All Episodes

March 9, 2026 40 mins

Jason Fitz & Buck Reising are in for the guys and talk about the Raiders trading Maxx Crosby to the Baltimore Ravens and if this move is the "championship piece" that the Ravens have been looking for, Jayson Tatum's return to the Celtics, and more!

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Listen
Mark as Played
Transcript

Episode Transcript

Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:05):
Just when you thought the drama wouldn't start until Monday afternoon,
the drama actually started Friday night with the blockbuster trade
in the NFL, Max Crosby headed from my beloved Raiders
to the Baltimore Ravens. What's it mean for both sides?
We'll break it down plus everything you need to know
about a wild day coming in the NFL. It's a
two pros to a cup of joe, but it really

(00:26):
bucking fits. It's a takeover. We'd back. They let us
come back after Friday in a particularly off the rail
Saturday show. That's our usual time. You can hang out
with us. We are back right here, getting you ready
and wake this morning. Buck. And you know what, every
day we get a little bit further away from the
trade and I get a little out of my feels.
Every single day I feel a little better about it.

(00:46):
You know, did the blockbuster we got Friday night? I'm
sitting on my couch just trying to enjoy my edibles
and have an evening, and all of a sudden, I'm
greeted with repeated tweets letting me know that Max Crosby
has been traded for my beloved Raiders for two first
round picks to the ball more Ravens. But the crazy
part about this is plenty of people are talking about
whether or not you should trade Max for two First

(01:06):
the real question is, if you are Baltimore, is this
the super Bowl moment? Because anytime you are giving up
two first round draft picks for a team that's in
win now mode, to me, part of what you have
to do is walk out of that a hell of
a lot closer to the Super Bowl. Does this move
make the Baltimore Ravens the premier team in the AFC?

Speaker 2 (01:26):
To you, Ooh, I would say that it does if
for no other reason than the AFC did not have
a premier team last season. Right, the New England Patriots
were the representative of the AFC and the Super Bowl,
and we understand all the context around how the Pats
got there and what the degree of difficulty was relative

(01:49):
to Super Bowl paths of previous years. If you're gonna
talk about the Broncos, you have to tell me what
the status of bo Nix is. If you're going to
talk about the Bill, think they have a lot more
questions than answers heading into twenty twenty six, given the
coaching change and some of the personnel stuff they obviously
need to address as we hit the acquisition cycle for

(02:11):
the NFL. I am nowhere close on the Cincinnati Bengals,
who have been just in hell for the past couple
of years, and it's wearing on Joe Burrow nobody in
the AFC South, Although I maintain that the Jacksonville Jaguars
were two plays away from being the AFC's representative in

(02:33):
last year's Super Bowl. They lost in the first round
of the Bills. You know, if what's the line, if
ifs and butts were candy and nuts, you know what,
all these different kind of things like, the Jags didn't
get it done. So I can't in good conscience say that.
But you know, down the stretch in the last month
of the regular season and heading into that postseason game,
I thought the Jags were the best team in the AFC.

(02:55):
So if you want to sell me on the Jaguars,
I might give it to you. But in the absence
of that, sure, why not Baltimore.

Speaker 1 (03:02):
Yeah, I mean the hard part about it is, if
you're Baltimore. To me, if you're a Ravens fan today,
you have a ton of hope because there's a lot
of change, but change, to me, isn't always something that
we could just bank on. Like I think what's happening
with Baltimore right now is we're taking the brand of
the Ravens and we're taking the fact that we just
assume the Ravens are always going to be good because
that's what they usually are, Which means we'll assume that

(03:25):
last year was an outlier. That's what we're all fair
things to do here. But now all of a sudden,
we got to assume that Jesse Mentor is a great
head coach right out of the gates with no learning
curve at all. That's a big assumption for me. We
got to assume that a new offense is going to
be just absolutely absorbed and immediately flawlessly brought brought into
by the entire Ravens offense. That's a big you know,

(03:47):
that's that's tough for me to just assume all of
these things. We got to assume that Lamar plays healthy
and at the MVP level. That's easier, and then we
got to presume that all of this comes together on
a new defense for this team. Because Jesse coming over
to bring his style almost immediately. I just think that's
a lot of variables. I think two things can be
true here. Yes, Max Crosby, in the acquisition of Max

(04:10):
Crosby makes that different defense much better. I saw, of
all people, Nick Lache and I look at there's no
way Nix up this early. But I saw Nick Lache
lamenting on Twitter about the fact that, oh my god,
you know, we're in a situation where the Raiders get
two first round picks for Max Crosby and the Bengals
continue to they didn't get anything for Trey Hendrickson, and
this is just yet again gross mismanagement. The fact that

(04:32):
he said Max Crosby's name in the same sentence as
Trey Hendrickson to me made me laugh. Like his football
analysis is as bad as good as his ninety eight
Degrees cover shows at this point. Like, look, at the
end of the day, Max Crosby a much different player
than somebody like Trey Hendrickson. I think he makes their
defense substantially better, right, Like it's like adding a member
of InSync into ninety eight degrees. It actually would help

(04:53):
the entire thing. Like I think at some point Max
is a big boost for this defense. I just don't.
And I appreciate being aggressive, Buck, but I just don't
know that I could just sit here in annoint with
all the other change the Ravens as this Super Bowl
Guru team headed there, given the fact that there are
still a lot of variables that have to break the
right way.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Were you one of the people that did it with
them last year? Because I picked them to win the
Super Bowl?

Speaker 1 (05:19):
I did not pick them to win the Super Bowl.
I think I picked the Bills going into the season
last year, but I was high on the Ravens for sure.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Last year.

Speaker 1 (05:25):
Yeah, I was high on the Ravens. And I think
the hiring of Harball was interesting to me at the
very least, interesting like I get this is where my
damage fans in.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
The firing or the hiring.

Speaker 1 (05:35):
The firing of Harbor. Sorry, the firing of Harball was interesting,
Like I hear you, and it's like, oh, the result
is not good enough. I just I'm a fan of
a team that's had what feels like four hundred and
seventy two you know, coaches in the last three years.
So the revolving door to me scares me a lot
more than it does a lot of people. Even though
the Ravens are a competent organization. They've changed the coach
and I never know if that's gonna work.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
Yeah, it's it's really tough, especially because they're going to
be immediate expectations on Baltimore. And the most difficult, the
most unknowable variable in the middle of all this is
in fact the coaching staff, right, because you're talking about
not just Jesse Minter in his role for the first time,

(06:19):
understanding that he's been a defensive play caller, but it's
a very different job to be a play caller and
also be the head coach. And then you're dealing with
the twenty nine year old offensive coordinator who comes to
them by way of the Bears, who is thought of
very highly in the NFL, but not so highly that
Ben Johnson wasn't willing to You brought this up yesterday

(06:40):
or Saturday when we did our show, not so not
so well thought of that Ben Johnson didn't think that
he could live without him, because, as you pointed out,
that's a lateral move in the NFL's eye. So the
Bears could have theoretically blocked that hiring if they wanted to,
and they said no, you know, that's okay, we'll figure
it out, and maybe they're just doing right by their
guides and go get your opportunity. You're not going to

(07:02):
be the play caller here as long as Ben Johnson
is the head coach, understandably so. So in that situation,
let's send a twenty nine year old to go work
with the twenty nine year old quarterback who most recently
in Lamar Jackson. Then we don't know the full scope
of the relationship between he and Todd Monkin, but or
he and John Harbaugh. Right, there's going to be some

(07:23):
stuff that remains behind closed doors. Some of it has
been reported, but you understand you don't have the full context.
But Lamar was not in love with the things that
his coaching staff was doing. What's that going to be
like when he's dealing with an inexperienced head coach and
an inexperienced, first time offensive play caller as his coordinator there?
How is that going to work when they start to

(07:44):
hit adversity? Are they prepared for these situations? These are
questions that are impossible to answer, but are going to
be a huge talking point around Baltimore all year long
because the roster is ready the question is the coaching
staff prepared to handle it?

Speaker 1 (07:59):
Yeah, I mean don't we have countless recent examples. Whether
it's Philadelphia, whether it's the Lions, you lose coordinators, you
change coaches, things are different, And you're right. I do
think that at some point a lateral move in the
offensive coordinator position is significant to me when the person
letting you go is one of the best offensive minds
in the league. So maybe you're right if you want

(08:20):
to apply this what every team does, every fan base
does at this time of the year, and it's the
most dangerous part of fandom. The thing that we all
do is we look at our favorite team through the
prism of these are all brilliant moves, and all of
our division opponents as these are dumb moves, right like,
instead of applying universal benefit of the doubt or universal skepticism,

(08:42):
which I think is a much more accurate thing to do.
Like if you presume the worst of every single transaction
for every team in your division, that's one way to
look at it, or presume the actual best. If I'm
just looking at it from non Ravens fandom point, I've
got a head coach to your point in Jesse Minter,
it's a wildly different job. We don't care what a
great coordinator you are. We have no idea. Josh McDaniels

(09:04):
is the living, eating, breathing, perfect example of somebody that
is a blessed by God coordinator and a terrible head coach. Right,
So I have no idea and nobody has any idea.
If today Jesse Mintter is closer to Josh McDaniels or
closer to you know, Mike McDonald, we don't know. We
have no idea. So that's step number one. And then

(09:24):
to your point, anytime you have a new offensive coordinator
coming in with Lamar, I don't know. And that's a
coordinator that Ben Johnson turned around and said, no, we're good,
we don't need you on the staff, Like, go ahead,
go wherever else you want. Like that to me, at
least raises an eyebrow. So I think there's enough eyebrow raisers.
But I also think if you're the Ravens, this is

(09:45):
where like it's weird with owners too, because there's certainly
a new perceived power structure of everything in Baltimore, not
just that Harball's gone. It also feels like Baltimore's coming
out a little bit and saying, hey, we're not gonna
do business the same way. We're gonna to be aggressive.
We're gonna go out and get a sack Master. We're
gonna go out and get one of the biggest names

(10:06):
in the league. Like we're gonna go be big players
in free agency and big spenders to bring in absolute
superstars to capitalize on a window. Right now, that doesn't
necessarily feel like a harp auli In type move, but
it feels like that's also a statement by the organization
like this is why we made the change. We're gonna
do something aggressive right here right now.

Speaker 2 (10:25):
Well, I mean, but he never had roster control, right
I mean, he's he's got a situation in New York
that is very different from what he was doing in Baltimore,
and how much say he had in what Eric DeCosta,
who's the general manager there and his staff did, understanding
that there was still, you know, a level of the

(10:47):
buzzword the Titans fans and where I am and Nashville
are tired of hearing is collaboration, the infamous collaboration. There
is some level of collaboration at every level in these organizations,
But it's still worth pointing out that, Yeah, I mean,
they're doing things differently than we've seen them do, but

(11:07):
that's not necessarily because the coaching change. I like the
idea that there's a front office in the NFL that's
not so married to their one way of doing things
for one hundred years that they're willing to take different
kind of chances. You can talk about the value because
essentially you're talking about, all right, do you want Max
Crosby or do you want the mystery grab bag behind

(11:29):
door number two? Right, because that's what these first round
picks are. And I think if you're Baltimore and understanding
that he's coming off an injury and you know his
assessment of how injured he actually was and route to
being shut down and falling out of favor with the
Raiders organization, I'm sure he has brought up and I'm
sure if FITSI you watched every minute of that twelve

(11:49):
minute goodbye that he that he posted on his own podcast,
did Max Crosby? But yeah, I think that they are
an organization that does get benefit of the doubt. Regardless
of who their coaching staff is. There are more variables
than we're accustomed to talking about when you deal with

(12:10):
the Baltimore Ravens because Harbaugh has been that constant for
so long. But if there is any sense that they
are getting ready to evolve as an organization here, I'm
willing to ride. The Ravens are one of these teams
where I'm almost going to give them implicit trust. Now,

(12:31):
I'm not going to give anybody in the NFL implicit
fully implicit trust, but I am willing to give them
more benefit of the doubt than not because they have
had a proven track record of championship success over multiple decades,
spanning multiple literations of coaching staffs and front offices, and

(12:52):
there is a lot of There is a lot of
track record for them to say, Okay, we're going to
try this differently than we're accustomed to doing it.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
Just trust us, bro, We're gonna get there.

Speaker 2 (13:03):
It just may not be as immediate as Ravens fans
want it to be, because as soon as you trade
two first round picks for Max Crosby, you're talking super Bowl,
and I just don't know how realistic that is.

Speaker 1 (13:13):
In year one, there is so little chance that these
picks turn out to be a Max Crosby, which is
the other side of this entire conversation. What do you
need and at what point do you have to look
at your organization and be honest about where you are today?
Because Max Crosby certainly helps the Ravens in ways he
would never help the Raiders. But the question is what

(13:34):
do teams like the Raiders, the Jets, the Browns actually
need to accomplish to try and get better. We'll answer
some of that. It's a big day in the NFL
as the legal tampering window opens, and we'll tell you
more about that coming up. He's buck Rising. I'm Jason
fitz buckin Fits hanging out with you on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 4 (13:50):
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington, and
Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
Steve Gott's here.

Speaker 5 (14:07):
I have a podcast Empire.

Speaker 3 (14:09):
It continues to grow.

Speaker 1 (14:10):
And I have brought it here to iHeart.

Speaker 5 (14:12):
I'm also doing a live radio show from three to
five pm Eastern because my.

Speaker 1 (14:17):
Wife wanted to kick me out of the house.

Speaker 5 (14:19):
It's called Stu Gotson Company Live, which is available in
podcast form right when the show finishes every single day.
Some of the biggest names in sports, a lot of phone.

Speaker 2 (14:30):
Calls, I love you guys the show.

Speaker 3 (14:31):
It's one of my favorites.

Speaker 5 (14:32):
A lot of interact shit, guys not taking themselves too seriously.
Those are just some of the things that you can
expect from Stu Gottson Company and Steve Gottson Company Live.
So listen to Stu Gotson Company Live and our original podcast.
Please subscribe, rate and review Stu Gotson Company and God
Bless Football. Taylor's livelihood depends on it. You do it

(14:55):
today and you can check all of those out on
the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcast four, wherever you get your podcast.

Speaker 1 (15:05):
It's two Pros and the Cuba Joe, It's the Bucket
Bits takeover. He's buck Rising Up. Jason Bitz the Music's
great buck yet again being consistent still just showed him
to work in a terry cloth robe. Though that gets
a little like we need to make sure that the
music is nowhere near sexy because I don't know, I
don't know what I'm dealing with. On the other side,

(15:27):
like I'm a little I'm a little scared. I'm a
little scared. I feel like this is good rogue music. Yeah,
I mean, that's that's what I'm afraid of. Because now
now Buck's bopping around a little bit, He's dancing a
little bit, and again he did not get the HR
note about appropriate address attire.

Speaker 2 (15:46):
If HR had anything to do with you and me
being on the air, we would have been banished from
these airwaves long ago. My friend, God, if we survived Saturday,
who happened against the weekend Show, It's only gonna get
better today, I promise you.

Speaker 1 (16:01):
Well, I mean that's a lofty promise. You can check
out the pod obviously. All right, so Buck, we talked
a little bit about about the Max Crosby to the
Ravens portion of this. But the other side of it
is the draft picks. And this is where I get
torn because I, as a Raiders fan, have watched my
favorite team trade John Gruden for draft picks that didn't

(16:23):
really amount to anything. I watched Khalil Macket traded for
draft picks that didn't really amount to anything. Jets fans,
you feel this too. The Jets are sitting here with
a bunch of draft equity over the next couple of years.
And this is where everybody says, oh my god, the
rebuild starts here, look at all of this equity we have.
But I think where we get jaded as fans is
that when you sit through enough bad drafts, you don't

(16:45):
really feel like there's a lot of equity in picks, right,
And then you see a team like the Rams go
out and approach this whole offseason yet again with an
fmpick's mindset. So you got teams on one side that
are saying fmpicks sort of, we'll get to that, and
then teams on another side that are saying, what we
need our picks. I think part of this has to
come from self awareness of a couple of things. As

(17:05):
an organization, you got to be really aware of where
you are in your timeline. And I genuinely believe the
Raiders made a statement to the world about what they
see their timeline. As I believe what the Raiders told
you in the trade of Max Crosby is that they
understand that if everything breaks the right way, they're probably
looking at a three year rebuild.

Speaker 3 (17:23):
Right.

Speaker 1 (17:24):
So these these picks are a huge part of what
becomes a we need the roster to be getting good
at the right time mentality. The problem is I look
at it and say, well, that requires three great drafts
in a row, which I have. I haven't seen two
great drafts in a row as a Raiders fan, so like,
But that's not John Spytech the current GM's problem. So

(17:44):
the weird thing about fandom every time there's a new
coach or a new GM is that we as fans say,
same old Raiders, same old Brown, same old Jets, same
old insert bad team here. But from an organizational standpoint,
you can't afford to think about the failures in the
You truly have to clean slate it and say what's
best for this regime today moving forward for this team

(18:05):
to try and build this way, which for the Raiders
probably is the draft picks. Like keeping Max wasn't gonna
win them a bunch of games, and maybe the draft
picks won't either, but at least gives them a shot
to get multiple players across the board. They may not
be good as good as Max, but you didn't win
games with Max. You need You don't need one great player,
you need eighteen of them. So when you look at

(18:27):
it that way, I understand it from where the Raiders
are sitting.

Speaker 2 (18:30):
Yeah, you just want swings, right, like, just swings at
this thing in the draft, and that's it's it's a
very unquantifiable thing, right to say, well, I just want
the opportunity to add good football players. And you're saying
if you're if you're a Raiders fan that's struggling with
the deal, And I don't know, I mean, are there
many Raiders fans FITZI, you would have more access to

(18:52):
you know, social media is not the real world, thank god,
But just generally, what is the dialogue among Raiders fans?
You are more rational person in this particular situation, because
you work in this industry. You have more information than
the average NFL football fan might. So are Raiders fans

(19:14):
handling the trade diplomatically or is there enough of a
loud minority maybe saying.

Speaker 3 (19:21):
Well, what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (19:23):
Just get good football players when you traded away one
of the best at his position in the sport.

Speaker 1 (19:27):
I think the fan base is very torn. There are
plenty of fans like me that watched the Khalil Mack
trade and saw nothing come from that. And now I've
watched to what could end up being a Hall of
Fame edge rushers traded away add or near the prime
of their careers to go have success elsewhere. Right, So
like that that, you know, that's just that just sucks,

(19:48):
you know what I mean, Like it doesn't it doesn't matter,
but it sucks.

Speaker 2 (19:51):
But the I mean, the context of the Mac and
Amari Cooper thing were so different, right because like they
just they straight up couldn't afford to pay them, right, Yeah,
at the time when the Raiders were still in Oakland
and they had not yet moved to Las Vegas. And
the benefit of having the new stadium for the economics

(20:12):
of running a football team, right is that you can
have so many more events that go through your building.
If you're Mark Davis or Tennessee's getting ready to do
the same thing here in Nashville. They've got their new
stadium opening in twenty twenty seven. It's going to be
a cash cow for a number of different reasons. WrestleMania,
Beyonce concerts, all these different things that you can host

(20:33):
during the year that directly impact your bottom line that
gives you the kind of cash on hand. The amount
of money in Escro required to pay a Khalil Macker
and Amari Cooper. The circumstances around Mark Davis trading or
green lighting those trades was simply that they didn't have
the cash on hand to be able to play to
pay two players at close to their respective top of

(20:57):
their position. So they made moves probably made Raiders fans
feel a little icky. And that's that's additional context about
the Raiders, right, That's a very specific circumstance to them
that they've had to spend the last couple of years
digging out of. The John Gruden situation is a very
specific circumstance to them, where you know, if his emails

(21:21):
don't go public, or if he doesn't send problematic emails
in the first place, are the Raiders in a better
spot at this point in his tenure? Because I mean,
if I'm not mistaken, he would still be the coach
of the Raiders on that last contract. Yeah, so we
are we still talking? Are we talking about John Gruden
doing things? You know, if this, if this situation was

(21:42):
in a vacuum that looked more like professional football.

Speaker 3 (21:46):
Than going through another Josh.

Speaker 2 (21:47):
McDaniel's era, and then this weird Antonio Pierce thing that
you know, looked like a good idea for a hot second,
and then very very quickly turned out to be a
very bad idea as far as making him the full
time head coach, you have different circumstances in the middle
of that with Antonio Antonio Brown, right, just dating back

(22:09):
that long, like all of this stuff on the timeline
of why the Raiders are in the spot that they
are requires a decade plus of context, and to your point,
it's really hard for fans to not carry that, for
lack of a better term, trauma over. It's not but
it's not John Spytech's problem. He wasn't here when all

(22:30):
of that stuff was happening. Now he was just here
for this most recent debacle, and that went sideways for
a number of different reasons. But in reality, John Spytech
is just one year into trying to to plug the
holes in this sinking ship, much less make it something
that's going to be consistently sustainable over a period of time,

(22:52):
that's going to allow you to maneuver the different ebbs
and flows of an NFL season, because you're talking about
rebuilding rosters basic every year at this point in time,
and there is some strategy, some kind of what's what's
the what's the game that you that you used to
have on old cell phones where you're dropping the different
shape blocks into into Tetris. Yeah, you're playing a game

(23:15):
of Tetris basically every offseason with your roster and trying
to figure out the best plan moving forward. So for them,
the best plan right now is moving a premier player
for premier return and trying to just add as many
quality football players.

Speaker 3 (23:31):
And they don't even have to be great football players.

Speaker 2 (23:33):
But if you put together a good to above average
roster and you give yourself the opportunity to add depth
to that, you're going to give yourself as good a
chance as anybody in the NFL to survive a seventeen
game NFL regular season.

Speaker 1 (23:45):
I think to your point though, the funny that you
ask how the fans feel, there is a group of
there there's a large group of fans on social media
that I think got so tired of hearing about is
Max going to get traded? And then you know, you
mentioned Antonio Peers. There's definitely a group of the fans
that feel like Antonio Pierce was because of reporting at
the time, Antonio Pierce was kept in large part because

(24:07):
Max was one of the players that went to Mark
Davis and said this is the guy we want. So
there there is right or wrong. There's a group of
Raiders fans it just got exhausted by the entire process
to feel like Max asked for a ton and you
know the team, you know how this goes with fans
like that, There's a there are definitely there's a group
of fans that feel like Max is disloyal because he
didn't want to come back and play this year. And

(24:28):
I don't really buy into any of that. And frankly,
the other side of that as a fan is I
don't really care about any of that. Like one of
the weird things I could ask all the time who
my favorite Raiders are growing up? And for me, I
think I got so used to early on in the
concept of my even and my fan and watching guys
eventually go play for other teams that I just expect that, like,

(24:49):
I don't. I'm one of the few people because it's
a fine line for me between me an analyst and
a fan, but I'm one of the few people that
looks at it and I'm like, I don't. I rarely
have a jersey of any player, because I'm not that
sort of person. I don't My memories are related to
the team, not to the guys that may or may
not have played for them, because that's just that's an

(25:11):
ever Like if you went out, if you're one of
the people that went out and got Max Crosby tattooed
on your body because he was your favorite Raider, that's
kind of on you. Like in the modern NFL, guys go,
they play other places. I don't know what else we
expect so that it becomes interesting. I think because when
you are the face of the organization and you for
years talk about your loyalty to the organization and then

(25:32):
you eventually leave, there's a group of fans that that's
all they see. I think it's far more nuanced than that,
but that's all they see. It's also hard to find
hope when and you know this covering the Titans right
like you know this because you hear from Titans fans
every day. The hardest part, the best part about a
rebuild is the hope that you can sell to your fans. Hey,
we got draft equity, We're going to draft this young quarterback.

(25:54):
Things are going to turn around. That's usually the moment
of hope for everybody, right, But when you hear that
six seven eight times in a decade from six seven
eight head coaches, at some point, man, I don't even
know that the message of hope can get through anymore.
So is it hopeful to have two first round picks
this year and two first round picks next year?

Speaker 3 (26:13):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (26:13):
Yeah, yeah? Do I think most Raiders fans feel a
ton of hope through that part? They also have the
most cap space by far now for the next two
years to spend. Got a ton of money to spend
and a ton of a ton of draft picks. But
I don't know that that necessarily lights the fire of
hope for the Raiders fan base the way it would
with some other fan bases, because hope is just this
drug that eventually you get tired of consuming, like you

(26:36):
want actual wins instead of somebody telling you wins or
coming right around.

Speaker 3 (26:39):
The corner, you're saying you're built. You've built up a
hope tolerance as a Raiders fan.

Speaker 1 (26:44):
My god, you are so right. Yeah, I need twenty
milligrams of hope now just to feel a little of it,
Like two three milligrams doesn't do it.

Speaker 3 (26:54):
Anything for me.

Speaker 1 (26:55):
If you're only giving me one hope edible, I need
like two or three of those.

Speaker 2 (26:58):
Things, well, I mean, and that's there's there's truth to that,
right because at a certain at a certain point, like so,
I went through this a couple of years ago with
Titans fans and the former general manager. So they've they
fire a lot of people around here in Tennessee on
a regular basis for people who may not be aware

(27:19):
of that circumstance. So two years ago they had a
different general manager after only letting him do that job
for two years with Rand Carthon, and Ran Carthon spent
a bunch of money on Calvin Ridley and Lloyd Cushion
Berry and Kenneth Walker and traded a third round pick
and then gave Lagerius Snead a huge contract with the

(27:40):
Kansas City Chiefs. Ironically enough, the person who was on
the other side of that deal, Mike Borganzi, is now
the Titans general manager after sixteen years in Kansas City,
So you know, he's dealing with a little bit of
the the buyer beware situation for sneed for anybody who's
followed how badly that transaction has gone here in Tennessee.

Speaker 3 (27:58):
Uh I.

Speaker 2 (27:59):
We we called it a sugar rush free agency. My
co host on the local show of FITZI, who you
know well, Lucas Fanziicad, dubbed it a sugar rush free
agency approach because my god, did that dopamine hit When
you're seeing all these names that you recognize league wide
and all this money being tossed around. I think it

(28:21):
was somewhere ballpark two hundred and fifty something million in
contracts that Tennessee handed out among seven or eight different
players that offseason, and you're.

Speaker 3 (28:33):
Like, Wow, they're really going for it.

Speaker 2 (28:36):
But they're building around quarterback Will Levis, And we saw
how just one piece of that puzzle could create a
house of cards situation where yeah, you've got a lot
of name brand players on your roster, but the thing
that you've invested around is a second round pick at
quarterback who had a lot of high risk traits to him.

(29:02):
In theory, it would have made sense, but again, none
of these things are done in a vacuum. The Titans
drafted Will Levis at the top of the second round
back in twenty twenty three, traded a third round pick
to do it, and the justification that I was provided
by people in the draft room at the time, because
you know, anybody who's watched college football understands that will
Levis was anything but a sure thing, and the NFL

(29:23):
tried to turn him into something of, well, I can
fix him type of situation, and then two weeks into
his tenure as a starter, we're talking about he needs
to rewire his brain.

Speaker 3 (29:32):
That's a quote from him, not from us.

Speaker 2 (29:34):
So I think that you can have all these different things,
and people will point to the Patriots last year and say, well, look,
they spent all the money and they didn't miss on anybody,
whether it's their mid tier acquisitions or their top of
market buys, and guys like Milton Williams, the defensive tackle
from the Philadelphia Eagles, and all the different players that

(29:56):
they added to that roster. Look how well the Patriots
did it. My team can do that too, But in
the history of that kind of free agency approach, you
very rarely see it pan out as well. A lot
of things went right for New England last year, and
I'm not doing that to take anything away from them,
because they obviously earned what they got against the opponents
that were in front of them to play, and they

(30:17):
were fortunate that their circumstances, that they did their research,
that they felt confident in the players that they gave
that money to, and that those players paid off at
least in year one. We'll see how some of those
contracts age. But very very rarely do you see teams
who do that as a means of kickstarting their roster
actually get the job done. And very rarely do you

(30:40):
see it go as disast disastrously as it did in
Tennessee over the course of the last couple of years
where the only player left from that acquisition period is Sneat,
and that's because they don't have another corner on the roster,
and there's also some health and legal things that he
has to clear before they can potentially get out from
under that awful contract that.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
They gave him.

Speaker 1 (31:00):
Looking here at spot track dot com and year by
year over the last decade, the Patriots last year are
the only team in the last decade to be the
highest spending team in free agency and go to the
playoffs that year. They are the only team in the
last decade, and in fact, if you go back over
the course of last decade, the highest spending team three

(31:20):
times in the last decade with the New York Jets.
Twice it was the Jacksonville Jaguars, and neither of those
was last year. Just point in reference, So again you
just start looking across the board. Bad teams spend a
ton of money in free agency and it rarely works.
Even New England was the highest spending team back in
twenty twenty one that didn't work out for him. So

(31:41):
it is funny to your point, spending a ton of
money in free agency doesn't usually turn around your team
in that season. It's a weird thing because certainly the
opening of the free agency tampering windows starts a day
for anyone that doesn't know you can start talking to
players today. You cannot officially sign the contract until Wednesday.

(32:03):
They did that because we were getting all of these
complicated transactions that were being announced thirty seconds into free
agency on Wednesday, and people were saying, well, how did
you negotiate this one hundred and fifty two page contract
in just thirty seconds. So now they allow the window
to open on Mondays. Of note, a new rule change
that was enacted this year is that every team can

(32:23):
pick five free agents that they can zoom with today
for the maximum one hour, so there is an opportunity
to actually zoom with coaches and gms like y'all think
about that. Until this year, teams were players were making
their decision on where they were going to sign in
a world where teams could only talk to their agents
and they couldn't talk to anybody else. So if you

(32:45):
were a free agent, supposedly, if you were a free agent,
you couldn't legally talk to your head coach until it
actually came, until you actually signed the deal, so they
had to make a decision to move your family all
the way across country based on your agent talking to
the team. Now, I guess that you know there's some
workarounds in that, but at least now today's the most
something workaround.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
Buddy, This is like SEC players acting like they haven't
been making money the entire time pre nil I get
out of here.

Speaker 1 (33:10):
Yeah, so, but at least there's an official way to
do it.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Now.

Speaker 1 (33:14):
Might slow the window down a little bit, but having
a one hour zoom for five players per team changes
a little to what we're going to see. But we're
going to see historic amounts of money, like Alex Pearce
is somebody the wide receiver that is going to get
a massive, massive contract. Wandell Robinson is going to get
a massive I mean we're talking market setting sort of

(33:34):
money is going to go to these wide receivers because
at the end of the day, like they're out in
the open and you gotta have players.

Speaker 2 (33:42):
Yeah, I can't wait to watch Wandell Robinson make twenty
five million dollars a year in Tennessee.

Speaker 3 (33:47):
That's gonna be.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
Which which is a further complication because you start to
do something like that. The reason why that that is
likely to happen, and we've seen a number of reports
that are calling it like the worst kept secret in
NFL free agency this year, that Wandale Robinson is gonna
end up with the Titans because Brian Dable, the former
Giants head coaches here. Well, but what happens. I think
Dable is not as big of a lock to become

(34:11):
a head coach immediately next season, even though he was
interviewing for a head coaching jobs this cycle. But what
happens if Brian Dabel, who's the offensive coordinator here, leaves
and you signed Wandale Robinson to a big contract that
extends over multiple years, and you're talking about changing offensive systems,
and then what the hell do you do with Wondale
Robinson if he's not an offensive scheme fit.

Speaker 1 (34:33):
Everybody says, f them picks. What if I told you
that's not actually what the Rams are doing. It's not
what you think. I'll explain on the other side, he's
Buck Rising. I'm Jason fitzpucking fits him for Two Pros
and a Cup of Joe on Fox.

Speaker 4 (34:45):
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington, and
Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern, three am Pacific.

Speaker 1 (34:55):
It's two Pros and a Cup of Joe on Fox
Sports Radio. But like Bucket Fits, he's Buck Rising. I'm
Jason Fitz. We're in for the boys, hanging out with
you this morning. We'll get to the Rams in just
a second, but first give a little bit of love
to Jason Tatum. It's time for the tire rack. Play
Oh the Day, pressed along the sideline, puts it into trouble,

(35:17):
gets it away to Kadu Kata, turned the tax kicks
out to the wing Open Tatum three, get it.

Speaker 3 (35:25):
Big men, big men step up a big time, A
great call. For over forty years, ti.

Speaker 2 (35:34):
Rack has been helping customers find the right tires for how,
what and where they drive, Shipped fast and free, backed
by free road hazard protection with convenient installation options like
mobile tire installation. Tire rack dot Com the way tire
buying should be. Love local play by play broadcast. I
love the play of the day. It's one of my

(35:55):
favorite features here on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (35:57):
I also love Tatum coming back. I'm not gonna like
I'm just I'm injecteds in my veins. It makes me
a little nervous coming off the Achilles, but comes back,
has a double double in his first game back, has
another big game that last night. They did not shy
away from having him play a couple of times over
the course of the weekend. I wondered, if you play
a game and then take a few games off. I'm
just saying, if you're a Celtics fan right now, you

(36:18):
feel pretty good that your team was way ahead all
year of expectation, and now they're suddenly going to bring
Tata back. Like I do, I'm a little exhausted already
with the how are they all going to come back together,
like they haven't played a lot of basketball together for years.
I don't buy any of that. I think this would
be an easy assimilation and all of a sudden boom Celtics.
Celtics headed to the NBA Finals. I'm calling it early.

Speaker 2 (36:40):
Well, I see, I don't know that you said something
like this, but it sounds like something that you would
say just for no other reason to bother people that
you were one of these people that thought that they
would be better off not having Jason Tatum return to
the lineup this year, because I saw that theory being

(37:00):
floated around, being like, oh, but they're already so good
without him, what's it going to do when they reinsert
him back into the lineups. He's an NBA All Star
type of player, and he's immediately going to make you better.
I mean, maybe immediately was too far a stretch, and
we have it's easy to do with that with the results,
the early results in hand. But yeah, I mean, he's

(37:22):
a really good basketball player on a team that's got
a bunch of good basketball players. Like, all he's gonna
do is raise the floor for that situation, if nothing else,
and if he can be you know, two thirds of
the player that he was prior to the injury or
when last we saw him. Then you're dealing with one
of the deepest rosters in basketball right now. Yeah, they
should absolutely be the favorites to win the NBA Finals.

Speaker 1 (37:44):
Yeah, and look, no, I was not somebody that said
he shouldn't play, not.

Speaker 2 (37:47):
To win the NBA Finals, but to represent to the
East in the NBA Finals.

Speaker 1 (37:52):
For the like, the East is going to have a
wonderful time crawling over each other for the opportunity to
get shellacked by any of the teams in the West
an them. So, but no, I wasn't somebody that said
they shouldn't bring him back. My only fear is bringing
him back early, because there's plenty of basketball left for Tatum.
So to me, what I didn't want to have happened

(38:13):
was the concept of, man, we thought that this Celtics
team could be really bad. Now all of a sudden,
it's really good. That needs to change our timeline for
Jason Tatum. I think you really have to keep two separate,
siloed conversations of like, when is Tatum ready? Is the
only thing that matters for the Tatum Celtics conversation Now
that being said, certainly, I've had the chance to interview

(38:34):
him a couple of times for Yaho Sports, and I
know he's talked a lot about how difficult this process
has been, and the mental health that this is required,
and all of these things. He has a team of
his own doctors. The Celtics have a team of doctors.
They're not putting him out on the court unless they
believe he is at a spot where they are not
risking re injury. That was my only concern was, don't

(38:54):
let a great season change your timeline on Tatum, even
though it's tempting to do, because what I need is
Jason Tatum to be able to play for the rest
of his career, not to have some kinetic chain injury
to the rest of his leg or any other portion
of his leg. That was my only fear book. But
I think all of that aside. There's no way they

(39:15):
put him on the court unless they thought they were ready.
And now that he is on the court, yes, and
clearly this Celtics team is just dynamic and deep. And
now they have two guys that can just beat the
snot out of you all over the place, two guys
that can play at an MVP caliber level. Two guys
that can pick up the slack and the scoring. Like
I just, yeah, they're going to be a handful forever.

Speaker 3 (39:35):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (39:36):
I mean, I don't blame any fan base though, for
wringing their hands a little bit about putting a guy
back out there after coming off of achilles injury. No
matter when they get out there, right, there's always going
to be those nerves. And it's not a situation like
Kevin Duran a couple of years ago, where he came
back ahead of schedule or tried to come back ahead
of schedule for the purposes of helping his team in

(39:57):
the postseason, ended up reinjuring. And that's one of the
lasting images that any basketball fan has about, Okay, how
do you handle these this specific kind of an injury correctly?
And how do you how do you basically protect the
athletes from themselves, because there's a lot of situations where
dudes are going to tell you they're ready far before

(40:19):
they actually are. And so it's good that the Celtics
were patient in the process of working him back in
his return to play so that they can get the
best version of him at this point.

Speaker 1 (40:30):
Yeah, all of which is going to give them the
best opportunity to then get just beat down by either
the Spurs or the Thunder, who just look like they
are playing welcome back well and leads of their and
the Thunder haven't been healthy even though they haven't been healthy.
The Thunder Who's still managed to do this all year long,
So it is going to be wild, all right. Speaking
of wild, f M pix has become a mantra for

(40:51):
the Rams, but it's not true. We'll tell you about
it next fucking fits. Fox Sports Radio
Advertise With Us

Hosts And Creators

Brady Quinn

Brady Quinn

LaVar Arrington

LaVar Arrington

Jonas Knox

Jonas Knox

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

Dateline NBC

Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com

Fudd Around And Find Out

Fudd Around And Find Out

UConn basketball star Azzi Fudd brings her championship swag to iHeart Women’s Sports with Fudd Around and Find Out, a weekly podcast that takes fans along for the ride as Azzi spends her final year of college trying to reclaim the National Championship and prepare to be a first round WNBA draft pick. Ever wonder what it’s like to be a world-class athlete in the public spotlight while still managing schoolwork, friendships and family time? It’s time to Fudd Around and Find Out!

Music, radio and podcasts, all free. Listen online or download the iHeart App.

Connect

© 2026 iHeartMedia, Inc.

  • Help
  • Privacy Policy
  • Terms of Use
  • AdChoicesAd Choices