to do here, Chuck. You can sense it.
Hockey's cooking. Hockey is awesome.
People can't talk about it more. Pittsburgh Penguins on fire, right? Bingo.

Speaker 1 Are they? Fire sale. No, they're not very good, are they? What? Hey, big win against the LA Kings the other day.
How's Boo? How's Jocko doing? Who? Jocko.

Speaker 1 It's Sacco, you bag of boats.

Speaker 1 Did you hear about Dean? Jocko. Did you hear about Dean? Is he still the head coach?

Speaker 2 Is he still the head coach?

Speaker 1 Yeah. Are they on a runner?

Speaker 2 They just lost 5-1.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Let's not talk about just the Boston Bruins. Did you hear about D over there? About what? D.
D.

Speaker 1 D's.

Speaker 1 Almost at him. Got Coach Saban.
Got Coach Sabin during a commercial break at game day. Oh, yes.
Necessarily. I forgot about that.

Speaker 1 Yeah, I completely forgot about it until it came into my mind during a commercial break. And I was like, hey, D wanted to talk to you.
He goes, Dee, who? And I go.

Speaker 1 And I just look away, and it was like two minutes later. Fuck you.

Speaker 1 You got it. Coach Sabin's a man.
Did you see him on the pivot?

Speaker 13 Oh, I did, man. I saw it.
I loved it. Crowd.
I mean, I love Crowder and what he does. Yeah, the bathroom stories are pretty awesome.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Channing Crowder saying it was, oh, yeah, here, this clip from the pivot about Coach Sabin is a great depiction of who he is.

Speaker 1 He's a football guy through and through, who happens to become the greatest of all time in college coaching, one of the greatest leaders of all time, one of the greatest teachers of all time.

Speaker 1 But at the end of the day, he's a football guy from West Virginia. Here's him on the pivot talking with Channing Crowder about their times at the Miami Dolphins.

Speaker 14 Speaking of Terry, I don't know if you remember this interaction in the bathroom.

Speaker 14 I was in the bathroom at the Dolphin facility and I was playing on my phone, that little bathroom right by the front door by the team meeting room.

Speaker 14 And you walked in and I saw you through the crack because I was in the stall and I knew it was you and I said, I have to go out here. And I walked out.

Speaker 14 And I went to the sink and I started washing my hand. I looked over and I knew I had to say something to you.
You're the head coach of Dolphins. You're a nickname saving.

Speaker 14 And my first thought, in in all the uh meetings you used to talk about miss terry you talked about your wife and she brought us cookies she brought cookies to the team yeah and coach i looked over and this is about 10 games into the season and i think it was

Speaker 14 i forget it was buffalo running back but i ended up giving up a third down catch to the running back on the option route and this is Wednesday at practice.

Speaker 14 And I'm washing my hands, I look over, I say, hey, coach, how's Miss Terry? And you looked at me and said, she'll be a lot better if you can cover her fucking back on third down

Speaker 1 that's right

Speaker 1 she wanted to win

Speaker 14 it always blows my mind when you saw me I was had to be three days later that's what you thought about me giving up that third and seventh when I asked you, how's Miss Terry?

Speaker 5 Yeah, you got to get off the field on third down.

Speaker 1 What an answer. What a response.
I'm happy Channing and he had that moment, obviously. But after getting to hang out with Saban every single week, dude is awesome.

Speaker 1 You can see why he was so successful. What a run he's been on.
I hope he talks more. I hope he does more leadership stuff.
Well, Miss Terry, too, like, yeah, she knows.

Speaker 1 Got to be able to get off the fucking field, bud. Life would be a lot better for all parties.
We win there. That's the whole thing about families and coaches.
It's like they ride the...

Speaker 1 of everything, right? And that can be a lot of fun. Miss Dina, they say, hey, we don't.
We're not going to, but hell yeah, they do. Have to.
Have to. Yeah, probably.
There's no way around it.

Speaker 1 Miss Dina's awesome. Now, Granny, you've said some things on this show about her this year that I don't think is necessarily great, but you know what we're talking about.
Just passed out.

Speaker 1 Well, we can bring it right back up if we're. We won't, though.
This is what our show does. But what I think we...

Speaker 1 She just, she forgot about it. I mean, we don't need to bring it up.
Well, you're calling her.

Speaker 1 I don't think you're forgetful, Miss Dina. No.
I think you got a great brain. I think you're very happy.

Speaker 1 I think you understand what Chuck did this year while giving out picks, waffling with the syrup and everything like that.

Speaker 1 But I do know that your championship picks are about to be the best you've ever had. How'd you do this past weekend? 3-1? I believe so.
Check Leonardo was 3-1 this past weekend?

Speaker 1 You're seeing the board. You're seeing it clearly.
Let's talk about these championship games and what your expectations are, Coach. Yeah, so

Speaker 1 Philly and Washington, they split in the regular season, right? I just think Washington is playing so much better. team football right now.
I think Philly, obviously, they can run the ball.

Speaker 1 They've struggled. Who'd have thought that they would have beat the Rams, right? And A.J.
Brown and Devontae Smith would have six catches for 35 yards between the two.

Speaker 1 Like they just, and Jalen's holding the ball and holding it and holding it. And

Speaker 1 there's nobody getting open.

Speaker 1 They know each other. So there may be a wrinkle like they talked about, a wrinkle here or there on both sides of the ball, some little gamesmanship, whatever.
But

Speaker 1 I like.

Speaker 1 And again, Washington 30th and run defense throughout the course of the year.

Speaker 1 This guy had almost

Speaker 1 300 yards rushing and four touchdowns in two games, Saquon did on these guys. But

Speaker 1 I like the commanders and the points in this one. You continue with the dogs.
Because I just think that all the pressure is on Philly.

Speaker 1 They're at home. The expectations with Siriani, and I love Coach, Joey Pinunzio, Mike Baisan, from home.
Pananzio, Siriani, Big Dom, Boozer.

Speaker 1 Are you kidding me?

Speaker 1 But all the pressure is on them. And Washington, they're playing with house money.
They've exceeded expectations by $2 million to this point.

Speaker 1 And that'll change next year, obviously. But this kid's playing so free.
He's mature beyond his years, Jaden Daniels.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Lattimore, he's going to go shadow

Speaker 1 A.J. Brown and all that stuff.
So they'll make just enough plays. Lou Vu.
Oh, yeah. Louvo.

Speaker 1 What he did to goof. I mean, Goff.
Since Jerry Goff. Turned him into a goof.
No, turned him back. Yeah, turned him back.
He should have been called. Commanders beating the Lions.

Speaker 1 I assume that was on your ref call, the one that you're on every week saying, how do I stick up for the refs every week? I appreciate you doing that for them.

Speaker 1 It should have been called, obviously, defenseless player, even though he's trying to make a tackle. They missed that.
Them beating the Lions. gave me a thought that Notre Dame could beat Ohio State.

Speaker 1 I was like, you know what? Commanders just beat the damn Detroit Lions. Detroit Lions more healthy than it's been for a long time.
Detroit Lions are most dominant at home. They got Eminem there.

Speaker 1 They got Woah,

Speaker 1 you know, Jell-O ball

Speaker 1 performing up there. They got it all.
I didn't think there was a chance the commanders are going to win that game. I didn't think there was either.

Speaker 1 And I didn't think the Lions would turn the ball over as much as they did. That was the key to the game.
They did not take care of the ball.

Speaker 1 Five turnovers, obviously, three interceptions from Jared Goff, one interception from Jamison Williams, and add in a fumble on that. That's impossible.

Speaker 1 But also, the Commanders out-physicaled the Detroit Lions. They showed up.
They keep it really, really simple on the defensive side.

Speaker 1 They don't do a whole lot. They're going to play a bunch of middle field closed, single high, mix in some two here and there, little fire zone, three under three deep.

Speaker 1 But them some bitches play hard and they play fast. You know who else feels the same way you do, I think? He was leading towards it hard as soon as the game was announced.
A.J. Hawk.

Speaker 1 Ain't that right, AJ?

Speaker 13 Yeah, six points. The six points

Speaker 13 definitely has me curious about this commanders team, no question.

Speaker 1 He's a big fan of the commander squad. I mean, how could you not be after the wins that they just got right there? And is it a team of Destiny?

Speaker 2 Yeah, if they win, they'll be the third ever team to win against the three-seed, two-seed, and one-seed. The other two being the 2005 Steelers and the 2010 AJ Hawk Packers.

Speaker 1 And what did they do? They all won the Super Bowl.

Speaker 1 Interesting.

Speaker 1 History says if the boys are able to get a win here in Philly, which is going to be tough against the Johns, especially with the 30th rush defense, that's not good, especially with what Philadelphia is, and they know what they are.

Speaker 1 It's like this commanders' team can beat anybody. They proved that last week.
And obviously, that's football any given Sunday, especially Championship Sunday. Now, let's go to the AFC.

Speaker 1 Patrick Mahomes taking on Josh Josh Allen. Man.
How do you see it going, Chuck Pagano? Yeah, I mean, everybody would love to see Josh Allen and this Buffalo Bills try to get over the hump, but like,

Speaker 1 I'd take Kansas City. I just

Speaker 1 until somebody knocks him off and beats him.

Speaker 1 His first favorite.

Speaker 1 They had 212 yards. They lost the third-down battle.
They lost the rush battle.

Speaker 1 The only battle they won against Houston was the penalties.

Speaker 1 But anyway, I'm not going to.

Speaker 1 you're going to say is

Speaker 1 that real quick? 212 yards. I mean, it looked like, I mean, nothing, and they win by eight or nine points still.

Speaker 1 You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 So until somebody goes in there and you knock Pat Mahomes off and Kelsey's hit his stride, when he came on your program and he said, I feel like I'm 22 again. By God, he looked 22.

Speaker 1 We didn't know Caitlin was going to be there, too. Had her 22.

Speaker 2 Yeah, who's number 22? She might be there again.

Speaker 1 Yeah, maybe. We'll see.
Here's some stats from Hembo. James Cooked in his four playoff games with Joe Brady as offense coordinator.
He's averaging 92 scrimmage yards per game on 22 touches.

Speaker 1 And 53 out of 87 total touches are on first down. James Cook, let him cook first.
Highest touchdown to interception ratio in playoff history, minimum 300 attempts. Number one all-time, Josh Allen.

Speaker 1 Okay. Number two all-time, Patrick Mahomes.

Speaker 1 Chris Jones has only sacked Josh Allen once in their seven meetings, but he's pressured him 25 times and created 20 incompletions

Speaker 1 while being doubled 55% of the times. Check 95, Mike's 95.
Chris Jones, absolute dog. Hollywood Brown was targeted only twice, had zero catches on 20 routes.

Speaker 1 Against Houston, gonna have to get him back into everything. Amari Cooper just gave an interview for the first time yesterday.
Did you hear that? Yeah, it was impressive. It was.

Speaker 1 He was talking about the last game of the season. You hear the winner-lose.
He was talking about the finality of championship. He said, I've been a part of it two times, maybe three times.

Speaker 1 Amari Cooper's won a lot. Remember, Nick Sabin told us that throughout his entire time with Amari Cooper as an Alabama football team member, we talked, we had zero, one conversation.
One, yeah.

Speaker 1 He never talked. Super quiet guy, which I think has led some people to believe he's checked out.
And Nick Saban's like, he's not checked out. He's very much locked in.
He's just quiet.

Speaker 1 He gave an interview and he talked about championship mentality and what it takes. He's a full-team guy.
Amari Cooper in the Buffalo Bills, perfect. Seemingly a perfect marriage up there.

Speaker 1 Amari Cooper has been targeted nine times on 60 routes run across his last five games. What's that all about? I don't know.

Speaker 1 What's Josh Allen doing? Give him the ball.

Speaker 4 Well, I mean, last week offensively, you know, I mean, Josh Allen only threw for, what, 124 yards? Like, it, you know, they.

Speaker 1 Just like Pat. Yeah, exactly.
Just like Jalen. Right.
Not a lot of pass yards, you know.

Speaker 4 You win the turnover battle, you know, 4-0.

Speaker 1 And don't expect it, because if they stay in base defense, McDuffie will travel, and I think he'll line up across, you know, from Amari and take him out.

Speaker 1 When you go to nickel, then McDuffie goes in inside the slot, and that'll be a good one to watch. Him and Shakira.
Shakir, yeah. Yeah, because I love Shakira.
I mean, he's a Boise State Bronco.

Speaker 1 This son bitch is a war daddy. Yeah, he is.

Speaker 1 Came out of nowhere.

Speaker 1 I mean, he catches the ball, and guess what? He does

Speaker 1 north and south. Turns up field.
He doesn't go sideways and get

Speaker 1 poo. Is that because he went to Boise State, you think? What's that? It's because he went to Boise State.
I know he loves Jesus. I don't know what it's because, but the guy's a dog, too.

Speaker 1 Have to love Jesus, your Boise State.

Speaker 1 Amen. Facts.
Who's the coach over there? Spencer Danderson. Hell of a coach.
Hell of a program. Young guy, right? 30 what? 37, 38.
I mean, very young. How old's a buddy at Arizona State? 30 what?

Speaker 1 Oh, four.

Speaker 1 See, he's younger than right. Dan Lanning, what's he? 30 what? 38? Two, I think.
Marcus Freeman, what's he?

Speaker 2 39? 39. 39.

Speaker 1 Ryan Day is 45. I mean, there's a youth, and then you got Bill Belichick.
Yeah. Yeah.
Coming in. Coming in 70.
Walker.

Speaker 1 Media.

Speaker 1 What the fuck?

Speaker 1 I'm just Josh, and you know I love coaches. Yeah, absolutely love him.
Respect them. Don't appreciate him.

Speaker 1 That's the first favorite you've picked is Kansas City Chiefs. You know, for the last two weeks, you went dog, dog.
No, no, no. I took Baltimore.

Speaker 1 Oh, yeah, you're right. That was your one loss.
Yep.

Speaker 4 That's just because you're a home. Oh, so yeah, you just hate the Bills.

Speaker 1 Makes sense.

Speaker 1 You don't believe in the Bills.

Speaker 2 Well, and the Pagano family is on the Baltimore Ravens and the Washington Commanders.

Speaker 1 Why is that?

Speaker 2 Well, he coached for the Ravens then. Doesn't your brother coach for the Commies?

Speaker 1 Oh, isn't that interesting?

Speaker 1 We thought we were running a fucking

Speaker 1 time he doesn't. You remember during the season when I was sitting right over there, and you know who was sitting right here? Who? Jelly.
First name, Jelly, last name Roll, Roll, Bubba.

Speaker 1 Who's down like 200 pounds? Looks amazing. Looks amazing.

Speaker 1 He's been doing up-downs on the stage. Proud of Joe.
Jelly Jelly. Hell yeah.
Yeah. I don't think Jelly's watching.
But remember, we were talking, then all of a sudden, you said, hey.

Speaker 1 And I said, wait a sec. You go, oh, what? Remember how I switched? Yeah, I remember.
That was when we almost got to the whole liking of the butt thing. Yeah, I remember.
That was a bad flop.

Speaker 1 I got chewed out after that one.

Speaker 2 Yeah, okay, I like that.

Speaker 1 I bet you loved it. Yes, you did.
Gnawing on that thing. Oh, God.
Yum, yum, yum. All right.
Shucks.

Speaker 1 The fuck's wrong with you? On that note,

Speaker 1 Pizza Hut's coming. That's all I'm thinking about.
Yum, yum, yum. Is it coming? I can sense it's on its way.
Boom.

Speaker 1 What's that? No,

Speaker 1 what? Garlic pepper.

Speaker 1 Bunch of them.

Speaker 1 Soggy. Lemon pizza.
Lemme pepper.

Speaker 4 They weren't soggy, old man.

Speaker 2 Jesus Christ.

Speaker 1 Okay. Now you're going to start.
Hold on.

Speaker 1 You're taking a shot of pizza. Yeah, exactly.
I mean, there are some derogatory statements about my nationality earlier. What did he say?

Speaker 1 What was that? What did I say? Call me Guinea Puck. He thought you were Guinea Puck.
He did. I did not.
Yeah, I heard it. It's egregious.
I I did hear that. What did Guinea fuck?

Speaker 1 Hey, Guineafuck, shut the hell up. Yeah, I did.
He did say that. You can't lie.
I heard that.

Speaker 1 Whoa. I said, excuse me.
He said, am I here? Am I, what is this? Like, my ears are in. Yeah, I can.
I can hear her. That's a lie.

Speaker 2 That is a bold-faced lie.

Speaker 1 You said it, though. And I still come out.
I didn't say shit to Chuck. Tell him he looks just like Bruce Willis or whatever his name is.

Speaker 1 No Gibson.

Speaker 1 No Gibson. Jesus.
William Wallace. A couple reporting.
Just like Bill 2. Hold.
Hold.

Speaker 1 This guy's lying through his teeth. I never said that to him.
Oh, my God. All right.
Anyways,

Speaker 1 he wasn't talking about you. He was talking about others, I believe.

Speaker 2 Those words never crossed my lips.

Speaker 1 Okay, all right. All right.

Speaker 1 I'd like to fact-check that. A couple of your whole voice.
Was he talking about guinea pigs? Maybe, I think you said something about guinea pigs.

Speaker 2 No, I was thinking about, look, I was thinking about vacationing in Papua New Guinea. And then

Speaker 2 he thought that I was, yeah.

Speaker 1 I did hear him say the word, and I didn't know what context it was, though. So I just trusted what Chuck said.
Because Chuck did do an excuse me. Am I not here? Right now?

Speaker 1 Am I not right here in front of your face? What you should? Like, really? That was unbelievable. I didn't like it.
That's the name of the country. And Italian of the year?

Speaker 1 Like, coming on the hills about

Speaker 1 at the Italian festival, the Italian of the year. Man, we're in Lake Geneva not six months ago.
Unbelievable. Man, this guy right in your face talking to Papua New Guinea.

Speaker 1 And all of a sudden, he pops me with that. I don't like it.
I'm not. thinking about going.

Speaker 1 To Papua New Guinea? Yeah, what do you offer me?

Speaker 2 Or that other country in the Olympics? Just Guinea.

Speaker 1 Just Guinea, yep. Yeah.
Yeah, that was a country. You remember that? Yeah,

Speaker 1 we all learned that together.

Speaker 2 That is a country.

Speaker 1 Go see what all those guinea are about over there.

Speaker 1 What's that?

Speaker 1 You know what? They are the people of the country.

Speaker 1 Keep it up. What? It's the name of the people who live there.
It's their nationality. Keep it up, bro.

Speaker 1 What? It's a country. It is a country.
Papua New Guinea, and then there's another country.

Speaker 2 People who live there are guinea.

Speaker 1 Guineans. Yeah.
I think it's just Guineas for sure. No, I think what you're doing right now is taking some liberties in the entire group.
Look, I can't confirm more than that.

Speaker 1 I want you to know it's sick to my stomach.

Speaker 1 Not over this, but just to the fact that it's 2.45,

Speaker 1 and we got three games left in the national football

Speaker 1 games. Tree games left.
Tree.

Speaker 2 Bullshit.

Speaker 1 One Sunday, one, two weeks from then. My last trip to Indy, I'm sick.
This is your last trip.

Speaker 1 I have no idea. I'll see you in New Orleans, but unless

Speaker 1 we have an epiphany or something, but I'm sick. I don't know what to do in the season.
The spring's over. I know.
Me neither. Neither do we.
Honestly, that's why we're going to be able to do it.

Speaker 1 You know what?

Speaker 1 What do you do?

Speaker 2 You know what he does.

Speaker 1 Break down draft. Wait, ride your bike? Ride your bike around Italy with Ray Lewis again? That was fun.
I'd like to do that. I think we're going to go to Mallorca next.
Oh, man. Wow.
I was just there.

Speaker 1 It's awesome. It's beautiful, yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah. They have that food, right? Mallorca is like a certain type of food, right? It's the best steak I've ever had in my life.
Paella? Yeah, I think they do the whole thing.

Speaker 2 It ain't paella almost.

Speaker 1 You ever had a good paella? I don't think so. I went to a Brazilian place this weekend, though.

Speaker 1 Fogo Chow? Terra Gaucho. Similar.
Fogo is awesome. Similar.
Similar. It's got the Brazil green light, red light thing.
We did it in the afternoon. The wife and I, we went to go to a brunch place.

Speaker 1 Packed. Couldn't get it.
I don't know what everybody was doing this weekend. It seemed like everybody was out of the house.

Speaker 1 Then there's this new Brazilian place up north, Terra Gaucho, I believe is what it's called. It's a Brazilian steakhouse one in there.
Great. And it was phenomenal.

Speaker 1 They don't do like hibachi style, is it? No, they bring out the swords. They do.
They bring out the meat and you like kind of grab it or whatever. You know what I'm talking about? With the tongs?

Speaker 1 Yeah, and you have the green light, red light, kind of do your thing. They walk out there.
Spanish food is what? Paella, you're saying? Brazilian food, they had good.

Speaker 1 It was like super Brazilian stuff. What's Spanish food? Foxy's rolling.
Paellas. I was eating steak the whole time.
Spain? Yes. No, they have that shit, don't they? That's race.

Speaker 5 That's That's rice, basically.

Speaker 1 Got it. Got it.

Speaker 1 Empanadas?

Speaker 1 Empanadas? I don't know if that's from Spain. Is it from Spain? Spanish, yeah.
Spanish.

Speaker 1 The language Spanish is spoke by a lot of people, I think, right? Correct. I don't know.
I'd block it again. I had empanadas there as well.
Okay, so that's a Spain thing? Yes.

Speaker 1 I always get so confused because, like, the Spanish language.

Speaker 1 Can I say something's Hispanic, right? Is that what that is?

Speaker 13 There's Hispanic food, okay? Hispanic food aisle in the grocery store.

Speaker 1 And is that

Speaker 1 like Central America? Like, you know, I never

Speaker 1 see those from families from Cuba, so I don't. Yeah, that's a very, yeah, I don't know about that, to be honest with you.
Hispanic is interesting. Hispanic is

Speaker 5 a term used to describe people who are descended from Spanish-speaking populations.

Speaker 1 Okay, so Hispanic counts everything. Yes, it does.
Got it.

Speaker 1 So Empanadas are Hispanic. Okay.

Speaker 1 That's what they would say. Got it.
Solved that one. Hey, same with

Speaker 1 the Mexican grilled cheese is so much better than ours. Quesadilla? Sure.

Speaker 1 The American grilled cheese, cool. Two pieces of toast.
We do the whole thing. Also good.
Also good. Solid.
What kind of cheese?

Speaker 1 American?

Speaker 1 No.

Speaker 1 You ever done it with Velveeta? Velveeta cheese? Yeah. Charles.

Speaker 1 Where do they serve that? Singles or

Speaker 1 slightly singles. You guys know what Velveeta is.
Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 What are you talking about? Velveeta.

Speaker 5 singles?

Speaker 1 Are you talking about the block of Velveeta? Slice of the block.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Then you got that little cutter with the wire on it.
Sure.

Speaker 1 Put it on there, butter the bread. Put it on the end.
Oh, my God. Put it on the thing.
Are you using Texas toast? What type of toast are you using?

Speaker 1 That's a lot of toast. Agreed? It is wonderful, but it is a lot of bread.
Yeah. I can't.
I have some Ovaltine right there next to it. Yeah, there you go.
A little applesauce. Ovaltine's good.

Speaker 1 Oh, my God. What is Ovaltine? Chocolate?

Speaker 13 Yeah. It's chocolate milk.
I used to drink Oviltine chocolate milk in high school a lot.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Chocolate milk used to be the big thing.
Remember, chocolate milk had a big push. Like, got to chug one of these after a workout.
I'll go through this entire thing. I don't know.

Speaker 1 Are they still pushing chocolate milk? I don't know if they're pushing it, but it still hits. No.
It's so good. It was so good.

Speaker 1 I love chocolate milk so much at one point in my life that I said I could do the gallon of milk challenge if it was chocolate milk is how much I love it.

Speaker 1 And I took it all down and I puked up cold chocolate milk.

Speaker 1 It was awesome. Tasted, yeah,

Speaker 1 I got to enjoy it twice. You got double.
Yeah, it was still cold coming out of the mouth that time.

Speaker 1 Oh, so good. It did not last very long.
But that's how much I love chocolate milk at that particular time. Yeah, I'm with you.
I'm not in that point anymore. It sounds like you were still there.

Speaker 2 I'm not still there where I'm like going in the fridge and I got it, but on like a Sunday.

Speaker 1 You're a hot coffee guy now.

Speaker 2 Yeah, exactly. This whole week I've been hot coffee.
First time really.

Speaker 1 Because how cold it is. Normally cold iced coffee.

Speaker 2 I'm an iced coffee guy through and through, but this week I've... kind of dove into the hot coffee and I've loved it.

Speaker 1 You know, my wife has brought back into my life here hot tea.

Speaker 1 She likes hot drinks, but she doesn't want to drink as much coffee.

Speaker 1 So she just hammers coffee because she likes hot drinks she's like this is too much though caffeine then you get the decaf coffee and it's like all right too much the same flavor now she's making hot teas at the house tea's good

Speaker 2 i love tea i'll drink tea vanilla chai tea

Speaker 1 no you're ever eaten tea black

Speaker 1 english breakfast tea like the matcha oh yeah matcha tea the matcha hot matcha i don't know what is that green it's like green right green green yeah no it tastes like grass you know basically all you could put sweetener in it Yeah, Nick or Junior Rolls.

Speaker 1 I don't want sweet grass. You put a little maple syrup or honey in that thing.
You don't want to eat a matcha?

Speaker 2 Vanilla chai is delicious.

Speaker 1 Yeah. Yeah.
Is that.

Speaker 1 You might as well just go to Dairy Queen.

Speaker 2 I don't know what's in it. I thought we were just talking tea.

Speaker 1 We're talking Blizzards?

Speaker 1 You're the one saying, add sweetener, add sugar. And ice cream cake.
Yeah, because that's a little different because we're talking hot stuff. But if I'm going to blizzards, hot eats, cool treats.

Speaker 1 We treat you like a Dairy Queen.

Speaker 1 I would go with a Blizzard, though. I would never get a tea from Dairy Queen.
I'd maybe try it. You would take a hot tea from Derrick Queen? Yeah, I'd try it.

Speaker 4 DQ doesn't make anything bad on the menu.

Speaker 1 Agreed. I agree with what you're saying, but I don't know if they'd ever open a hot tea thing.

Speaker 4 I don't think you could get a hot tea there.

Speaker 4 But if they did, it would be. If they did, yeah, I'd try it.

Speaker 1 Like Pizza Hut.

Speaker 1 Exactly. If Pizza Hut did a hot tea, we understand it'd be good.
I'd get it. Just like when they did the wine.
Just like their wines. Yeah, that was good.
It was? It was a hit. It was a hit.

Speaker 1 Finished it.

Speaker 1 Pizza Hut wine glass right here. Is there any left in there? I wish.
No.

Speaker 5 I keep the bottle opener just to smell it sometimes.

Speaker 1 The bottle opener smells? Yeah, this is the Pizza Hut wine bottle opener. Yeah, and he can smell it.
Yeah, cork.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Just like Tuscany. Yeah.
It does smell like Tuscany. Doesn't remind me of you.
Speaking of Tuscany, a man that was born and raised there is going to attempt to win Tuscany. Where's that at? Italy.

Speaker 1 Yeah, Italy, yeah. Bango.
Here you go, Charles. Ladies and gentlemen, an Italian man.
is going to attempt to win 30 people $500 on this glorious sports. Come on, Chuck.

Speaker 2 Here we go, Charlie.

Speaker 1 Chuck has buried basketball all day today whenever he's gotten the opportunity. Now all he has to do is bury a football into a basketball hoop, and 30 people will win $500.

Speaker 1 Chuck, how do you feel wearing the Sean Cafferty construction? We know that you worked a deal with this guy to do something around the house. Now you're wearing his hoodie.
Is he going to lead you?

Speaker 1 The job's already done. He built our home.
Thank you, Sean. Guys, out of Boise.
He's the best home builder in all of Idaho. He's

Speaker 1 out of Boise. He built our home.
He's unbelievable. And I just got a new kitchen.
Well, guess what?

Speaker 1 He just turned 66 a couple days ago. Happy birthday, Sean.
Shout out to Sean. There you go.
Thanks for your work, Sean.

Speaker 1 And you guys, when you guys come to Boise and you stay with me, because I got plenty of room. I can't wait.

Speaker 13 Oh, yeah.

Speaker 1 Come, you got your own.

Speaker 1 You'll love it.

Speaker 1 It'll be in Sean Cafferty's house. It'll be in Sean Cafferty's

Speaker 1 home. And I do appreciate it.
So last week, got to get this in. I owe Sean the hoodie on the show.
I'm going to wear it.

Speaker 7 Told him all season I was going to wear his hoodie.

Speaker 1 I got this SEC, believe it.

Speaker 2 It was his birthday.

Speaker 1 And look at the house. Look at the building.
It's cool. The SEC.
I mean, it's a good logo by Sean Cameron. That guy builds a good estate.

Speaker 1 Guy builds a good estate. And when they do the insulation,

Speaker 1 you got to be around when you build a home. Okay.
Every step of the way, right?

Speaker 1 Foundation. That's like the foundation.

Speaker 1 That's like these programs, these new koshers. They got to make sure on the front end, that culture, that

Speaker 1 foundation, it's got to be built on rock. Yeah.
Not sand.

Speaker 1 Not sand. You put one up on sand.
You see those places on the beach? Yeah.

Speaker 1 It needs to be built on stone.

Speaker 1 Strong. Strong.
That's right. There's a Bible first.
And then

Speaker 1 the insulation.

Speaker 1 Those guys were there for like two weeks. You get that spray foam chuck? Yes.
Oh, yeah. That foam? Oh, yeah.
Oh, my God. Sean Cafferty, these boys, they know how to spray.

Speaker 1 But let me tell you something. It's not cheap.

Speaker 2 They spray their foam everywhere.

Speaker 13 It is not cheap. You're right.

Speaker 1 No, it's not. It's worth it.
You're hecking it. You know what it costs to build a house these days? Well, no, cheaper when you wear a hoodie on a show.
No, that's not

Speaker 1 what's that? No,

Speaker 1 no, no. This guy's a new tie, most humble guy.
If he knew I even had this on, he'd be pissed. No, Sean, Sean, you earned this.
Sean,

Speaker 1 Sean.

Speaker 1 Eight brothers he has.

Speaker 1 He grew up. That's an Irish name? Cafferty?

Speaker 1 Yeah, probably.

Speaker 1 Sounds like it. Sean Cafferty?

Speaker 2 I mean, I feel like I know a Mick Cafferty. So Cafferty.

Speaker 5 Sean's an Irish name.

Speaker 1 Yeah. So it's an Irish family coming in there working.

Speaker 1 Good people.

Speaker 1 Good people. Good people.
You're welcome. horse guy, too.
Horse guy.

Speaker 1 Do you want to go ride a horse? Oh, he's definitely.

Speaker 1 He's got so much money if he's a horse guy. Holy shit.
I don't want to. Congrats, Sean.

Speaker 1 They're not racing.

Speaker 1 They're like just... No, just horses in general are an expensive hobby.
Got to take care of this. You got to hire people to take care of it.
I'm blinding an Irish gypsy.

Speaker 5 Well, he might be.

Speaker 1 I mean, don't run from this.

Speaker 1 What's that? I think I can bear it from right here. Whoa, in that Sean Cafferty hoodie?

Speaker 1 30 people, 500. All right.
No, you can't oh how about that

Speaker 1 came out a little wobbly what's that all about

Speaker 1 feel good is that the new one no that's the old one that's the og that's the og we couldn't find enough supplies to get this the new idea yeah you want to throw that one yeah yeah this one's good

Speaker 1 better save that yeah smart you got this one waiting for you this one wants to find a home you're going this way

Speaker 1 i don't know uh

Speaker 1 all right 30 people 500 uh connor has something nice to say about you uh i don't uh actually i said this last week this whole gimmick is it's getting old. Okay, brother? Which one?

Speaker 1 So the whole, hey, Chuck might win.

Speaker 2 He might make it this week. It's like, dude, just shut up.
Get through these balls because you fucking stink at this. What?

Speaker 1 Just try and make it. I don't like that.
I don't like that. That's not the type of vibes we like to do.

Speaker 2 You just got to fire that thing. You think too much about it.

Speaker 1 So you're going back to the bottom. How would you like to be a ball player? And

Speaker 1 you have an opening and all of a sudden you hear, hey, they just hired Boston Connor. He's the most positive.
He'll build you up.

Speaker 2 I'm not a Coach K.

Speaker 1 I'm a Phil Knight.

Speaker 2 So sue me. That's my style.

Speaker 1 Bob Knight. That's what I meant.

Speaker 1 Phil Knight as well.

Speaker 1 Phil Knight too. Billionaire.
Accountability.

Speaker 2 Yeah, we're talking about Nike.

Speaker 1 Getting used to being uncomfortable. Is that your...

Speaker 2 No, that's Ben Johnson today.

Speaker 1 Get comfortable being uncomfortable. Mine is, I'm going to make you uncomfortable, motherfucker, and see how you perform.
Geez. This guy's a militant.
Yeah. Yeah.

Speaker 1 Nonetheless, what he's saying doesn't replicate how we all feel about this. No.

Speaker 1 We have nothing but love and respect for you, Chuck. That's why we know when that ball goes in a hoop right over there, 30 people are going to be so happy to win $500.

Speaker 1 Okay, when the 30... Okay.

Speaker 1 See what I'm saying?

Speaker 1 He's waffling.

Speaker 2 Can't win with this guy, man.

Speaker 1 Can't do it. Won't do it.
This is tough. Can't do it.
This is tough. My nose is running.
I'm dying slowly in front of everybody. 30 people.

Speaker 1 Oh.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 close again. That was Baby Duke 2.0.

Speaker 1 That one. That was Baby Duke 2.0.

Speaker 1 That's a good ball. Yeah.
I think this one right here, A.J. Hawk has a message for you, coach.

Speaker 13 Chuck, just take everything Conman says. You're just stacking chips on your shoulder.
You know. You want to prove him wrong.
Let's see it. That's right.

Speaker 1 Everything that thing. Some players are like, hey, you're rubber.
I can't hear you, Chuck. I can't hear you.
Chuck, you're rubber. He's glue.
Okay. Everything he says, I scoff you.
You got me.

Speaker 1 I saw him collecting receipts. That's right.
Hey. Okay.
I hope so. Hey, they tried to write you off.
You didn't write back, Chuck.

Speaker 1 All you got to do is put that football into that hoop right over there, and 30 people win $500. I'm going to do you, Con Man.
What? Just like

Speaker 1 what

Speaker 1 Big Ben's going to do LeFleur next year. Jeez, Ben Johnson's who he's talking about.
Geez, old man.

Speaker 1 Keep your pants on. Oh, okay.

Speaker 1 Oh,

Speaker 1 that would have been the best one of the year. That would have been the best one of the year.

Speaker 2 Guys, always so close.

Speaker 1 Close counts in horseshoes, hand grenades, and bocce. And bocce is obviously a sport that this man is very good at.

Speaker 1 I am assuming. I've actually never seen him play.
That's kind of on me. He's super Italian.
I assume he's good at bocce.

Speaker 1 Guy can roll a boce ball. Is that accurate? We took second.
Okay. Amongst who? Italians or just normal folks? Big bocce fest that Friday.
Up there in Italy town? Lake Geneva. Yeah.
This guy

Speaker 1 won the Italian man of the year at the Italian Festival. Yep.
Took second in the bocce competition. Prospero family took first.
Well,

Speaker 1 good boce players. Shout out to the Prospero family.
The Prospero family. They roll good bocce balls.

Speaker 1 Prosper. Yeah, pass it down through the entire family.
We lined up against them. We knew.

Speaker 2 The Gabo goal on these shoes.

Speaker 1 These shoes?

Speaker 1 You talking about these shoes? These shoes.

Speaker 1 Chuck, 30 people, $500. All you do is put the ball into that hoop right over there.
You're the Italian man of the year. Will you be the man of the year for 30 people who win? Five, Hodrik.

Speaker 1 We knew this one was coming. That was the one.
Last shot. We knew this one was coming.
Last shot, Charlie. Ty Schmidt has a message.
Schmitty has a message. Here you go, Schmidty.
Schmitty.

Speaker 4 Yeah, shout out Shams for that.

Speaker 1 Charlie, listen.

Speaker 4 AQ had been the...

Speaker 4 You and him are kind of neck and neck for worst at this all year.

Speaker 1 Don't forget me.

Speaker 4 Yeah, but you're not doing it weekly.

Speaker 1 They are. They are.

Speaker 4 And AQ finally kind of broke the seal yesterday. So if you miss this.

Speaker 4 You're officially going to go down as not only did you have shitty picks all Thursday. What? All year long.

Speaker 1 He had some good ones. He had some good ones early on.
You were hot.

Speaker 4 And then quite the schneide.

Speaker 1 Lost a lot of people, a lot of money.

Speaker 4 And then now

Speaker 4 you have a chance to kind of win that money back. But if you don't make this,

Speaker 4 we're looking at just

Speaker 4 an astronomically bad season. What?

Speaker 1 I think you had a great year thus far, no matter what happens. And I love you.
I love you. That's Schmitty's thoughts.
You know that. That's Big Schmitty's thoughts.
Come on, Schmitty.

Speaker 1 You know how good I'm feeling about myself right now. Absolutely.
Walking on air this time.

Speaker 1 I hope. He's got a pocket, got a pocket full of sunshine.

Speaker 1 30 people, $500, Chuck. He might have gone 2-0 in the championship picks.

Speaker 2 He might have. He might have.

Speaker 1 We'll find out right here. 30.

Speaker 1 Never got above the hoop.

Speaker 1 Going right at him.

Speaker 2 Nice try, Charlie.

Speaker 1 You lose again.

Speaker 1 Nerf ball? Okay.

Speaker 1 Oh, thoughts. Didn't even have to put out how many winners.

Speaker 1 So close.

Speaker 1 Ladies and gentlemen, we have a Pro Bowl games Duke. Hell yeah.
Wow. Officially certified by Roger Goodell, NFL ball.
Chuck Picano is an NFL guy.

Speaker 1 18 years in college, 18 years in the NFL, but he consulted for the NFL, for the officials, and obviously is part of the 33rd team in the NFL.

Speaker 1 All he has to do is put that ball into that hoop right over there, and 30 people win $500. Ton, how do you feel about it? Great.
You should.

Speaker 1 Ah!

Speaker 1 30 people!

Speaker 1 suck it, Carter.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Yeah.

Speaker 1 Make him suck you up, Chuck. Boom.
Boom, bang. Suck it.
Boom, bang.

Speaker 1 Yes. 30 people, $500.
And they should all say, galaxy to Paisano, Chuck Pagano, who is on the Commanders plus six against the Eagles.

Speaker 1 In the Chiefs, minus two in the AFC Championship against the Bills. And he just won 30 people, $500.
What a season. What a day.
We appreciate the hell out of you, Coach. I love you guys.

Speaker 1 Thank you for allowing me to be part of this. We love you, too.

Speaker 1 All you got to do is repost this post, say something nice to somebody on X, and you could potentially be a winner if you put the easiest way to pay you digitally. 30 people, 500 bucks.

Speaker 1 What a great way to end this. All right, be a friend, tell a friend something nice.
It might change your life. We're just singing together.
Team on me, team on three.

Speaker 1 Chuck, we appreciate you, buddy. Love you, Charlie.
Good work, Charlie.

Speaker 13 Love you, Chuck. Love you, Chuck.

Speaker 1 One, two, three.

Speaker 1 Goodbye.

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