June 23, 2020 • 49 mins
Doug discusses the return of Major League Baseball but expresses some downfalls that can’t be avoided based on what’s happened over the past couple months. He also tells you who the most underrated player in the NFL is right now. Plus, former MLB GM and Executive of the Year Jim Bowden joined the show to tell Doug what we should expect from baseball in 2020.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
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(00:22):
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Baseball appears to be very very very very very very
very very close to being back on some level, right
that's are we can we at least agree on that.
Whether not baseball it's not officially back, but basically what
(00:45):
happened was yesterday I said, ah, it is proposal. Baseball
players are gonna vote on it. If they don't vote
on it, the Commissioner is gonna enact um a ruling
in which he'll say we have to have we're gonna
have baseball regard of this. So why not just vote
on it because you get better benefits. The problem with
(01:06):
agreeing to those terms is it doesn't allow the players
to eventually eventually file a grievance. So now Major League
Baseball plans to hold a sixty game season. It will
begin around July, needs the players to sign off on
a health and safety protocol and pledge to arrive at
(01:26):
home stadiums by July one to prepare for the season,
sources familiar with the situation told ESPN. Owners voted to
implement a sixty game season on Monday, hours after Major
League Baseball's Players Association rejected a sixty game proposal that
would have included expanded playoffs and other ancillary salary bumps.
After nearly three months off of fruitless negotiations, MLB opted
(01:50):
to use their right given uh given to it in
the party's March agreement, to impose the schedule of its
desired length. By choosing a season of sixty games. The
league will pack in as many games as you can
through September, the league's self and post cut off for
the regular season. Additionally, the sixty game season could serve
(02:11):
as a buffer against the grievance by the MLB p A, which,
in the case of a potential implementation, has been expected
to charge that the league did not fulfill its duty
to complete a full season. As possible, the league would
file grievance against the union as well. There will be lawyers,
multiple players, bill DSPN. They expect to agree to the
league's call to report by July one and to its
(02:33):
health and safety protocol. In other words, man, this could
have be done a long time ago. Major League Baseball
had this clause in its back pocket. They finally used it,
and we're gonna have baseball. The players are actually making
less money because they did not choose the agreement that
would have paid them more. Instead, that agreement would have
(02:54):
nullified their ability to file grievance. My take on the
grievance is pretty much this. It's like when a baseball
game is under protest. You ever done that when you're
a little leg all right? You ever had the coach
that files the protest. Guy is safer out at first base,
throw the ball at the first basement, stands on the base.
(03:14):
You have two umpires, He appeals to the other umpire.
The other umpire says, I agree with the first umpire, Like, nope,
you guys missed it. This game is under protest. Has
anything changed because of that protest? The answer is now
no insense. But but I feel like somebody needs to
tell Baseball what I'm going to tell baseball, and it's
(03:38):
not the owners. And I understand you can sit there
and go, hey, owners, they may many of them are
are not just multimillionaires, some are billionaires. These are businesses
that are cash cows. Regardless of whether it is it isn't.
There are many parts of baseball's finances which are really interesting.
They have no salary cap, yet they have a luxury
(03:59):
tax shold which allows teams. Everybody thinks no salary cap
means you can just spend whatever you want. It's kind
of true, but the luxury tax threshold actually makes it harder,
prohibitively more difficult to spend as much as you want.
On the other hand, the downside of not having a
luxury taxes there's no floor, no ceiling. But there is
(04:21):
kind of a ceiling, but there's definitely no floor, meaning
you can pay your players as little as you want
to pay your players. And oh yeah, by the way,
now that you you can you pay your players a little,
but then you get subsidized by the team's paying the
luxury tax. So owners have created a system and been
able to get over on the players in the c
B a time and again and are able to make
(04:42):
some money. Some teams won't make money, not just this year,
but in all years they struggled to make money. Some
markets are the Oakland A's have no radio broadcast home.
Of course, that used to be a big cash cow.
You know, there's they they've struggled to get a stadium built.
(05:03):
They don't own the stadium, so they don't make as
much money from miss municipality owned stadium as they would
at home. But none of that matters. Owners own right.
They many of these men and women and whoever worked
their entire lives to save up money to buy because
they wanted to own a professional sports team. And when
(05:24):
you do that, you have the right to make try
and make money, not just make money when you sell it.
Because what was the point of getting this business if
I have to sell the business or to make money. No,
I don't want to do that. I want to do
all things. I want to turn a profit, I want
to win games, and I want the value of the
business to go up. That these aren't reasonable things that
anyone who owns a business could want. Labor is really
expensive in baseball, that's part of the deal. But here's
(05:50):
what players seem to have missed, and I this is
a I'm a friend of court, right, this is ple ease.
Do not lash out at Gottlieb played basketball, Gottlieb talks football.
Gottlieb's doing the football and basketball more popular thing. I
love baseball. I played baseball as a kid. It was
(06:15):
the other sport that I tried to play in high school.
Just time would not permit it. Because in California, if
your high school basketball team is any good, you play
in the playoffs and even the state tournament. Meanwhile, baseball
starts up the beginning of February, and it's just too
much to catch up on it. It was just too hard.
Other than Dan Patrick, we actually talked more baseball than
(06:37):
anybody else, and many times we're told like, I don't
know if you wanna talk that baseball. It's not just
national radio show. It struggles with popularity. But but you
don't get that from You don't get a pushed back
for me. I love baseball. I've done a segment on
this network and on a previous network that calls nobody
gives a Schmidt as a tip of the captain Paul Goldschmidt,
who was doing great things in Arizona, and no one
(06:59):
ever mentioned it because it's baseball, it's Arizona, it's a
guy named Paul Goldschman. It just didn't work. So you're
not hearing from baseball hater guy. But I think we
can all admit on some level, baseball, regular season baseball
is a little bit slow. Like if I'm being nice,
I'd say it's a little bit slow. If I'm being me,
and I'd say it's boring. His sin. Now, baseball works
(07:23):
in the summer, and and baseball corner of the summer market.
And baseball is a hundred and sixty two games, and
those two parts of it are the secret to the
baseball's success. How do these guys get paid so much money?
Hundred six two games summer. The hundred six two games
don't just matter because of the gate which makes up
(07:46):
the income, but also any of these fledgling cable networks.
And I'm not talking about the Fox Sports ones and
the ESPNS, obviously they pay a ton of the bills,
but these what's called regional sports networks that broadcast their games,
they are innings eaters. And I want by innings eaters
that you need to draw the parallel of any inning
eater pitcher you have. That's what baseball does to these
(08:09):
these these networks. It gives you three to four hours
of content every night, our pregame show, our postgame show,
and and most of these networks, in order to be
on some level of cable you gotta have six to
eight hours of live programming to day. That's all you
(08:30):
gotta have. The rest of the stuff. You can do infomercials,
you can buy somebody else's show and put it on
your network. Whatever. You gotta have like six to eight
hour live hours a day. Well, Baseball sitting there going like, hey,
we're gonna give you five six hours. Stretch out the pregame,
do a coaches show, you know, bill post game, do
a highlights show, and you're done. There's your network. There's
(08:51):
your network. And you're like, what does that? What does
that mean? Like, um, if your network costs a dollar
which is a little bit of high actually, but cost
a dollar to for a cable company to put on
every time, every and they're only in fifty million homes right,
and you're like, whoa, what does that mean? That means
fifty million dollars a month month without selling an ad Okay,
(09:19):
and many of these baseball teams own parts of their
regional sports networks. So baseball is a cash cow. But
it's a cash cow because it cornered the summer market,
and it's a volume play. It's an innings eater for
cable networks, for radio, for everybody. It just sucks up
a bunch of time. And is it Is it super
(09:40):
fun and entertaining? Not all the time. It's a good hang,
its family friendly, it's outside for the most part, you
can have a beer, you can talk, you know as
much of the action. But but, but, but here's the problem. Okay,
the world continues to evolve, Attention spans continue to shrink,
and maybe most importantly, basketball has gotten wise to this.
(10:03):
Wait a second, we can be just as popular and
play over the summer. Summer leagues become popular. Are NBA
finals when they're in June are popular? Why are we
avoiding the summer and baseball? This baseball deal because it
took so long for them to get it done, they're
basically missing summer Like no j July twenty seven. A
lot of schools are back in session, first month in August,
(10:25):
first week in August. You got missed time. Schools are
starting earlier and earlier, and you combine that with the coronavirus,
which shut down so many schools, they're starting like you
missed it, you missed the window. And now when you
get back into August and then into September, you're competing
with basketball and football college football. Like, dude, you have
(10:46):
to remember what your niche is, why you're popular. Hockey
had this problem, alright, Hockey was wildly popular. Crazy. Wayne
Gretzky comes to l A. Hockey is like, you know
what we need to do. Let's go to Arizona. Let's
go to Atlanta, Let's go to Florida. Let's go to Miami.
Let's go to Carolina. Let's expand. Hockey still is really
(11:12):
popular within the states where people grow watch it play
it growing up. It is in Minnesota, crazy popular, crazy Canada,
New York, New England, States. Right, if you if you
forget your core audience, if you forget the reason that
you're successful, you run a very risky path for your future.
(11:40):
So I'm happy baseball is back, but I gotta warn
these players there's a really, really good chance that there's
gonna be challenges in the very near future to the
summer audience. And you just shunned the summer audience because
you want to fight over the details, which you have
every right to fight over. You got every right to
be ticked at the fact that you're losing more money,
(12:02):
but that agreement stipulated that you were going to lose
all that money anyway, and they were gonna go back
on a sixty game season. So I'm not really sure
what the fight. I don't really know what you fought
for because it just feels like you lost early and
you lost late. You know, you fought on principle, great idea,
(12:23):
but does that keep you gainfully employed? Does that make
your does that make the markets expand? Um? Does? Does
that make everybody richer in the future? And I don't
believe the answer is yes. I I reserve the right
to be wrong, but I don't believe the answer is yes.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Doug
(12:44):
gott Leap Show weekdays at three pm Easter noon Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio Whap.
Jim Bowden was the GM in the uh in Mijor
League Baseball. Now he teaches us all about baseball. Working
for CBS Sports kind of to spend some time with
this here on Fox Sports Radio. Uh, Jim, this is
a when, not if? What? What's what's the hold up
(13:07):
on baseball officially announcing they have an agreement with the
players to play Yeah, I mean, look, the owners have
implemented the sixty games. I'm being told the union is
going to agree with that. They have to go through
the formality of talking to all the player reps. But
my understanding is by five o'clock today Eastern time, the
(13:28):
clubs will be told that the union is is a
go for reporting the spring training on July one. That
will allow Major League Baseball to have opening Day on July,
which is what their goal is. That allows them to
play sixty games in sixty six days. Um and I Also,
it also appears that the health and safety protocols are
(13:49):
also going to be agreed upon. There's a couple of
tweaks that the union still had left for that, but
again not a barrier. So it looks like we've got
a green light to go ahead. It's not official yet,
I guess until the Union notifies the Commissioner's office, But
from my understanding, the players are happy that sixty games
was implemented rather than fifty and they're planning on reporting
(14:09):
on the first. Um, okay, so why not agree to
the Like, what does the the ability to file a
grievance do really for the players? I really don't know
the answer to that, to be honest with you. I mean,
I think that they're gonna have a very difficult time
if they're going to try to argue the number of
games that were implemented. I think when we look at
(14:30):
the calendar right now, not quite sure why an arbitrator
would think we should have played more games. Um, the
players wanted full par raded salaries. They got that, So
I'm not quite sure what the grievance would do for that.
So I kind of feel like the clubs have lived
up to that March agreement based on what they've done here.
Uh So, I really don't know the angle unless there's
(14:52):
something we're missing. It is surprising that the union did
not want to agree to the last offer. The reason
I say that is they gave up twenty five mi
billion dollars in playoff pool money for expanded playoffs. They
also the clubs are willing to forgive thirty three million
in um salary advances they gave players. Um. Kind of
a surprise. They didn't want that, so they walked away
(15:13):
from fifty eight million dollars um to be able to
have the right to file a grievance apparently. So not
quite sure I understand it. I mean, look, the players
come away from this galvanized, Uh, they're together. If they're
trying to send a message for the cb A negotiations
for a year from now, they probably have done that.
But I'm not sure that they shouldn't be satisfied that
(15:36):
their goal was as many games as possible. They got sixty,
and they wanted to be paid, you know, paid at
the full paraded amount. They got that. Um, I'm surprised,
and I think they're gonna get universal d H two.
I think the clubs are gonna allow the players to
do that as part of the health and safety protocols. Um.
So why they didn't want expanded playoffs for themselves for
(15:57):
that extra pool money as well as for the fans
and have more teams have a chance to get in.
It's kind of surprised at that, to be honest with you.
But again I don't know behind the scene, if the
whole concept is let's file a grievance and see if
we can get the financials the clubs won't give us.
Let's see if maybe an arbitrator makes them turn over revenues.
You know, that could be the angle. I really don't know.
(16:18):
I think that's something we're gonna find out down the road. Yeah,
it's it's it's it's curious. Um. Look, and this is
like a friend of court love baseball. I just I
don't know. I don't know if, if, if baseball players
and maybe to a less extent, baseball owners, understand the
reason the sport has been so financially successful. And this
(16:41):
is an important point that I do think that people
in my on my side and the host side and
the opinion side, they don't give enough credit. Baseball has
been remarkably, remarkably successful financially. They have been ahead of
the curve in terms of their digital properties, and other people,
other other sports have tried to take from, or even
lease out, some of the things that baseball does. That said,
(17:05):
the biggest reason for baseball success, and you know the
dollars and cents way better than I do, is you
had the summer market to yourself, basically unopposed, and you
had a hundred six two games, so you had a
volume play to make up for a bad night here,
a bad season there, or whatever. Because you volume played
for TV, for radio, money, for stadium attendants, all those
other things. That's why. And you're giving that away, and
(17:29):
you delayed and delayed and delayed until now essentially you
gave away the summer and you gave away the volume play.
And now you're gonna run a compacted season that's gonna
run in concert with basketball. And I think basketball is
coming to challenge you in the future. Yeah, I think
you nailed it. Especially we talked about the month of July.
July is the monopoly month for baseball, right the NBA
(17:51):
is over, the NFL hasn't started, and that's the month
where you have the All Star Game, you have the
trade deadline, of which, by the way, you have neither
this year. But it's a huge opportunity. And if baseball
had been able to play July one and play the
month of July and had exciting pennant races, uh, you
might have been able to carry that over. Instead. What
(18:12):
baseball did in June and July with no NBA and
no NHL is each plot in the media more than
any other sport. And you made people not like the sport.
You you took everyone through the mud in the negotiations.
You didn't negotiate behind the scenes. You negotiated with the
public over millions and billions of dollars. That's not a
(18:33):
good optic. And as you point out, now you're gonna
start July and you're gonna have basically a week before
the NBA starts up. And the NBA is gonna be
fun to watch in the month of August, and in
football is gonna start, which is the number one sport,
as we know, as your ratings know on your show,
it's number one. It moves the needle. So now you're
gonna go head to head with the NBA in the
NFL for the rest of the year. Uh wow, you
(18:55):
better hope that the play is exciting. Uh you better
hope that you get the right teams in the postseason
and that the month of October is really really exciting
for baseball. But to your point, and I agree with
it with that double red exclamation on my emoji iPhone,
Uh he can't give up Joe I like you did, dumb.
I mean the fourth July Americana Baseball and nothing else
(19:18):
on you know, you go to a game, you're like, man,
I I now I know, I remember why I love
this game, you know. And you between Ossuna and Trout
and Stanton and all these other like, you're like, oh,
I you have so many young and or in their
prime talented players. Okay, let's let's get to the nuts
and bolts of it. A sixty game season played over
(19:38):
less than seventy days. If you're put your GM hat
back on, what do you do to adjust your roster
in order to try and be successful? Yeah, and the
most important thing is going to be the depth that
you have and being really careful with your pitching early on.
You know you're only gonna get three weeks step spring training.
I went through that. We had a trunk came in
(20:01):
season because of the work stoppage, and we didn't start
to Lapril twenty four. We went out of the gate
three and eight. We ended up winning the division. We
played the Braves in the league championship series, but those
first eleven games we were not ready. We were not prepared,
and we pushed our pictures, which was a huge mistake.
So your normal pitching staff of eleven or twelve guys,
what's gonna be important. These guys eleven to fifty. You're
(20:23):
gonna have to utilize them early. You have to utilize
them often. You're gonna have to bring along your pictures, uh,
to keep them strong and as good and effective as
they can be. But you also have to manage these
games with more of a sense of urgency than ever before.
Managers are so used to playing a hundred sixty two games.
They're so used to giving a player a day off
(20:43):
here or there, or or maybe not having the lefty
faced the lefty in a particular situation because you're trying
to keep his legs strong. There's none of that. Now
we get off to a bad start, you're going home.
I mean after sixty games last year, Uh, the Washington
Nationals would not have made the playoffs in the other
World Champion. So that that's just the wake up call that, look,
the best teams aren't gonna win. That's not what happens
(21:05):
in the sixty games schedule. The hot teams are gonna
get to the postseason. So you've got to as a
GM or a manager, you have to manage that properly. Now,
the other thing, Doug, that's gonna be really complicated and
unique is you're You're not gonna have spring training in Arizona, Florida.
You're gonna have it at home. I talked to Aaron Boone,
the manager of the New York Yankees, yesterday. I said,
how are you going to go about this? And he said, look,
(21:25):
we're gonna end up splitting our group into into two halves.
We're gonna start right away by playing some inter squad games,
some y VP. Uh. He said, you know we only
have the five, the five mounds, the two bullpen, and
in the mountain. And he said, well, just stagger them
as the days go on. But he said, you know,
we don't have a choice that that's what you have
to do. So it's gonna be a very unique way
(21:47):
to try to get your players ready to go. And
I'm gonna tell you, Doug as you know, those that
know how to handle a situation like this are gonna
have a big advantage come come July. Do they have
to use is their home stadium? I know they have
to you go to home parks, but I'll give you example. Okay,
I live fifteen minutes from Anaheim Stadium, so many of
(22:08):
the Angels live kind of sporadically around in and about
Orange County. There are so many fields, so many places
that you can go and get work in, maybe not
of the major league caliber. Do you have to by rule?
Do they have to use their home stadium only? No,
that they don't, and they're not going to. You know,
the Yankees are going to use Scranton their Triple A affiliate. Uh,
(22:31):
they're gonna shuttle some of the players there. If there's
sixty players in their pool, they're gonna keep forty Yankee
Stadium and show about twenty the scrant And so I
would think the Angels probably would do the same thing.
But you know where you live down there in Orange County. Um,
you know, there's plenty of spots that's not going to
be an issue. But not every city has that luxury, right,
So so it's challenging for a lot of places. It
(22:54):
won't be for the Angels. Um. Okay. So obviously the
you feel like the best teams per se or the
guy you know, the old school way of two or
three dominant pitchers and then you know bullpen and and
and and timely clutch hitting is what is what wins
you in the postseason. Now we're talking about the ability
(23:15):
to just be deep and be competitive in a night
and night basis. They're changing the the extra inning rules
as well to try and speed this this thing up.
Just off the top of your head, who does have
the best depth, Who on paper is built the best
for this type of season? Well, Yankees, Dodgers are the
most obvious. Really deep bullpens, really really good rotations of
(23:37):
the Nationals are in a great position for this as well.
But then there are some sleeper teams out there as well.
The Padres have a really good deep bullpen that's gonna
benefit them early and if they get off to a
good start, you know, they could be a surprise team
to watch. Um Tampa Bay Rays, Oakland Athletics two more teams,
really good rotations, really deep bullpens, really good defensive team. So, uh,
(23:59):
you know, for me looking at it from my lens,
my former GM lens would be you know, Yankees, raise Oakland, A's, Dodgers, Nationals. Uh,
perhaps the Cardinals as well, because they're pitching depth twelve
the fifteen is really good. So those are the some
of the teams, at least on paper to me, that
look like they're gonna have an advantage when the bell rings.
(24:20):
Jim Bowen joining US former Major League Baseball Jim, He
read his work, see his work on CBS Sports and
CBS Sports dot Com. Jim, what what and and this is?
I know it's an impossible question to ask, okay, but
I'm gonna ask the impossible of you. What does the
financial landscape look like for the Mookie Betts of the
league in the upcoming off season. Well, that's a great question.
(24:42):
I think Lukey's gonna get paid. That's that's my own opinion.
He's turned down three million and he's gonna I think
he's going to get a deal with the three in
front of it. I don't think he's going to get
a deal with four in front of it. You know,
we wanted the Mike Trout range under Mike Trout, but
with a four in front, Boston was never willing to
go there. But I think he's going to get the
three in front of it. Look, I think most free
(25:03):
agents are going to take a huge hit, Okay, but
I don't think the Bets in the real Muto's at
the top of the class. I don't think that's that's
gonna take a hit. Too much. Talent and there's just
not enough of those guys. But I'll say in general,
I wouldn't want to be a mid level free agent,
and I wouldn't be want to be a salary arbitration
eligible four or five plus player unless I was an
(25:24):
All Star, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger type of player. Because
you're gonna see a record number of non tender players.
So you're gonna see a lot of free agents not
get offers because the economic impact of this pandemic is
well beyond what everyone is thinking about right now, And
as they were trying to argue over trying to get
this deal done, they were all missing the big picture
of forty million unemployed and the damage that you did
(25:47):
to the game and what that's gonna mean and ticket
revenue going forward. So again, I think it's gonna be
challenging for most players, but for Mookie, Mookie is gonna
get paid. It's a it's a great point you make that.
I've talked to people in all sports at the administrative level,
and they've said, like, look, we don't know how many
people come back to stadiums, not just because of the
fear of the virus, but if they can afford it,
(26:07):
you know, like you eliminate forty million people from the workforce,
Guess what they're not gonna They're not gonna turn off
their TVs or the cables or whatever they're streaming. Is
they're gonna cut out the ancillary spending, which is you know,
and and I don't know if you saw this, but
but the greatest percentage of change in uh IN spending
is with the top earners, right, the people who can
(26:29):
afford the boxes, the best seats. They're spending less now,
they're being more and more cautious. And those are the
people you need to fill up the seats in your
stadium to fill up the boxes. So it's gonna be
uh really really interesting. Jim. I cannot tell you how
much I appreciate listening to you getting information learning about
the sport that you were so great uh in working in.
Thanks for joining us. Thank you alright, Jim Bowden MLB
(26:52):
GM Executive of the Year when he's an MLB g M.
Of course you can read his work in the athletics.
Be sure to catch the live edition of the Doug
gott Leaps week days at three p m. Easter noon Pacific.
I was listening to Chris Simms earlier today, UM, a
clip of what he said was from another radio show
was played and he had Matt Ryan is the seventh
ranked quarterback in the National Football League. And I know
(27:17):
what happens is we're gonna do this thing that you're
gonna be up so up in arms that you're like,
I can't believe Matt and I and then you start
to catch your breath and realize who Matt Ryan is
and realize who he plays for. Did did you guys
know that the Falcons never had back to back winning
(27:39):
seasons until he got there? They never head back to
back ten wasn CE ten win season until he got there.
Do g you guys know that this this is actually
what took place like the we think of the Falcons
because Mike Vick was cool and talented and and one
and one on the road in Green Bay as on
a wild card game, that the Falcons were always they
(28:01):
were awesome. And then Matt shab replaced him, and then
eventually Matt Ryan, and they've been good. But he has
been the picture of stability in a very unstable franchise.
I'm not going to tell you that the Falcons were
good last year. In fact is the Falcons were not.
There were seven and nine. I am going to point
out that the Falcons finished the season winners of four
(28:24):
consecutive games, and while those games may not be impressive
to you, because they beat the Bucks in overtime and
the Jaguars last two games, they beat the Niners on
the road. They beat the Niners in the road, beat
the Saints on the road, and that was after kind
of a come to Jesus. They went through up a
six game losing streak in the middle of the year,
(28:44):
and it was mostly mostly their defense. Offense wasn't great
against the Rams, offense wasn't good against the Titans at home,
but they gave up fifty three to the Texans, thirty
seven to the Rams. And when they lost six and row,
they completely changed. Put offensive coaches on defense, defensive coaches
on offense, changed completely what they're doing, and the team
(29:07):
turned it around. The team won six of their last eight.
Of those six wins, four were on the road. Of
the four road wins, one was in San Francisco, one
was in New Orleans. Those are the two toughest places
to play. But I'm not even gonna take last year
as just a snapshot of Matt Ryan. I would contend
that if you were really honest about it, you would
(29:28):
think Matt Ryan is a average quarterback, middle of the road.
His numbers tell you otherwise. In two thousand and sixteen,
he won the m v P. They went to the
Super Bowl EEE. They were up twenty eight to three.
They chose to kept slinging it and they ultimately lost
to the Patriots. Is that on him, Sure, but he
did have a great year at thirty eight touchdowns, seven inceptions.
(29:49):
The next year his offensive coordinator left. They struggled, He
turned the ball over too much, twenty touchdowns, twelve interceptions.
In two thousand and eighteen, it's like people have so
quickly forgotten thirty five touchdown, seven interceptions, and last year
the interceptions were up fourteen with twenty six touchdowns. The
point is this guy slings it. He's never hurt, solid
(30:13):
as the day is long, good player, capable of leading
it to a super Bowl. And the truth is that
could have won the Super Bowl. When you're up three,
Do you need to keep scoring to keep winning? Yeah?
I guess you do. And he made some he did.
He did not make some of the best plays in
the world, and they did not call some of the
best players in the world when they had that lead,
and ultimately that's could have changed his career trajectory. But
(30:35):
go through the list of quarterbacks that you like and
find one in the type of franchise and division that
they play, and that's been as consistently um successful. Matt
Ryan's a damn good quarterback. My Ryan's a top ten quarterback?
Is he seventh? I don't know. Everything is subjective, but okay,
(30:56):
I'll give you Carson Wentz is better. Nobody else in
the NFC East has proven themselves to be more successful.
You can say what you wanna, back Dak Prescott, but
Dak Prescott has never been mentioned in North. Should he
have been mentioned in the candidacy for the m v
P Okay, So you got Carson Wentz and Carson Wentz
has won what one playoff game? So Matt Ryan's achieved more.
(31:17):
I would tell you Carson Wentz is better in the
NFC North. Matt Staffords throw him for a ton of yards,
but they don't win anything. Chicago has two quarterbacks, which
means they don't have one. Kirk Cousins is good, He's fine.
He won in New Orleans, so to Mett Ryan lust year.
And the Green Bay Packers have Aaron Rodgers who's got
crazy armed talents, a better quarterback. The Saints have Drew Brees,
(31:39):
not the same guy he used to be, historically better
right now, probably not better than Matt Ryan. Tom Brady
obviously more successful, but didn't have a better year than
Matt Ryan last year. He's just one more games and
has had a far better career. Would you take him
ahead of Matt Ryan right now? I'm not sure the
answer is yes. We'll see. And the Niners have Garoppolo,
(32:01):
who is capable of the big mistake. Russell Wilson, who
I tell you is better. Go to the a f C. Patriots,
No Bills, No, I love Sam Donald. They finished seven
and two, but there wins at the end of season
a lot like Matt Ryan's wins at the end of
the season. Dolphins not yet. Lamar Jackson, how long can
you sustain that? He's one? M v P so has
(32:22):
uh uh? So is Matt Ryan, Ben Rothlterberg has had
a better career, didn't play last year. We had no
idea what's gonna be. Look, nobody else in that division
Deshaun Watson better. De Shaun Watson has flaws, but better quarterback.
I have no argument. I'm not gonna argue that Matt
Ryan's more solid to Shaun Watson's more spectacular. But outside
(32:43):
of that, nobody else in the a f C South
Pat Mahomes better. Nobody else in the a f C
West is better than Matt Ryan. I tell you, Chris
Stimps just about nailed it seventh fine, but for whatever reason,
because Matt Ryan is kind of blah. Maybe it's because
he did have some uh, some tough interceptions this year.
(33:06):
Here's some bad interceptions going back to two years two
years ago or before he got Kyle Shanahan, he had
a bit of an up and down career. The guy
never misses a start. The guy is deadly accurate. The
guy's a good leader. He's well respecting the locker room.
Is he the best player on Earth? No, No one's
arguing that. But outside of Mahomes and Rogers and Russell
(33:28):
Wilson and the absolute grades of the game, he's in
any conversation with other guys you'd like to have run
your franchise, My contention to you is that Matt Ryan
becomes kind of that most overlooked, um underrated player in
the National Football League. And I think when I say
(33:49):
Matt Ryan and say where do you rank him, you'd
automatically go out O twelve to eighteen, and then you
start to go through teams, You're like, yeah, he probably
is the top ten quarterback. Their defense of ranking the
last six season in points per game eight when they
(34:10):
finished eighth top ten in defense, do you know what
that coincided with? They went to the Super Bowl? Imagine
that right last year and fourteen? Why do you throw
fourteen receptions because seven points allowed? Because the guy's gotta
make up for the flaws of his defense, so he
forces some things. It's a reality of it. This is
(34:32):
what Tony Romo told me a long time ago, like,
you don't have a top ten defense, you're not going
to Super Bowl. Case in point, the Atlanta Falcons. So
I'm not annoying him the greatest quarterback of all time,
I'm not putting him in the conversation of Aaron Rodgers.
I do think Kyler Murray's got a ton of talent.
Russell Wilson's obviously shown himself to be better, uh in
the long term, But you could do a lot worse
(34:54):
than Matt Ryan, a lot worse than Matt Ryan. And
it's interesting because his name, for whatever reason, never gets
brought up among the tops again, which may be fined
by him. He's like, Man, I already got paid and
I'm good coming up next. Sooner or later, you're gonna
have to realize. I'm gonna have to realize this. Okay,
(35:17):
this is a really, really important thing. You gotta pay
attention to. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart
Radio app search f s R to listen live. His
podcast is Jef Schwartz is Smarter than you. He joins
us here on the dou Gotlip Show on Fox Sports Radio.
(35:39):
He's Jeff Schwartz. Uh, Jeff, what are your thoughts on
especially football players getting back after Tom Brady holding private
workouts even though the medical director of the m f
N f l p A is telling them not to
do so. Well, of course they're gonna do it because
the season starts at least training camp starts in like
four weeks. Man. I mean, these guys are filling the
inch of means to get ready for training camp, and
(36:01):
they're gonna do what they can to to fulfill that
need to get ready. Look, if you're not ready to
play and you have a bad training camp, and Tom
Brady is extreme example, is he's not really gonna have
a bad training camp. Let's say you're, you know, a
mid level player, you have a bad training camp because
you're not ready to play, and the team cuts you.
Are you gonna allow to tell the team, Hey, guys,
you know the PA told me I couldn't work out
(36:22):
as a group. I'm just I just didn't really work
out very hard. Of course, not right, So guys continue
to work out. We're gonna try to do it as
safely as possible. But guys are not gonna stop working out.
This is March. Yes, I think you have guys stopping.
But right now, the season is four weeks away from
training camp. Guys are are preparing like they're gonna play
in four weeks. This is something interesting that I just
(36:43):
thought of. It's it's one of the things the arguments
that I make against the college. Guys are forced to
do things on campus that they don't want to do. Right.
You know, it's like you know we we we gotta
we gotta go work out every day. We gotta go
like you'd be working out every day at home. Anyway,
what are we What are we really talking about? You're
only doing so under proper coaching, with proper technique and
(37:05):
better facilities, so that part kind of goes out the window. Um, okay,
So what are your thoughts? We You and I have
had some text back and forth about it. A good
portion of college football is they're they're testing their student athletes.
You got Clemson popping up I think twenty three positives.
Houston closed up shot because they had like eight positives.
(37:28):
Indiana has no positives. Pact twelve has been a slow rollout.
What's what's your observation a week or two into college
athletes being back on campus. Well, we expected positive tests.
I mean, there's no way around it. And I don't
know how you you are. I don't Indiana there's no
positive test, and nord ain't had one or two, and
the patrol schools have slowly rolled on. The only Colorado
(37:49):
has had positive test so far out west. Look, it's
gonna happen, and it's just a matter of how these
teams are doing it. Some teams have waited to test,
so guys are almost in contact with each other, right,
they're not doing it, I think I think even thought
to take Kentucky hasn't even like tested their kids yet. Like,
you have to do it the right way. You have
to be able to test and then get the results
back and then let your kids back on campus to
(38:11):
start working out. And I think I free which school
it was that said like they're going to UM to
they basically you know, if it's like a no going
out policy and if you violate the team rule of
not going out to a bar or a club, that
they can provoke your scholarship. I mean that just sounds stilly, right,
And I don't know how you how you tell kids
(38:32):
not to go out. Also once they're off campus and
away from the building, I don't know how you can
regulate their life like that. There's there's other ways to
do that, by the way, which is scheduling early morning workout.
That's the way for for most players to not go
out the night before UM. But it's gonna happen. Dog.
It's just a matter of can we get to training
camp in a month and have most of your players
(38:52):
healthy and ready to go. I am more concerned about
the coaches getting stick, and the equipment guys getting stick
and the trainers then the players. Right that the data
showing that the players wall they can, they can easily
get sick, most are asymptomatic, and most are not going
to have life threatening, um you know, life threatening illness
from COVID. Now we don't know, disclaiming that we don't
(39:13):
know long term effects of COVID on on your body,
but in the short term. But the coaches and the
equipment staff and and the support people, they're the ones
I'm more concerned about getting sick because they're the ones
who are in the age group that COVID can be
deadly for them. Yeah, and and but on the other hand,
if they're at home, you know, they run the risk
(39:33):
of bringing that back into their families and to their
parents and grandparents who are also in that So it's
it's almost damned if you're doing damn if you don't.
It's not perfect. And and look, I have very various
reasons why I want football back. I mean, just selfishly,
I want to have work. I mean, I feel like
there's no football. A lot of us don't have work.
And I enjoy playing, but I mean watching I didn't
(39:56):
enjoy playing. But I think for me, I've always felt
that football all by the time we got to September
will signify you know, life is sort of getting back
to normal. And I hate that term new normal, but
that might be what we are in kind of right now.
If we couldn't figure out from March into until September
how to get us back on the fields as football players,
(40:17):
then really, in my mind, we have failed, right like
we have not been able to handle the but in
six months we couldn't find a way to get football back.
So football, to me coming back has been like okay,
some normal seas returning. Look, the NBA should be back soon.
Baseball fum got there act thegether like that feels to
me like okay, I know people getting six Still, I
know it's not perfect. Um, it's not gonna be perfect
(40:39):
maybe ever, but football coming back would be like, Okay,
we have some normal seats back in our lives. Even
if there's no fans in the seats, women is fans,
we have half the season, whatever it is. I just
have rooted for football to be back because it feels
like like we have some normal life again, no question
about it. I I agree with you. Um. I went
through quarterback. Chris Sims said that Matt Ryan's the seventh
(41:01):
best quarterback in the NFL. And what happens when you
say that as people go, oh, Matt Ryan's like average quarterback,
and then you start to look at it and take
a breath. And while you wouldn't put him in the
Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Pat Mahomes variety. UM, I don't
think seven's too high or too low. It's it's right around.
(41:22):
Like we can argue numbers wise, guys. The m v
P and their season has been in terms of success
has been directly reflective of if their defense is. And
the only time they had a top ten defense. I
go to a Super Bowl, you played against him, you
cover the NFL. How good is Matt Ryan? I mean
he can be really obviously you want. I'm a big
(41:44):
fan of a tier system when we ranked players, because
once you get past the top tier, I mean, then
you know he is he seven or is he ten?
I don't I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah, I
think he's in that second tier. Quarterbacks at the back
in the second tier. But you're right they have. The
Falcons have wonder lost games really on their defense, which
(42:05):
Dan Quinn is a defensive coach, like, dude, that's your
that's your baby. He's failed a lot of draft picks
in the first round on that side of the ball,
within injuries as well. Um, but Matt Ryan looked they
drafted off into line last year. They have all the weapons.
He can be really good. He played the side. Obviously.
I don't think he gets to love because he's not
a supremely gifted athlete. Right, he's not a runner his arm.
(42:28):
I wouldn't say he's not the greatest m talent. I
think he kind of gets lost in the NFC South
with Breeze as well. And obviously Cam is now gone
and out, Tom Brady's in Tampa Bay. Matt Ryan is
really good. He didn't get the credit he deserves, I
think for all those reasons. Okay, so here's here's an
honest question. Cam Newton him both played and loss of
Super Bowl. Cam Newton him were both m vps. Who's
(42:50):
who's had a better career. Oh that's a great question.
Um wow that had they had different careers. Um, I
mean Matt has had I think sustained has been. He
was two douzens seven draft I believe, so he's been
you know, had a longer career, been healthier. Um. You
know Cam Newton obviously his ability to use his arm
(43:11):
and his legs is so unique. I mean, I think
that that just that talent alone, something that we really
don't see. That size to guys, he's look a defensive
ent like he's not He's not Tyler Murray, right, I
mean he's he's six five, like two thirty five. He's huge. Um,
I think probably Matt Ryan. But it really is not
a slight on Cam at all. I just think that
you know, Cam hasn't been healthy the last year and
(43:31):
a half. Matt's players in two thousand and seven, I
think virtually every game, right has he missed many games
for for helping here and there, three games in his
career the game three games Ryan. I mean just it's
just it's just longevity. Really, I mean I think Cam well,
I mean, like, look in terms of completion percentage, it's
not close. In terms of interceptions, it's not close. Um,
(43:53):
I'll let me check out win loss record. Matt Ryan
is one oh nine and uh at one O nine
and one, O nine and eighty. Okay, he's one O
nine and eighty Cam Newton. In comparison, of course, Cam
Newton um is fifty five and one, so kind of similar,
kind of similar. Obviously, the peak of Cam also coincided
(44:17):
with a great defense. But the peak of Cam was
an m VP of fifteen one season. Uh, they never
led in that Super Bowl. But um, and you're and
and and as much as Cam Newton had been banged up,
he had and actually missed a bunch of games until
last year, which is interesting. Half of that season injured,
which is silly, but they were good with with with
(44:38):
with the bad shoulder. I think the difference is I mean, like, look,
a fifty nine and a half percent completion percentage is
opposed to sixty five percent completion percentage that you make
up for it with the fact that he's been able
to run and been a dominant runner. I don't actually
think it's all that close, but okay, I would I
agree with you, Matt Ryan. It says if you told
somebody Matt ryaner Cam Newton better career, people would say
(44:58):
Cam Newton and you're like, yeah, not really, not really.
And I do think he benefits from playing in the
dome and hide some of your arm strength. But I
also think armstrength can be massively, massively overrated. I think
he's he's hurt by his inability to run, but I
think running can be really overrated. Because I'm I'm with
you on the running part. I think the pocket mobility
(45:20):
is just what we used. We see the word running
too much in my opinion, that we should use mobility
right like, like even even Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson is
not really a running quarterback. He attempts to run the ball,
and he's done far less in his career as he
gets older, he actually goes far less than the playoffs,
by the way, because that's what he you know, you
went from the pocket. He can throw, he can run
if he has to, but that's not what his goal is.
(45:41):
His goal is not is not to run the ball
very often. So I'm not gonna turm mobility. Matt Ryan
is mobile enough in the pocket. That's what matters. Yes, um,
Jamal Adams, you're the Jets. What do you do? I mean,
I think you keep him? I don't I know that people,
And I'm as big of a player's advocate is anyone
out there? But like, because under contract and you want
(46:02):
you know, you're in this weird mode if you're the Jets,
where you're you're sort of rebuilding, but you sort of
have a window now with Tom Brady gone where you
can maybe attack and find a way to try to
get in the NFC as you mean the as the
East picture and Jamal As is a player that you
hope it's part of that court right of that young
core of Jets players. So I would keep him. I like,
(46:22):
I mean, I love for Jamala jazz money and go
to Dallas and be happy. But if you're the Jets,
why would you He has no chic either plays or
he doesn't play. If he doesn't play it and he
just I guess he just sits out or he shows
up and we want he plays for you guys and
helps you win football games. I don't think the Jets
are obligated all to get rid of Why didn't they
do keep him there? Um? Okay, Dak signs a franchise tender.
(46:45):
Why do you think he's signed it now? Um? A
couple of reasons. One is I think maybe the negotiations
just won't go anywhere. With the Cowboys and he just
decided to sign and get a guarantee money. But I
also do wonder if you know, the testing positive for
COVID and some other NFL players testing positive as well.
(47:07):
You got Jack's thinking about, Hey, man, if I tested
positive with the Cowboys pulled my franchise offer because they
can still do that, you know what, they pulled my
Actually don't know if they can still pull it, but
um I do wonder if that was in his mind, like, hey,
let me just sign this tender guarantees my money and
I'm guaranteed for thirty million dollars and no, you don't
know if I don't play this year, if there's some shepanigans,
(47:30):
I get my money. And I'm not worried about um
uh not having to you. I'm not sure they could
pull it still. I know Joe see the deadline, so
maybe that's the deadline. But I do wonder if it's
the testing positive changed his mind about just getting under contract,
you know at the you know, the quickest that should
do it. How's the pull? It's good. I'm looking right now.
(47:50):
They almost finished the limestone around the edges. We're gonna
trees on Thursday. Some landscape be going on. So nice, man,
I'm glad. I'm glad. I went golfing on Father's Day
and I just was so hot it like nine plus
the greed. I just got home, jumped in the pool,
felt great. You should have taken off your clothes first,
although maybe not. I don't know. No, I I mean,
I mean I was in I took my clothes off.
(48:12):
That's the purpose thing to do. You play? You played
a full eighteen, right, I get to fourteen and I
get that golf a D D and I'm like, how
close were we to the clubhouse? Full eighteen? No problem?
We played. We played skins on the back nine, so
I didn't have to shoot everything. I don't have to
shoot every single time. But that kind of kept things
right because you played for money. You kind of kept
things very interesting. But it's the first time I played
golf in a year. I surprised I made it that long. Honestly,
(48:35):
I'm with you, like about whole twelve and thirteen. It's like,
all right, can we just like wrap this thing up? Yes,
that's why you cracked the beer and you try and
keep them flowing. And then you go like, all right, well,
i'd like to go now, but I need to sober
u before I get to get to get to my
car or if we get to that next cool one
at the at the clubhouse. The Schwartz be with you.
Thank you for joining us alright, Jeff Schwartz. Jef Swartz
(48:57):
is smarter than use a very good podcast. You should
download it.
Thanks for listening to the best of the Doug Gottlip
Show podcast. Be sure to catch us live every weekday
from three to six pm Eastern Time that's twelve to
three Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find your local station
for The Doug Gottlip Show at Fox Sports Radio dot com,
or stream us live every day on the I Heart
Radio app by searching fs R. This is the best
(00:22):
of the Doug got Leave Show on Fox Sports Radio.
Baseball appears to be very very very very very very
very very close to being back on some level, right
that's are we can we at least agree on that.
Whether not baseball it's not officially back, but basically what
(00:45):
happened was yesterday I said, ah, it is proposal. Baseball
players are gonna vote on it. If they don't vote
on it, the Commissioner is gonna enact um a ruling
in which he'll say we have to have we're gonna
have baseball regard of this. So why not just vote
on it because you get better benefits. The problem with
(01:06):
agreeing to those terms is it doesn't allow the players
to eventually eventually file a grievance. So now Major League
Baseball plans to hold a sixty game season. It will
begin around July, needs the players to sign off on
a health and safety protocol and pledge to arrive at
(01:26):
home stadiums by July one to prepare for the season,
sources familiar with the situation told ESPN. Owners voted to
implement a sixty game season on Monday, hours after Major
League Baseball's Players Association rejected a sixty game proposal that
would have included expanded playoffs and other ancillary salary bumps.
After nearly three months off of fruitless negotiations, MLB opted
(01:50):
to use their right given uh given to it in
the party's March agreement, to impose the schedule of its
desired length. By choosing a season of sixty games. The
league will pack in as many games as you can
through September, the league's self and post cut off for
the regular season. Additionally, the sixty game season could serve
(02:11):
as a buffer against the grievance by the MLB p A, which,
in the case of a potential implementation, has been expected
to charge that the league did not fulfill its duty
to complete a full season. As possible, the league would
file grievance against the union as well. There will be lawyers,
multiple players, bill DSPN. They expect to agree to the
league's call to report by July one and to its
(02:33):
health and safety protocol. In other words, man, this could
have be done a long time ago. Major League Baseball
had this clause in its back pocket. They finally used it,
and we're gonna have baseball. The players are actually making
less money because they did not choose the agreement that
would have paid them more. Instead, that agreement would have
(02:54):
nullified their ability to file grievance. My take on the
grievance is pretty much this. It's like when a baseball
game is under protest. You ever done that when you're
a little leg all right? You ever had the coach
that files the protest. Guy is safer out at first base,
throw the ball at the first basement, stands on the base.
(03:14):
You have two umpires, He appeals to the other umpire.
The other umpire says, I agree with the first umpire, Like, nope,
you guys missed it. This game is under protest. Has
anything changed because of that protest? The answer is now
no insense. But but I feel like somebody needs to
tell Baseball what I'm going to tell baseball, and it's
(03:38):
not the owners. And I understand you can sit there
and go, hey, owners, they may many of them are
are not just multimillionaires, some are billionaires. These are businesses
that are cash cows. Regardless of whether it is it isn't.
There are many parts of baseball's finances which are really interesting.
They have no salary cap, yet they have a luxury
(03:59):
tax shold which allows teams. Everybody thinks no salary cap
means you can just spend whatever you want. It's kind
of true, but the luxury tax threshold actually makes it harder,
prohibitively more difficult to spend as much as you want.
On the other hand, the downside of not having a
luxury taxes there's no floor, no ceiling. But there is
(04:21):
kind of a ceiling, but there's definitely no floor, meaning
you can pay your players as little as you want
to pay your players. And oh yeah, by the way,
now that you you can you pay your players a little,
but then you get subsidized by the team's paying the
luxury tax. So owners have created a system and been
able to get over on the players in the c
B a time and again and are able to make
(04:42):
some money. Some teams won't make money, not just this year,
but in all years they struggled to make money. Some
markets are the Oakland A's have no radio broadcast home.
Of course, that used to be a big cash cow.
You know, there's they they've struggled to get a stadium built.
(05:03):
They don't own the stadium, so they don't make as
much money from miss municipality owned stadium as they would
at home. But none of that matters. Owners own right.
They many of these men and women and whoever worked
their entire lives to save up money to buy because
they wanted to own a professional sports team. And when
(05:24):
you do that, you have the right to make try
and make money, not just make money when you sell it.
Because what was the point of getting this business if
I have to sell the business or to make money. No,
I don't want to do that. I want to do
all things. I want to turn a profit, I want
to win games, and I want the value of the
business to go up. That these aren't reasonable things that
anyone who owns a business could want. Labor is really
expensive in baseball, that's part of the deal. But here's
(05:50):
what players seem to have missed, and I this is
a I'm a friend of court, right, this is ple ease.
Do not lash out at Gottlieb played basketball, Gottlieb talks football.
Gottlieb's doing the football and basketball more popular thing. I
love baseball. I played baseball as a kid. It was
(06:15):
the other sport that I tried to play in high school.
Just time would not permit it. Because in California, if
your high school basketball team is any good, you play
in the playoffs and even the state tournament. Meanwhile, baseball
starts up the beginning of February, and it's just too
much to catch up on it. It was just too hard.
Other than Dan Patrick, we actually talked more baseball than
(06:37):
anybody else, and many times we're told like, I don't
know if you wanna talk that baseball. It's not just
national radio show. It struggles with popularity. But but you
don't get that from You don't get a pushed back
for me. I love baseball. I've done a segment on
this network and on a previous network that calls nobody
gives a Schmidt as a tip of the captain Paul Goldschmidt,
who was doing great things in Arizona, and no one
(06:59):
ever mentioned it because it's baseball, it's Arizona, it's a
guy named Paul Goldschman. It just didn't work. So you're
not hearing from baseball hater guy. But I think we
can all admit on some level, baseball, regular season baseball
is a little bit slow. Like if I'm being nice,
I'd say it's a little bit slow. If I'm being me,
and I'd say it's boring. His sin. Now, baseball works
(07:23):
in the summer, and and baseball corner of the summer market.
And baseball is a hundred and sixty two games, and
those two parts of it are the secret to the
baseball's success. How do these guys get paid so much money?
Hundred six two games summer. The hundred six two games
don't just matter because of the gate which makes up
(07:46):
the income, but also any of these fledgling cable networks.
And I'm not talking about the Fox Sports ones and
the ESPNS, obviously they pay a ton of the bills,
but these what's called regional sports networks that broadcast their games,
they are innings eaters. And I want by innings eaters
that you need to draw the parallel of any inning
eater pitcher you have. That's what baseball does to these
(08:09):
these these networks. It gives you three to four hours
of content every night, our pregame show, our postgame show,
and and most of these networks, in order to be
on some level of cable you gotta have six to
eight hours of live programming to day. That's all you
(08:30):
gotta have. The rest of the stuff. You can do infomercials,
you can buy somebody else's show and put it on
your network. Whatever. You gotta have like six to eight
hour live hours a day. Well, Baseball sitting there going like, hey,
we're gonna give you five six hours. Stretch out the pregame,
do a coaches show, you know, bill post game, do
a highlights show, and you're done. There's your network. There's
(08:51):
your network. And you're like, what does that? What does
that mean? Like, um, if your network costs a dollar
which is a little bit of high actually, but cost
a dollar to for a cable company to put on
every time, every and they're only in fifty million homes right,
and you're like, whoa, what does that mean? That means
fifty million dollars a month month without selling an ad Okay,
(09:19):
and many of these baseball teams own parts of their
regional sports networks. So baseball is a cash cow. But
it's a cash cow because it cornered the summer market,
and it's a volume play. It's an innings eater for
cable networks, for radio, for everybody. It just sucks up
a bunch of time. And is it Is it super
(09:40):
fun and entertaining? Not all the time. It's a good hang,
its family friendly, it's outside for the most part, you
can have a beer, you can talk, you know as
much of the action. But but, but, but here's the problem. Okay,
the world continues to evolve, Attention spans continue to shrink,
and maybe most importantly, basketball has gotten wise to this.
(10:03):
Wait a second, we can be just as popular and
play over the summer. Summer leagues become popular. Are NBA
finals when they're in June are popular? Why are we
avoiding the summer and baseball? This baseball deal because it
took so long for them to get it done, they're
basically missing summer Like no j July twenty seven. A
lot of schools are back in session, first month in August,
(10:25):
first week in August. You got missed time. Schools are
starting earlier and earlier, and you combine that with the coronavirus,
which shut down so many schools, they're starting like you
missed it, you missed the window. And now when you
get back into August and then into September, you're competing
with basketball and football college football. Like, dude, you have
(10:46):
to remember what your niche is, why you're popular. Hockey
had this problem, alright, Hockey was wildly popular. Crazy. Wayne
Gretzky comes to l A. Hockey is like, you know
what we need to do. Let's go to Arizona. Let's
go to Atlanta, Let's go to Florida. Let's go to Miami.
Let's go to Carolina. Let's expand. Hockey still is really
(11:12):
popular within the states where people grow watch it play
it growing up. It is in Minnesota, crazy popular, crazy Canada,
New York, New England, States. Right, if you if you
forget your core audience, if you forget the reason that
you're successful, you run a very risky path for your future.
(11:40):
So I'm happy baseball is back, but I gotta warn
these players there's a really, really good chance that there's
gonna be challenges in the very near future to the
summer audience. And you just shunned the summer audience because
you want to fight over the details, which you have
every right to fight over. You got every right to
be ticked at the fact that you're losing more money,
(12:02):
but that agreement stipulated that you were going to lose
all that money anyway, and they were gonna go back
on a sixty game season. So I'm not really sure
what the fight. I don't really know what you fought
for because it just feels like you lost early and
you lost late. You know, you fought on principle, great idea,
(12:23):
but does that keep you gainfully employed? Does that make
your does that make the markets expand? Um? Does? Does
that make everybody richer in the future? And I don't
believe the answer is yes. I I reserve the right
to be wrong, but I don't believe the answer is yes.
Be sure to catch the live edition of The Doug
(12:44):
gott Leap Show weekdays at three pm Easter noon Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the I Heart Radio Whap.
Jim Bowden was the GM in the uh in Mijor
League Baseball. Now he teaches us all about baseball. Working
for CBS Sports kind of to spend some time with
this here on Fox Sports Radio. Uh, Jim, this is
a when, not if? What? What's what's the hold up
(13:07):
on baseball officially announcing they have an agreement with the
players to play Yeah, I mean, look, the owners have
implemented the sixty games. I'm being told the union is
going to agree with that. They have to go through
the formality of talking to all the player reps. But
my understanding is by five o'clock today Eastern time, the
(13:28):
clubs will be told that the union is is a
go for reporting the spring training on July one. That
will allow Major League Baseball to have opening Day on July,
which is what their goal is. That allows them to
play sixty games in sixty six days. Um and I Also,
it also appears that the health and safety protocols are
(13:49):
also going to be agreed upon. There's a couple of
tweaks that the union still had left for that, but
again not a barrier. So it looks like we've got
a green light to go ahead. It's not official yet,
I guess until the Union notifies the Commissioner's office, But
from my understanding, the players are happy that sixty games
was implemented rather than fifty and they're planning on reporting
(14:09):
on the first. Um, okay, so why not agree to
the Like, what does the the ability to file a
grievance do really for the players? I really don't know
the answer to that, to be honest with you. I mean,
I think that they're gonna have a very difficult time
if they're going to try to argue the number of
games that were implemented. I think when we look at
(14:30):
the calendar right now, not quite sure why an arbitrator
would think we should have played more games. Um, the
players wanted full par raded salaries. They got that, So
I'm not quite sure what the grievance would do for that.
So I kind of feel like the clubs have lived
up to that March agreement based on what they've done here.
Uh So, I really don't know the angle unless there's
(14:52):
something we're missing. It is surprising that the union did
not want to agree to the last offer. The reason
I say that is they gave up twenty five mi
billion dollars in playoff pool money for expanded playoffs. They
also the clubs are willing to forgive thirty three million
in um salary advances they gave players. Um. Kind of
a surprise. They didn't want that, so they walked away
(15:13):
from fifty eight million dollars um to be able to
have the right to file a grievance apparently. So not
quite sure I understand it. I mean, look, the players
come away from this galvanized, Uh, they're together. If they're
trying to send a message for the cb A negotiations
for a year from now, they probably have done that.
But I'm not sure that they shouldn't be satisfied that
(15:36):
their goal was as many games as possible. They got sixty,
and they wanted to be paid, you know, paid at
the full paraded amount. They got that. Um, I'm surprised,
and I think they're gonna get universal d H two.
I think the clubs are gonna allow the players to
do that as part of the health and safety protocols. Um.
So why they didn't want expanded playoffs for themselves for
(15:57):
that extra pool money as well as for the fans
and have more teams have a chance to get in.
It's kind of surprised at that, to be honest with you.
But again I don't know behind the scene, if the
whole concept is let's file a grievance and see if
we can get the financials the clubs won't give us.
Let's see if maybe an arbitrator makes them turn over revenues.
You know, that could be the angle. I really don't know.
(16:18):
I think that's something we're gonna find out down the road. Yeah,
it's it's it's it's curious. Um. Look, and this is
like a friend of court love baseball. I just I
don't know. I don't know if, if, if baseball players
and maybe to a less extent, baseball owners, understand the
reason the sport has been so financially successful. And this
(16:41):
is an important point that I do think that people
in my on my side and the host side and
the opinion side, they don't give enough credit. Baseball has
been remarkably, remarkably successful financially. They have been ahead of
the curve in terms of their digital properties, and other people,
other other sports have tried to take from, or even
lease out, some of the things that baseball does. That said,
(17:05):
the biggest reason for baseball success, and you know the
dollars and cents way better than I do, is you
had the summer market to yourself, basically unopposed, and you
had a hundred six two games, so you had a
volume play to make up for a bad night here,
a bad season there, or whatever. Because you volume played
for TV, for radio, money, for stadium attendants, all those
other things. That's why. And you're giving that away, and
(17:29):
you delayed and delayed and delayed until now essentially you
gave away the summer and you gave away the volume play.
And now you're gonna run a compacted season that's gonna
run in concert with basketball. And I think basketball is
coming to challenge you in the future. Yeah, I think
you nailed it. Especially we talked about the month of July.
July is the monopoly month for baseball, right the NBA
(17:51):
is over, the NFL hasn't started, and that's the month
where you have the All Star Game, you have the
trade deadline, of which, by the way, you have neither
this year. But it's a huge opportunity. And if baseball
had been able to play July one and play the
month of July and had exciting pennant races, uh, you
might have been able to carry that over. Instead. What
(18:12):
baseball did in June and July with no NBA and
no NHL is each plot in the media more than
any other sport. And you made people not like the sport.
You you took everyone through the mud in the negotiations.
You didn't negotiate behind the scenes. You negotiated with the
public over millions and billions of dollars. That's not a
(18:33):
good optic. And as you point out, now you're gonna
start July and you're gonna have basically a week before
the NBA starts up. And the NBA is gonna be
fun to watch in the month of August, and in
football is gonna start, which is the number one sport,
as we know, as your ratings know on your show,
it's number one. It moves the needle. So now you're
gonna go head to head with the NBA in the
NFL for the rest of the year. Uh wow, you
(18:55):
better hope that the play is exciting. Uh you better
hope that you get the right teams in the postseason
and that the month of October is really really exciting
for baseball. But to your point, and I agree with
it with that double red exclamation on my emoji iPhone,
Uh he can't give up Joe I like you did, dumb.
I mean the fourth July Americana Baseball and nothing else
(19:18):
on you know, you go to a game, you're like, man,
I I now I know, I remember why I love
this game, you know. And you between Ossuna and Trout
and Stanton and all these other like, you're like, oh,
I you have so many young and or in their
prime talented players. Okay, let's let's get to the nuts
and bolts of it. A sixty game season played over
(19:38):
less than seventy days. If you're put your GM hat
back on, what do you do to adjust your roster
in order to try and be successful? Yeah, and the
most important thing is going to be the depth that
you have and being really careful with your pitching early on.
You know you're only gonna get three weeks step spring training.
I went through that. We had a trunk came in
(20:01):
season because of the work stoppage, and we didn't start
to Lapril twenty four. We went out of the gate
three and eight. We ended up winning the division. We
played the Braves in the league championship series, but those
first eleven games we were not ready. We were not prepared,
and we pushed our pictures, which was a huge mistake.
So your normal pitching staff of eleven or twelve guys,
what's gonna be important. These guys eleven to fifty. You're
(20:23):
gonna have to utilize them early. You have to utilize
them often. You're gonna have to bring along your pictures, uh,
to keep them strong and as good and effective as
they can be. But you also have to manage these
games with more of a sense of urgency than ever before.
Managers are so used to playing a hundred sixty two games.
They're so used to giving a player a day off
(20:43):
here or there, or or maybe not having the lefty
faced the lefty in a particular situation because you're trying
to keep his legs strong. There's none of that. Now
we get off to a bad start, you're going home.
I mean after sixty games last year, Uh, the Washington
Nationals would not have made the playoffs in the other
World Champion. So that that's just the wake up call that, look,
the best teams aren't gonna win. That's not what happens
(21:05):
in the sixty games schedule. The hot teams are gonna
get to the postseason. So you've got to as a
GM or a manager, you have to manage that properly. Now,
the other thing, Doug, that's gonna be really complicated and
unique is you're You're not gonna have spring training in Arizona, Florida.
You're gonna have it at home. I talked to Aaron Boone,
the manager of the New York Yankees, yesterday. I said,
how are you going to go about this? And he said, look,
(21:25):
we're gonna end up splitting our group into into two halves.
We're gonna start right away by playing some inter squad games,
some y VP. Uh. He said, you know we only
have the five, the five mounds, the two bullpen, and
in the mountain. And he said, well, just stagger them
as the days go on. But he said, you know,
we don't have a choice that that's what you have
to do. So it's gonna be a very unique way
(21:47):
to try to get your players ready to go. And
I'm gonna tell you, Doug as you know, those that
know how to handle a situation like this are gonna
have a big advantage come come July. Do they have
to use is their home stadium? I know they have
to you go to home parks, but I'll give you example. Okay,
I live fifteen minutes from Anaheim Stadium, so many of
(22:08):
the Angels live kind of sporadically around in and about
Orange County. There are so many fields, so many places
that you can go and get work in, maybe not
of the major league caliber. Do you have to by rule?
Do they have to use their home stadium only? No,
that they don't, and they're not going to. You know,
the Yankees are going to use Scranton their Triple A affiliate. Uh,
(22:31):
they're gonna shuttle some of the players there. If there's
sixty players in their pool, they're gonna keep forty Yankee
Stadium and show about twenty the scrant And so I
would think the Angels probably would do the same thing.
But you know where you live down there in Orange County. Um,
you know, there's plenty of spots that's not going to
be an issue. But not every city has that luxury, right,
So so it's challenging for a lot of places. It
(22:54):
won't be for the Angels. Um. Okay. So obviously the
you feel like the best teams per se or the
guy you know, the old school way of two or
three dominant pitchers and then you know bullpen and and
and and timely clutch hitting is what is what wins
you in the postseason. Now we're talking about the ability
(23:15):
to just be deep and be competitive in a night
and night basis. They're changing the the extra inning rules
as well to try and speed this this thing up.
Just off the top of your head, who does have
the best depth, Who on paper is built the best
for this type of season? Well, Yankees, Dodgers are the
most obvious. Really deep bullpens, really really good rotations of
(23:37):
the Nationals are in a great position for this as well.
But then there are some sleeper teams out there as well.
The Padres have a really good deep bullpen that's gonna
benefit them early and if they get off to a
good start, you know, they could be a surprise team
to watch. Um Tampa Bay Rays, Oakland Athletics two more teams,
really good rotations, really deep bullpens, really good defensive team. So, uh,
(23:59):
you know, for me looking at it from my lens,
my former GM lens would be you know, Yankees, raise Oakland, A's, Dodgers, Nationals. Uh,
perhaps the Cardinals as well, because they're pitching depth twelve
the fifteen is really good. So those are the some
of the teams, at least on paper to me, that
look like they're gonna have an advantage when the bell rings.
(24:20):
Jim Bowen joining US former Major League Baseball Jim, He
read his work, see his work on CBS Sports and
CBS Sports dot Com. Jim, what what and and this is?
I know it's an impossible question to ask, okay, but
I'm gonna ask the impossible of you. What does the
financial landscape look like for the Mookie Betts of the
league in the upcoming off season. Well, that's a great question.
(24:42):
I think Lukey's gonna get paid. That's that's my own opinion.
He's turned down three million and he's gonna I think
he's going to get a deal with the three in
front of it. I don't think he's going to get
a deal with four in front of it. You know,
we wanted the Mike Trout range under Mike Trout, but
with a four in front, Boston was never willing to
go there. But I think he's going to get the
three in front of it. Look, I think most free
(25:03):
agents are going to take a huge hit, Okay, but
I don't think the Bets in the real Muto's at
the top of the class. I don't think that's that's
gonna take a hit. Too much. Talent and there's just
not enough of those guys. But I'll say in general,
I wouldn't want to be a mid level free agent,
and I wouldn't be want to be a salary arbitration
eligible four or five plus player unless I was an
(25:24):
All Star, Gold Glove, Silver Slugger type of player. Because
you're gonna see a record number of non tender players.
So you're gonna see a lot of free agents not
get offers because the economic impact of this pandemic is
well beyond what everyone is thinking about right now, And
as they were trying to argue over trying to get
this deal done, they were all missing the big picture
of forty million unemployed and the damage that you did
(25:47):
to the game and what that's gonna mean and ticket
revenue going forward. So again, I think it's gonna be
challenging for most players, but for Mookie, Mookie is gonna
get paid. It's a it's a great point you make that.
I've talked to people in all sports at the administrative level,
and they've said, like, look, we don't know how many
people come back to stadiums, not just because of the
fear of the virus, but if they can afford it,
(26:07):
you know, like you eliminate forty million people from the workforce,
Guess what they're not gonna They're not gonna turn off
their TVs or the cables or whatever they're streaming. Is
they're gonna cut out the ancillary spending, which is you know,
and and I don't know if you saw this, but
but the greatest percentage of change in uh IN spending
is with the top earners, right, the people who can
(26:29):
afford the boxes, the best seats. They're spending less now,
they're being more and more cautious. And those are the
people you need to fill up the seats in your
stadium to fill up the boxes. So it's gonna be
uh really really interesting. Jim. I cannot tell you how
much I appreciate listening to you getting information learning about
the sport that you were so great uh in working in.
Thanks for joining us. Thank you alright, Jim Bowden MLB
(26:52):
GM Executive of the Year when he's an MLB g M.
Of course you can read his work in the athletics.
Be sure to catch the live edition of the Doug
gott Leaps week days at three p m. Easter noon Pacific.
I was listening to Chris Simms earlier today, UM, a
clip of what he said was from another radio show
was played and he had Matt Ryan is the seventh
ranked quarterback in the National Football League. And I know
(27:17):
what happens is we're gonna do this thing that you're
gonna be up so up in arms that you're like,
I can't believe Matt and I and then you start
to catch your breath and realize who Matt Ryan is
and realize who he plays for. Did did you guys
know that the Falcons never had back to back winning
(27:39):
seasons until he got there? They never head back to
back ten wasn CE ten win season until he got there.
Do g you guys know that this this is actually
what took place like the we think of the Falcons
because Mike Vick was cool and talented and and one
and one on the road in Green Bay as on
a wild card game, that the Falcons were always they
(28:01):
were awesome. And then Matt shab replaced him, and then
eventually Matt Ryan, and they've been good. But he has
been the picture of stability in a very unstable franchise.
I'm not going to tell you that the Falcons were
good last year. In fact is the Falcons were not.
There were seven and nine. I am going to point
out that the Falcons finished the season winners of four
(28:24):
consecutive games, and while those games may not be impressive
to you, because they beat the Bucks in overtime and
the Jaguars last two games, they beat the Niners on
the road. They beat the Niners in the road, beat
the Saints on the road, and that was after kind
of a come to Jesus. They went through up a
six game losing streak in the middle of the year,
(28:44):
and it was mostly mostly their defense. Offense wasn't great
against the Rams, offense wasn't good against the Titans at home,
but they gave up fifty three to the Texans, thirty
seven to the Rams. And when they lost six and row,
they completely changed. Put offensive coaches on defense, defensive coaches
on offense, changed completely what they're doing, and the team
(29:07):
turned it around. The team won six of their last eight.
Of those six wins, four were on the road. Of
the four road wins, one was in San Francisco, one
was in New Orleans. Those are the two toughest places
to play. But I'm not even gonna take last year
as just a snapshot of Matt Ryan. I would contend
that if you were really honest about it, you would
(29:28):
think Matt Ryan is a average quarterback, middle of the road.
His numbers tell you otherwise. In two thousand and sixteen,
he won the m v P. They went to the
Super Bowl EEE. They were up twenty eight to three.
They chose to kept slinging it and they ultimately lost
to the Patriots. Is that on him, Sure, but he
did have a great year at thirty eight touchdowns, seven inceptions.
(29:49):
The next year his offensive coordinator left. They struggled, He
turned the ball over too much, twenty touchdowns, twelve interceptions.
In two thousand and eighteen, it's like people have so
quickly forgotten thirty five touchdown, seven interceptions, and last year
the interceptions were up fourteen with twenty six touchdowns. The
point is this guy slings it. He's never hurt, solid
(30:13):
as the day is long, good player, capable of leading
it to a super Bowl. And the truth is that
could have won the Super Bowl. When you're up three,
Do you need to keep scoring to keep winning? Yeah?
I guess you do. And he made some he did.
He did not make some of the best plays in
the world, and they did not call some of the
best players in the world when they had that lead,
and ultimately that's could have changed his career trajectory. But
(30:35):
go through the list of quarterbacks that you like and
find one in the type of franchise and division that
they play, and that's been as consistently um successful. Matt
Ryan's a damn good quarterback. My Ryan's a top ten quarterback?
Is he seventh? I don't know. Everything is subjective, but okay,
(30:56):
I'll give you Carson Wentz is better. Nobody else in
the NFC East has proven themselves to be more successful.
You can say what you wanna, back Dak Prescott, but
Dak Prescott has never been mentioned in North. Should he
have been mentioned in the candidacy for the m v
P Okay, So you got Carson Wentz and Carson Wentz
has won what one playoff game? So Matt Ryan's achieved more.
(31:17):
I would tell you Carson Wentz is better in the
NFC North. Matt Staffords throw him for a ton of yards,
but they don't win anything. Chicago has two quarterbacks, which
means they don't have one. Kirk Cousins is good, He's fine.
He won in New Orleans, so to Mett Ryan lust year.
And the Green Bay Packers have Aaron Rodgers who's got
crazy armed talents, a better quarterback. The Saints have Drew Brees,
(31:39):
not the same guy he used to be, historically better
right now, probably not better than Matt Ryan. Tom Brady
obviously more successful, but didn't have a better year than
Matt Ryan last year. He's just one more games and
has had a far better career. Would you take him
ahead of Matt Ryan right now? I'm not sure the
answer is yes. We'll see. And the Niners have Garoppolo,
(32:01):
who is capable of the big mistake. Russell Wilson, who
I tell you is better. Go to the a f C. Patriots,
No Bills, No, I love Sam Donald. They finished seven
and two, but there wins at the end of season
a lot like Matt Ryan's wins at the end of
the season. Dolphins not yet. Lamar Jackson, how long can
you sustain that? He's one? M v P so has
(32:22):
uh uh? So is Matt Ryan, Ben Rothlterberg has had
a better career, didn't play last year. We had no
idea what's gonna be. Look, nobody else in that division
Deshaun Watson better. De Shaun Watson has flaws, but better quarterback.
I have no argument. I'm not gonna argue that Matt
Ryan's more solid to Shaun Watson's more spectacular. But outside
(32:43):
of that, nobody else in the a f C South
Pat Mahomes better. Nobody else in the a f C
West is better than Matt Ryan. I tell you, Chris
Stimps just about nailed it seventh fine, but for whatever reason,
because Matt Ryan is kind of blah. Maybe it's because
he did have some uh, some tough interceptions this year.
(33:06):
Here's some bad interceptions going back to two years two
years ago or before he got Kyle Shanahan, he had
a bit of an up and down career. The guy
never misses a start. The guy is deadly accurate. The
guy's a good leader. He's well respecting the locker room.
Is he the best player on Earth? No, No one's
arguing that. But outside of Mahomes and Rogers and Russell
(33:28):
Wilson and the absolute grades of the game, he's in
any conversation with other guys you'd like to have run
your franchise, My contention to you is that Matt Ryan
becomes kind of that most overlooked, um underrated player in
the National Football League. And I think when I say
(33:49):
Matt Ryan and say where do you rank him, you'd
automatically go out O twelve to eighteen, and then you
start to go through teams, You're like, yeah, he probably
is the top ten quarterback. Their defense of ranking the
last six season in points per game eight when they
(34:10):
finished eighth top ten in defense, do you know what
that coincided with? They went to the Super Bowl? Imagine
that right last year and fourteen? Why do you throw
fourteen receptions because seven points allowed? Because the guy's gotta
make up for the flaws of his defense, so he
forces some things. It's a reality of it. This is
(34:32):
what Tony Romo told me a long time ago, like,
you don't have a top ten defense, you're not going
to Super Bowl. Case in point, the Atlanta Falcons. So
I'm not annoying him the greatest quarterback of all time,
I'm not putting him in the conversation of Aaron Rodgers.
I do think Kyler Murray's got a ton of talent.
Russell Wilson's obviously shown himself to be better, uh in
the long term, But you could do a lot worse
(34:54):
than Matt Ryan, a lot worse than Matt Ryan. And
it's interesting because his name, for whatever reason, never gets
brought up among the tops again, which may be fined
by him. He's like, Man, I already got paid and
I'm good coming up next. Sooner or later, you're gonna
have to realize. I'm gonna have to realize this. Okay,
(35:17):
this is a really, really important thing. You gotta pay
attention to. Fox Sports Radio has the best sports talk
lineup in the nation. Catch all of our shows at
Fox Sports Radio dot com and within the I Heart
Radio app search f s R to listen live. His
podcast is Jef Schwartz is Smarter than you. He joins
us here on the dou Gotlip Show on Fox Sports Radio.
(35:39):
He's Jeff Schwartz. Uh, Jeff, what are your thoughts on
especially football players getting back after Tom Brady holding private
workouts even though the medical director of the m f
N f l p A is telling them not to
do so. Well, of course they're gonna do it because
the season starts at least training camp starts in like
four weeks. Man. I mean, these guys are filling the
inch of means to get ready for training camp, and
(36:01):
they're gonna do what they can to to fulfill that
need to get ready. Look, if you're not ready to
play and you have a bad training camp, and Tom
Brady is extreme example, is he's not really gonna have
a bad training camp. Let's say you're, you know, a
mid level player, you have a bad training camp because
you're not ready to play, and the team cuts you.
Are you gonna allow to tell the team, Hey, guys,
you know the PA told me I couldn't work out
(36:22):
as a group. I'm just I just didn't really work
out very hard. Of course, not right, So guys continue
to work out. We're gonna try to do it as
safely as possible. But guys are not gonna stop working out.
This is March. Yes, I think you have guys stopping.
But right now, the season is four weeks away from
training camp. Guys are are preparing like they're gonna play
in four weeks. This is something interesting that I just
(36:43):
thought of. It's it's one of the things the arguments
that I make against the college. Guys are forced to
do things on campus that they don't want to do. Right.
You know, it's like you know we we we gotta
we gotta go work out every day. We gotta go
like you'd be working out every day at home. Anyway,
what are we What are we really talking about? You're
only doing so under proper coaching, with proper technique and
(37:05):
better facilities, so that part kind of goes out the window. Um, okay,
So what are your thoughts? We You and I have
had some text back and forth about it. A good
portion of college football is they're they're testing their student athletes.
You got Clemson popping up I think twenty three positives.
Houston closed up shot because they had like eight positives.
(37:28):
Indiana has no positives. Pact twelve has been a slow rollout.
What's what's your observation a week or two into college
athletes being back on campus. Well, we expected positive tests.
I mean, there's no way around it. And I don't
know how you you are. I don't Indiana there's no
positive test, and nord ain't had one or two, and
the patrol schools have slowly rolled on. The only Colorado
(37:49):
has had positive test so far out west. Look, it's
gonna happen, and it's just a matter of how these
teams are doing it. Some teams have waited to test,
so guys are almost in contact with each other, right,
they're not doing it, I think I think even thought
to take Kentucky hasn't even like tested their kids yet. Like,
you have to do it the right way. You have
to be able to test and then get the results
back and then let your kids back on campus to
(38:11):
start working out. And I think I free which school
it was that said like they're going to UM to
they basically you know, if it's like a no going
out policy and if you violate the team rule of
not going out to a bar or a club, that
they can provoke your scholarship. I mean that just sounds stilly, right,
And I don't know how you how you tell kids
(38:32):
not to go out. Also once they're off campus and
away from the building, I don't know how you can
regulate their life like that. There's there's other ways to
do that, by the way, which is scheduling early morning workout.
That's the way for for most players to not go
out the night before UM. But it's gonna happen. Dog.
It's just a matter of can we get to training
camp in a month and have most of your players
(38:52):
healthy and ready to go. I am more concerned about
the coaches getting stick, and the equipment guys getting stick
and the trainers then the players. Right that the data
showing that the players wall they can, they can easily
get sick, most are asymptomatic, and most are not going
to have life threatening, um you know, life threatening illness
from COVID. Now we don't know, disclaiming that we don't
(39:13):
know long term effects of COVID on on your body,
but in the short term. But the coaches and the
equipment staff and and the support people, they're the ones
I'm more concerned about getting sick because they're the ones
who are in the age group that COVID can be
deadly for them. Yeah, and and but on the other hand,
if they're at home, you know, they run the risk
(39:33):
of bringing that back into their families and to their
parents and grandparents who are also in that So it's
it's almost damned if you're doing damn if you don't.
It's not perfect. And and look, I have very various
reasons why I want football back. I mean, just selfishly,
I want to have work. I mean, I feel like
there's no football. A lot of us don't have work.
And I enjoy playing, but I mean watching I didn't
(39:56):
enjoy playing. But I think for me, I've always felt
that football all by the time we got to September
will signify you know, life is sort of getting back
to normal. And I hate that term new normal, but
that might be what we are in kind of right now.
If we couldn't figure out from March into until September
how to get us back on the fields as football players,
(40:17):
then really, in my mind, we have failed, right like
we have not been able to handle the but in
six months we couldn't find a way to get football back.
So football, to me coming back has been like okay,
some normal seas returning. Look, the NBA should be back soon.
Baseball fum got there act thegether like that feels to
me like okay, I know people getting six Still, I
know it's not perfect. Um, it's not gonna be perfect
(40:39):
maybe ever, but football coming back would be like, Okay,
we have some normal seats back in our lives. Even
if there's no fans in the seats, women is fans,
we have half the season, whatever it is. I just
have rooted for football to be back because it feels
like like we have some normal life again, no question
about it. I I agree with you. Um. I went
through quarterback. Chris Sims said that Matt Ryan's the seventh
(41:01):
best quarterback in the NFL. And what happens when you
say that as people go, oh, Matt Ryan's like average quarterback,
and then you start to look at it and take
a breath. And while you wouldn't put him in the
Aaron Rodgers, Russell Wilson, Pat Mahomes variety. UM, I don't
think seven's too high or too low. It's it's right around.
(41:22):
Like we can argue numbers wise, guys. The m v
P and their season has been in terms of success
has been directly reflective of if their defense is. And
the only time they had a top ten defense. I
go to a Super Bowl, you played against him, you
cover the NFL. How good is Matt Ryan? I mean
he can be really obviously you want. I'm a big
(41:44):
fan of a tier system when we ranked players, because
once you get past the top tier, I mean, then
you know he is he seven or is he ten?
I don't I'm with you. I'm with you. Yeah, I
think he's in that second tier. Quarterbacks at the back
in the second tier. But you're right they have. The
Falcons have wonder lost games really on their defense, which
(42:05):
Dan Quinn is a defensive coach, like, dude, that's your
that's your baby. He's failed a lot of draft picks
in the first round on that side of the ball,
within injuries as well. Um, but Matt Ryan looked they
drafted off into line last year. They have all the weapons.
He can be really good. He played the side. Obviously.
I don't think he gets to love because he's not
a supremely gifted athlete. Right, he's not a runner his arm.
(42:28):
I wouldn't say he's not the greatest m talent. I
think he kind of gets lost in the NFC South
with Breeze as well. And obviously Cam is now gone
and out, Tom Brady's in Tampa Bay. Matt Ryan is
really good. He didn't get the credit he deserves, I
think for all those reasons. Okay, so here's here's an
honest question. Cam Newton him both played and loss of
Super Bowl. Cam Newton him were both m vps. Who's
(42:50):
who's had a better career. Oh that's a great question.
Um wow that had they had different careers. Um, I
mean Matt has had I think sustained has been. He
was two douzens seven draft I believe, so he's been
you know, had a longer career, been healthier. Um. You
know Cam Newton obviously his ability to use his arm
(43:11):
and his legs is so unique. I mean, I think
that that just that talent alone, something that we really
don't see. That size to guys, he's look a defensive
ent like he's not He's not Tyler Murray, right, I
mean he's he's six five, like two thirty five. He's huge. Um,
I think probably Matt Ryan. But it really is not
a slight on Cam at all. I just think that
you know, Cam hasn't been healthy the last year and
(43:31):
a half. Matt's players in two thousand and seven, I
think virtually every game, right has he missed many games
for for helping here and there, three games in his
career the game three games Ryan. I mean just it's
just it's just longevity. Really, I mean I think Cam well,
I mean, like, look in terms of completion percentage, it's
not close. In terms of interceptions, it's not close. Um,
(43:53):
I'll let me check out win loss record. Matt Ryan
is one oh nine and uh at one O nine
and one, O nine and eighty. Okay, he's one O
nine and eighty Cam Newton. In comparison, of course, Cam
Newton um is fifty five and one, so kind of similar,
kind of similar. Obviously, the peak of Cam also coincided
(44:17):
with a great defense. But the peak of Cam was
an m VP of fifteen one season. Uh, they never
led in that Super Bowl. But um, and you're and
and and as much as Cam Newton had been banged up,
he had and actually missed a bunch of games until
last year, which is interesting. Half of that season injured,
which is silly, but they were good with with with
(44:38):
with the bad shoulder. I think the difference is I mean, like, look,
a fifty nine and a half percent completion percentage is
opposed to sixty five percent completion percentage that you make
up for it with the fact that he's been able
to run and been a dominant runner. I don't actually
think it's all that close, but okay, I would I
agree with you, Matt Ryan. It says if you told
somebody Matt ryaner Cam Newton better career, people would say
(44:58):
Cam Newton and you're like, yeah, not really, not really.
And I do think he benefits from playing in the
dome and hide some of your arm strength. But I
also think armstrength can be massively, massively overrated. I think
he's he's hurt by his inability to run, but I
think running can be really overrated. Because I'm I'm with
you on the running part. I think the pocket mobility
(45:20):
is just what we used. We see the word running
too much in my opinion, that we should use mobility
right like, like even even Russell Wilson. Russell Wilson is
not really a running quarterback. He attempts to run the ball,
and he's done far less in his career as he
gets older, he actually goes far less than the playoffs,
by the way, because that's what he you know, you
went from the pocket. He can throw, he can run
if he has to, but that's not what his goal is.
(45:41):
His goal is not is not to run the ball
very often. So I'm not gonna turm mobility. Matt Ryan
is mobile enough in the pocket. That's what matters. Yes, um,
Jamal Adams, you're the Jets. What do you do? I mean,
I think you keep him? I don't I know that people,
And I'm as big of a player's advocate is anyone
out there? But like, because under contract and you want
(46:02):
you know, you're in this weird mode if you're the Jets,
where you're you're sort of rebuilding, but you sort of
have a window now with Tom Brady gone where you
can maybe attack and find a way to try to
get in the NFC as you mean the as the
East picture and Jamal As is a player that you
hope it's part of that court right of that young
core of Jets players. So I would keep him. I like,
(46:22):
I mean, I love for Jamala jazz money and go
to Dallas and be happy. But if you're the Jets,
why would you He has no chic either plays or
he doesn't play. If he doesn't play it and he
just I guess he just sits out or he shows
up and we want he plays for you guys and
helps you win football games. I don't think the Jets
are obligated all to get rid of Why didn't they
do keep him there? Um? Okay, Dak signs a franchise tender.
(46:45):
Why do you think he's signed it now? Um? A
couple of reasons. One is I think maybe the negotiations
just won't go anywhere. With the Cowboys and he just
decided to sign and get a guarantee money. But I
also do wonder if you know, the testing positive for
COVID and some other NFL players testing positive as well.
(47:07):
You got Jack's thinking about, Hey, man, if I tested
positive with the Cowboys pulled my franchise offer because they
can still do that, you know what, they pulled my
Actually don't know if they can still pull it, but
um I do wonder if that was in his mind, like, hey,
let me just sign this tender guarantees my money and
I'm guaranteed for thirty million dollars and no, you don't
know if I don't play this year, if there's some shepanigans,
(47:30):
I get my money. And I'm not worried about um
uh not having to you. I'm not sure they could
pull it still. I know Joe see the deadline, so
maybe that's the deadline. But I do wonder if it's
the testing positive changed his mind about just getting under contract,
you know at the you know, the quickest that should
do it. How's the pull? It's good. I'm looking right now.
(47:50):
They almost finished the limestone around the edges. We're gonna
trees on Thursday. Some landscape be going on. So nice, man,
I'm glad. I'm glad. I went golfing on Father's Day
and I just was so hot it like nine plus
the greed. I just got home, jumped in the pool,
felt great. You should have taken off your clothes first,
although maybe not. I don't know. No, I I mean,
I mean I was in I took my clothes off.
(48:12):
That's the purpose thing to do. You play? You played
a full eighteen, right, I get to fourteen and I
get that golf a D D and I'm like, how
close were we to the clubhouse? Full eighteen? No problem?
We played. We played skins on the back nine, so
I didn't have to shoot everything. I don't have to
shoot every single time. But that kind of kept things
right because you played for money. You kind of kept
things very interesting. But it's the first time I played
golf in a year. I surprised I made it that long. Honestly,
(48:35):
I'm with you, like about whole twelve and thirteen. It's like,
all right, can we just like wrap this thing up? Yes,
that's why you cracked the beer and you try and
keep them flowing. And then you go like, all right, well,
i'd like to go now, but I need to sober
u before I get to get to get to my
car or if we get to that next cool one
at the at the clubhouse. The Schwartz be with you.
Thank you for joining us alright, Jeff Schwartz. Jef Swartz
(48:57):
is smarter than use a very good podcast. You should
download it.
Host
Doug Gottlieb
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