February 4, 2025 • 41 mins
JMac filling in for Colin talks about why a lot of people don't like the Chiefs, his thoughts on Luka Doncic and his press conference
Guest: Albert Breer
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be sure to
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Welcome to the Herd. Jason McIntyre in for yes a
sick Colin Cowherd again spoke to the big guy last night.
He was feeling all right and feeling better, but probably
not good enough to go today, so they went back
to the bullpen. Manager came and tapped me on the shoulder. Hey,
j Mac, it's time for the show. We need you
so I'm ready to rock and roll people. We had
(00:46):
a productive morning meeting. I'll pull back the curtain a
little bit. I am flying totally solo today as another
member of the staff went home sick. We're all battling
at folks, but this is what we do, you know,
long season and we're here to play. We got some
great topics, excellent guests. I'm gonna kind of blow your
mind with an NBA take in like seven minutes. But
we've got to start obviously with the NFL. The Super
(01:09):
Bowl week is fully upon US Media Day or Media Night.
Sorry was last night in New Orleans. You had a
lot of people saying interesting stuff. You guys know how
that Super Bowl media night works. It's a big scene.
I saw Pete Schrager walking around with the microphone. I
saw Jameis Winston working for Fox doing some stuff with
our digital side. It was all fun. And I did
(01:30):
see one interesting thing from Pat Mahomes that we're going
to start the show with. And I want to just
talk quickly at large dynasties. Okay, yes, I detested could
not stand the Patriots dynasty. You guys know that. I'm
a Jets fan, but it wasn't just me that didn't
like the Patriots. They were disliked around the league. Fans everywhere.
(01:50):
Nobody liked them. Come on, how could you like a
franchise that had an ornery coach? You know Bill Belichick?
Initially people liked him, right he got runoff in Cleveland.
He did make the playoffs there, but then he got
run off and it was like, ah, Belichick, Oh this
is a great story. Bill Belichick's back and Initially, people
liked the Patriots. Tom Brady a sixth round pick coming
(02:13):
in for the number one pick that drew Bledsoe in
his massive contract, and Brady's a great underdog story. People
loved the Patriots initially. Then they got dominant. The dynasty
started rolling and everybody was out on the Patriots. I
can't stand him. And then you toss in Spygate, which
was a real thing. Guys. You can look it up.
You can deny. Oh, it's no big deal. Look it up.
(02:35):
The facts are not great in Spygate.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Then you had to.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Flake Gate, which was probably a little overblown. But at
that point people were so sick of the Patriots that
they had become villains. Everybody nationwide rooted against the Patriots.
It was Boston against the world, you know. And they
kept the dynasty rolling. So enter the Kansas City Chiefs,
and last night Patrick Mahomes was asked, hey man, you
(02:59):
guys kind of the villains now. And I'll get to
that in a second, but here's what Mahomes said, addressing
the villains label to the Chiefs, I.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Don't even think it's embracing me. In the villains, we
embrace who we are and Now, we believe we play
the game the right way. We believe that we play
with a lot of heart and a lot of passion
for the game, and then we win football games, and
that winning football games makes you a villain. We're gonna
go keep going out there and doing it.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Ah, Now, listen, I have been vocal against the Chiefs
on this show. I'm not a huge fan of this dynasty. However,
I need to be honest with you guys. I'm gonna
keep it real. They're a likable team. Andy Reid. Who's
more likable than Andy Reid? I mean, he looks like
your neighbor. You're going on vacation, You go, Hey, Andy,
how you doing, budd Hey? You know he's got this
(03:43):
jolly look, the big mustache. Hey, I'm going on vacation.
Do you think you could like take out my trash
cans and then bring them back in? Oh, yeah, no problem, Jay,
I got that. That's how Andy. Those are the vibes
he gives off, right, You've got you've seen the memes
of like the kool Aid Man and Andy Reid. He
looks like, say, who doesn't like Andy Reid. Bill Belichick
was this curmudgeon. He was angry at the podium, just unfriendly,
(04:06):
not chatty, but wore that ratty hoodie with the holes
in it, joked about social media without trying to be funny,
never cracked a smile like Andy Reid. Much more likable
than Belichick now. Tom Brady obviously very likable. You know,
cool guy. Ladies loved him, you wanted to be friends
with him. Same thing with Patrick Mahomes. And listen, I
(04:27):
don't follow a ton of athletes on Instagram, but I
follow Mahomes. He's a likable dude. He's got a wife,
he's got kids. He seems like a normal guy. Right,
They're actually likable, So why are they villains? And again,
I I'm not calling them villains. I just don't really
like their dominance. I'm ready for new teams. But if
you watch how they play, they're a fun, good football team.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
They've got less fun since they lost Tyreek Hill, and
they're a little less explosive. Teams started going to the
two high safeties to take away the big plays and
then it's death by seven yard Patrick Mahomes scrambles or
Isaac Pacheco. Carey's the reason I'm out on them. And again, Okay,
this is maybe just me. Is this whole referee thing
they get And again, I'm not saying it's rigged, they
(05:12):
do get a lot of calls every pivotal play involving
a Chiefs game. Guys, No, lie, you're watching the play
ends and you're looking around, where's the flag? Is there
a flag?
Speaker 6 (05:21):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
No?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Flag? Wow? It just feels like on every pivotal third
or fourth down play, somehow it goes the Chief's way.
And I know everybody wants to say, hey, they're buttoned up,
and guys, every good team is buttoned up. Okay, They've
had coaching changes like the rest of the league at
offensive cooridator. They've had guys shuffling on the offensive line,
the defense. They've had a lot of changes. And this
(05:43):
whole villain labels interesting because I'm gonna be honest with you,
if the Eagles pull this off, as I think they will,
are the Chiefs still villains or are the only villains
that they win? I just think it's good food for thought.
And I thought that was fascinating from Patrick Mahomes last night.
All Right, now I want to pivot to the NBA
and this story. I'm kind of sort of obsessed with
(06:04):
So not to give you too much of a peak
behind the curtain, but our morning meeting, you know, they
got all these stories that are percolating. I'll throw out
an idea. People will bat around topics. Sometimes they agree,
sometimes they don't. This one, Oh man, I love this story. Okay,
So we all know that the player empowerment era in
the NBA has been going strong for fifteen is years.
(06:25):
Quick history note it didn't totally start with Lebron, although
it kind of did so Lebron if you go back
to I believe it's two thousand and six beats up
or maybe two thousand and seven beats the Detroit Pistons
in that heroic series where he just goes nuclear, takes
them down, gets the young Calves to the finals. He basically,
if you look at that Calvs roster, he dragged like
(06:47):
the equivalent of my men's basketball team to the finals.
They get swept by the Spurs. But it was Lebron
against the world, and Danny Ainge in Boston saw that
and very quickly realized, ain't nobody stopping Lebron. He's too good.
This guy's about to take over the league. So the
Celtics went out and got their own superteam. They built
the first super team. Let's bring on Kevin Garnett. We
(07:08):
got already got Piers, Let's bring on Ray Allen and
they had the superteam. They took down Lebron, so a
couple years later, Lebron's like, shucks, Cavs can't build me
a super team. I'm gonna create my own superteam. And
he did that in Miami, ushering in the player empowerment era,
and for about the last fifteen years NBA players around
(07:28):
the league, Hey, you know what, I kind of want
to play with that superstar. Come on over and a owner,
I want the Max deal, and then five minutes later,
I want out of here. The players controlled the league.
They ran everything. It was. It was all players teaming up,
players calling the shots. The owners were kind of beholding
to the superstars. It's a superstar league. A funny thing
(07:51):
happened over the weekend. Okay, Luka Doncics got traded, and
the reaction was universally, who the hell trades Luka Doncic?
It can't just be because the GM and Michael Finley
is assistant gim thought that Luca was like, you know,
fat and out of shape and didn't want to grind.
(08:12):
You gotta run that by the owner, right, you can't
just trade Luka Doncic And it really shook up the league.
And twenty four hours later, guess what dearon Fox he
got shipped to San Antonio zach Levine, who apparently wasn't
gonna get traded anywhere. He goes to Sacramento owners. It's
almost like they've had it. They've had it with the
(08:34):
player empowerment era. And I'm sure you guys have seen
that movie Captain Phillips, right, it has Tom Hanks as
he's like, you know, the captain of a cargo liner.
It gets overtaken by Somali pirates and at one point
in the movie, and you could go watch this on YouTube,
you know, they're like, who's the captain and Tom Hanks
is like, I'm the captain, this is my ship. And
(08:55):
this guy goes, no, no, no, look me in my eyes.
I'm the captain. Now, I'm the It feels like the
owners are looking their star players in the eye and saying,
no more player empowerment. I'm running the show. This is
my show. I'm the billionaire now. And if Luka, donc
just can get traded. Shuck shucked. Anybody can get traded.
(09:17):
Anybody can get traded. I'll get you to the big
name who's starting to percolate now in a second. But
I bring up this player empowerment stuff because one of
the guys in the morning meetings said something I just
totally forgot about. So last year, the Timberwolves go to
the conference finals and I get all these guys on
social media saying, Jason stop with the Carl Anthony Towns
to New York. It's not happening. I've been saying this
(09:38):
for like three years. We knew he wanted to go
to New York. And this guy made like a friendly
bet with me on social media. I bet you he
doesn't get traded. Now, they went to the conference finals,
and I was like, I'll just stick with my prediction.
Even though they went to the conference finals. Folks, do
we forget Minnesota was in the conference finals and just
traded away their second best player. Now why is that, Well,
(10:00):
you could say they're not a great fit, but they
went to the conference finals. It's because the owner didn't
want to pay that luxury tax that they were going
to be in for because Carl Anthony Town's a salary
and Gobert and Anthony Edwards. It's like, holy cow, they
traded away Carl Anthony Towns And that was kind of
glossed over at the time. But Dallas. The real reason
(10:20):
that's coming out that they didn't want to pay Luka
doncis they traded him. They don't want to pay him
three hundred and forty five million because it's tough to
build around one guy making that much money. As a
side note, NFL owners take note, quarterbacks, they're headed in
this direction. You know what's happening. We saw it with
Dak Prescott. He got paid. Had the Mavericks do sorry,
(10:41):
had the cowboy the can Kun Cowboys as I'm told
they're called, Now, how did they do? So? Just file
that away, NFL. What's happening in the NBA is these
owners are like, these salaries are out of control. We're
not winning paying all these guys all the money. Let's
go trade Luka Doncic. And I'll wrap up with this
because this is the other name that emerged here in
the last twenty four hours, and that's Kevin Durant. Kevin
(11:04):
Durant was in Brooklyn said, get me the hell out
of here. I'd like to go to Phoenix. Okay, yes, yes, Kevin,
we got you. We'll let you go to Phoenix. And
Kevin Durant is now sitting in Phoenix. Wait, everybody's waiting
for Bradley Beal to get traded, but it doesn't look
like it's gonna happen. And as a result, Phoenix sitting
tenth in the West. They could miss the playoffs, miss
(11:24):
the play in and all of a sudden, we're starting
to hear Oh, everybody's calling about Kevin Durant, and you
have to if you're the young owner in Phoenix, how
do we get better? We might have to trade Kevin Durant.
We might have to get off our second best player,
because you know what, we can't miss the playoffs and
pay a massive luxury tax bill because of the salaries
(11:46):
and folks. Unbelievably, Dwayne Wade kind of sort of addressed
this this week on the Why podcast. Here's his take
on why Luca was traded.
Speaker 7 (11:56):
This was billionaire business.
Speaker 8 (11:57):
Yes, this was at the top.
Speaker 7 (11:59):
This was the last Twitter fifteen years. The players have decided,
right what we want to do. This was the owners
the governor's yep. The billionaires, Yeah, deciding what they want
to do it. So you got the top international player
in LA. So the viewership, the ticket sales, everybody you
were Spain, they're all coming into LA.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
We know how this.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
So I'm looking at the business and I'm like, the
hold up, this was an amazing business decision by billionaires. Yes,
sure to say this is what I want for now
and this is what we need as a league.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
You guys, remember when Otani went to the Dodgers. They
paid all of the money. It was like, oh my god,
how can they afford? This kind of worked out well,
didn't it. They won the World Series merch sale through
the roof, ticket sales spiking. They're printing money now the
Dodgers by spending money, and I wonder did the Lakers
make this move? Hey, we are set up for the future,
(12:55):
but we just got Luca, an international superstar that's going
to open a gateway to Europe for US financially. I mean,
I don't know if you guys saw the reports the
Dallas Mavericks social media accounts were just hemorrhaging followers, tens
of thousands. I saw a report hundreds of thousands of followers.
I don't know if it's official they lost a lot
of followers because they're out on They traded Luca and
(13:19):
Dwyane Wade is totally onto something here. This was a
great business move. And coming up next here on the Herd,
I will tell you the next big NBA star on
the move. I don't think you're gonna know Kevin Durant
to the mix, but there are a couple others. Keep
an eye out that's next here on the Herd.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
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Speaker 3 (13:42):
Welcome back. We've got Albert Breer stopping by in about
fifteen to twenty minutes. Albert Brier, really good guy, really
plugged in. I think he's already in New Orleans at
the super Bowl. I'm sure he'll offer us some great
stuff from last night at Super Bowl Media Night, which
look a big time party down in New Orleans. All right,
let's quickly go back to the NBA. Anthony Edwards is
(14:06):
a young ascending star. I know this is probably the
first time in the show's history we've actually mentioned the
Timberwolves twice in the first hour. But Anthony Edwards. I
thought he would be taken over the league. There's a
new book coming out on him shortly. Anthony Edwards took
the Timberwolves to the conference finals last year. It appeared
to be one of these like face of the league guys,
(14:27):
very likable individual, the dunking machine scorer. Everything about Anthony
Edwards is awesome, But a weird thing starting to happen again.
This Luka Doncis trade really shook everybody up. And this
idea that nobody's safe and owners have the power and
they can move off anybody. Well, Anthony Edwards saw what
happened with Luka Doncics and he talked to the media
(14:49):
about it last night.
Speaker 9 (14:51):
They say that none of it. Nobody knew about the trades. Yeah,
so that's crazy. At twenty five they traded probably.
Speaker 8 (14:59):
The best score in the NBA. At twenty five, he
didn't know about it.
Speaker 9 (15:04):
So there's a lot more digging somebody got to do
to find out why you got to trade it, because you.
Speaker 8 (15:08):
Don't just trade him at twenty five, he just went
to the finals.
Speaker 9 (15:11):
You know what I'm saying, everybody three everybody getting Yeah,
I'm scared. Yeah, I'm scared. Tim, Hey, if you're gonna
trade me, let me know when Luca got traded, anybody
is able to trade at that point.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I'm scared. I like that, and that's it feels. It
felt authentic from Anthony Edwards, like I'm sure he's joking.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You know one of those deals? Are you looking over
your shoulder a little bit? Listen, if you could trade
Luka Doncic, why wouldn't you trade Anthony Edwards. Now, obviously
Anthony Edwards is a foundational piece in Minnesota. I would
say there's zero point zero percent chance of him getting moved,
But post Luca, maybe you got to add like a
point zero zero one chance, which brings me. By the
way Luca's meeting with the media, I think like right
(15:58):
now out here in LA they're doing the press conference,
will have sound as soon as the good stuff comes out.
But it got me thinking, like who else could be
moved this week? What else is happening around the league?
And I touched on Kevin Durant earlier we got like
forty eight hours left, folks, Kevin Durant would not surprise
me at all, if he got shipped. The interesting team
is the Golden State Warriors. And I know some people
(16:19):
are like, come on, they're not going to do that again. Listen,
the Warriors needed Kevin Durant when they got him in
twenty sixteen. I don't care. I hear so many just goofballs.
Oh they didn't need him. They won seventy three games. Hello.
They lost in the finals to Lebron and Kyrie. They
lost after being up three to one. They lost the series.
(16:40):
They needed Kevin Durant. And it's not like Kevin Durant
came on to the Warriors and was like, you know,
riding shotgun. He was the MVP of the Finals two
years in a row. He was the best player on
the best team in for my money, in NBA history.
Of course, the Warriors needed him. Well, you know who
else needs him right now? The Golden State Warriors. I'm
looking at the standings. Oh look at that, Golden State
(17:02):
is eleventh in the West. Steph Curry thirty six, turns
thirty seven later this year. Come on, guys, are we
really gonna waste the prime final prime years of Steph Curry.
We saw what he did in August at the Olympics.
For my money, that was the greatest sports moment in
twenty twenty four, Like Steph Curry putting everybody asleep with
(17:26):
the unbelievable finish at the Olympics spectacular and now he's
gonna miss the freaking playoffs. What they're eleventh in the West.
Jimmy Butler said he doesn't want to go there because
he's not going to sign long term. Which brings me
to Kevin Durant. Why wouldn't the Warriors say, hey, how
do we get Kevin Durant? I was reading. You guys know,
(17:47):
Brian Windhorse covers the league, probably one of the best
plugged in reporters out there. He used to joke, if
you have a three team trade idea, you have a
no team trade idea, because it's so difficult to make
him work. And now he's reversed course and said, geez,
with all these new salaries. I mean, the Utah Jazz
got in on that Luka Donci's trade. They didn't even
(18:08):
know about it until thirty minutes before. Hey, Jazz, by
the way, you guys are taking this in the deal.
You don't have to do anything, you just take this. Okay,
we'll take more picks. Sure, and it's like, why couldn't
you figure out a way if you're Golden State to
pry Kevin Durant away? And now the question becomes with
Kevin Durant want to Golden Golden State? Does he have
(18:28):
a choice? Hey, KD, you're with the Sons, they are
currently tenth in the West. You're going to the Warriors,
who are eleventh in the West. Why not? I mean,
if you're the owner of the Phoenix Suns and you've
got to make the playoffs and you've got to do
something you can't stand pat nobody takes Brad deal, Why
wouldn't you move off KD and get Jimmy Butler, who's
(18:48):
a tougher defender, more of a leader. No disrespect, KD.
You know I'm a fan. I don't need KD coming
after me. Yes, I'll tag him when I post this
video that Wes clips off, but don't come after me, KD.
I still think you can help Warriors. I don't think
y'all are winning a title. I don't know that you'd
want to go back and play with Draymond Green, who
was kind of a jerk to you many moons ago,
and you know Sucker punch Jordan Poole, and I don't
(19:12):
know that you want to go there. But do the
Warriors have anything that the heat would want? Kuminga pods like?
It becomes very difficult. But if I'm a Warriors, I'm
working the phones and I'm gonna toss this other name.
Two other names in there, so number one and Anton.
You just heard Anthony Edward say nobody's safe. I'm just
(19:33):
gonna mention him. Yannis and Milwaukee. The Bucks currently are
fifth in the East. The Damian Lillard thing, we've given
it a while. I don't know that it's working. I
just don't. I don't know what the future holds for
Dame in Milwaukee. Ain't nobody taken on Dame's contract. That's
just not happening.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
It's like not quite Bradley be old bad. But you know,
Dame's a better player now than Bille. But it becomes
a little onerous. And if you're the owner's group and
you're looking around, like, geez, we don't have a path
to success. Middleton keeps getting injured. Do we just hey,
we got a title with Yannis. Do we just start over?
And I know it sounds stupid, but look what the
Mavericks just did with Luca. Now janis obviously less of
(20:16):
an issue fitness wise, allegedly. I'm not calling Luca fat
or anything, but that's it's become clear that Mavericks shipped
him for two reasons and out of shape and reluctance
to work as one of them. There's none of that
with Yannis. But you have to wonder, do the Bucks
consider Shucks. Maybe we move on from Yannis and start
over and it's too late to get into Cooper Flag sweepstakes.
(20:40):
But it's like, I don't know, And again I know
you guys are listening, like, come on, they're not trading
y honest. Look around the league. Towns went to the
conference finals. They shipped him, Luca went to the finals,
traded like things are happening. The other name I'll put
out there, and his name has been out in the past,
including for the Lakers, although that's not happening now is
(21:00):
Trey Young. Trey Young a guy who hit this league
like something of a comet. Remember he was taking the
Hawks to the playoffs, took down the Knickson MSG, took
down Embiid and the Sixers. Do you guys remember that. Okay,
that was yes, I know that Ben Simmons pass whatever,
and Babe was on the court, had seven turnovers game seven.
I don't want to hear it. And now the Hawks,
(21:21):
by the way, are ninth in the East. They lost
their budding star Jalen Johnson for the season, and if
you look at that roster, they're playing dudes that and
you guys know, I'm a big college basketball nerd. I
don't know some of these guys in their roster, and
it's like they might miss the playoffs. What's the point?
And again, you know, I don't know what the market
(21:41):
is for a small point guard like Trey Young, who
really I know, he's leading the league and assists and
Barkley and Shack love him. Now weird, the Hawks stink
and they love Trey Young. It does Trey Young have
a market? I don't know, but I think the Hawks
have to ask themselves what are we doing with Trey Young.
We're not a playoff team anymore, We're maybe a play
(22:03):
in team. He's not our foundational piece Jalen Johnson is
do we reconfigure around a guy and just shoot for
the moon next year and we move on? From Trey Young.
I would keep an eye on Trey Young. I would
keep an eye on Giannis. And to go back to
Jimmy Butler real quick, we have some sound from Kevin Garnett.
People are fired up about this Butler thing because I
do believe it is kind of the end of the
(22:24):
player empowerment era, and Jimmy Butler's kind of, you know,
thinking he's still got power and he's got no juice
and it's like failing miserably. The heat keeps suspending him.
Here's Kevin Garnett on the Jimmy Butler situation.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
When you step out of being professional and then you
step out of not you know, to your oath and
holding up your inn and the bargain, or you open
up all this right here, bro, this is how non
guarantees are going to come into our league right here,
For like this, we falled our ass off through five
and six blockouts to get to a point is no
(23:01):
where we protect the integrity of the talent and then
that talent has a responsibility to be professional coming here
and do your job. We came here, we did our jobs.
You got paid, and you went home. You go home
as soon as you get opportunity to change that, you
change it.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
M Kevin Garnett very fired up about that, and listen,
I have been a huge Jimmy Butler fan essentially for
the last like ten years. His story is incredible. You know,
had a rough family upbringing, no real offers out of
high school, had to go to Juco route, ends up
at Marquette, I think to sign with Marquette he had
to go to like a McDonald's to fax his letter
(23:39):
of intent. Like it was that kind of situation for Butler.
It basically does nothing and then kind of pops, you know,
falls in the draft a little bit and just works
his way up from benchwarmer in Chicago to legitimate All
star ends up like just the gritty nature of Jimmy
Butler carrying the Heat to the finals twice. I know
they didn't win a chip, but it's like, come on, man,
(24:02):
Jimmy Butler is a warrior. I love his style of play.
He doesn't take crap from anyone. You know, he's one
of these He's like a legit dog. Like if you've
got him on your team, you're gonna have a chance.
Because he's Jimmy Butler. You know, there are legendary stories
about him in Minnesota when when he ran into issues
with the front office and he would come into practice
and say, I don't want to run with the starters.
(24:22):
I'm gonna take these four benchwarmers and we're gonna beat
their ass. And he would then go into practice and
they would win the scrimmage. Like the stories are out there.
Jimmy Butler is an absolute dog, and you think everyone
would want him, but he's kind of killed his value
with these actions in Miami. He thought he had the power,
but the players kind of sort of have lost it right.
Coming up next here on The Herd, Luke got introduced
(24:44):
in La. Wait for what you hear about his departure
from Dallas. Oh Boy and Albert, We're live from New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
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Speaker 10 (24:56):
Hey, Steve Covino and I'm Rich David and together we're
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Speaker 11 (25:01):
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Why should you listen to Covino and Rich?
Speaker 11 (25:10):
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Speaker 10 (25:14):
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Speaker 11 (25:23):
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Be sure to check out Covino and Rich live on
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Speaker 5 (25:50):
That's Covino and Rich.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Back here on the Herd. Albert Brier coming up in
a second. But folks, Luka Doncitz just met the media
in law said Dula's Oh boy, oh wait to hear this.
So Luca is very measured. He actually looks slim. I
was expecting him to wear black to look skinnier, you know,
like because of all the jokes. But Luca just met
with the media and uh, oh boy, here's a veiled
(26:15):
shot at the MAVs front office from Luka Doncic.
Speaker 12 (26:20):
I'm just excited, you know, to be here to start
this new journey, journey and obviously, uh, at some point
I knew this was gonna happen, But I would say,
I always take the high road, you know, I had
my amazing moments in Dollars with all my teammates, coaches
and the most importantly defense, you know that always supported me.
(26:41):
And it was it was an amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Journey, players, coaches, fans. I knew this was gonna happen.
Oh gosh, that's delicious. So I found, you know, people
put stuff online and this this came from an article
that the Mavericks have in August or twenty three, fired
their player of health and performance coaching, and then they
(27:05):
fired two other strength coaches and a therapist. And the
common thread was all those guys were friendly with Luca.
I know this sounds losory to say as a guy,
but some guys are just cool guys that everybody likes,
you know, And I know people are laughing in the
control room. Luca just seems like a cool guy. He's friendly,
he's funny. I don't know if you guys have seen
some of the clips that the MAVs used to put
(27:26):
out of him playing like horse or one on one,
Like everybody likes Luka Doncic. Why didn't the front office
like him? That was the issue. They fired the people
that liked Luca, right, get them out of the building. Hey,
let's get some people who Luca's not tight with. And
it's like, it's just very ugly in Dallas and him
(27:47):
knowing this was gonna happen and saying that, oh, that
is not good. I think the clock is if it
wasn't already, the clock is ticking on Nico Harrison in Dallas.
Speaker 7 (27:56):
Hey.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
By the way, if they missed the playoffs, is either
GM next year?
Speaker 11 (28:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Luca also talked about playing with Lebron. He's a little excited.
Speaker 12 (28:04):
It's just like a dream come shoe, you know. I
always look up to him. Uh. And there's so many
learning There's so many things I can learn from him,
and I'm just excited, you know, just to learn everything.
You know, I get to play with him, So it's
an amazing feeling.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, very excited. All right, let's get to Albert Breer
live from New Orleans the Monday Morning Quarterback dot Com. Brear,
what is up? You look like you're where are you
chucked in?
Speaker 13 (28:30):
Some some like I'm at the No, I'm at the
Chiefs Hotel. I'm like outside their access and I'm sure
like Dave and the guys in the studio probably aren't
happy about this, like light that's coming down on me
and washing me out a little bit, But I trust
you can help me fight through it.
Speaker 8 (28:45):
Jmax.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yes, yes, yes, so Chiefs. What's the vibe around the team?
You're in the hotel? Have you seen Taylor Swift? That's
gotta be the first question.
Speaker 13 (28:52):
Right, Yeah, I don't think. I don't think Taylor so
I'm staying at the Maria. Might be wrong about that,
but but I don't think she staying at the Marriott.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
No.
Speaker 13 (29:02):
Man, Like, it's like, this is a confident group, you know,
and they've been here obviously five times and six years now,
that's unprecedented. You know, you can kind of feel with
them where they really know this is a business trip.
They know what to expect and they know the ins
and outs of the week and kind of the way
everything goes, and so, you know, I think that's their
advantage is that they'll be able to take the stage
(29:23):
without having to deal with a lot of the unknown
that another team might, you know, whether it's the length
of warm ups, the length of of the the introductions,
a lot of the standing around, you know, during game day.
Speaker 8 (29:38):
The halftime show.
Speaker 13 (29:40):
They know, you know, how to prepare for every single
piece of that, which you know, I know they hope allows.
Speaker 8 (29:45):
Them to hit the ground running on Sunday.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, what do you make of this? A villain's comment
from Patrick Mahomes. You know, we don't mind being the villains,
will embrace it. It's weird, Albert, Like, I don't know
that people hate them. I think I think people hate
their winning, but people like don't dislike Andy Reid or
Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 13 (30:04):
You know, Yeah, I don't think that there's a hatred
towards the individual people.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
But I do think there's a little bit of that
villain thing with.
Speaker 13 (30:11):
The way people complain about the officiating, the way I
think people have grown a little tired of them. You know,
obviously all the conversation Sean Taylor Swift, which and the
reality is like, if you count up all the seconds
that she's actually on TV during NFL games, is it
more than like the owner is of the team.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
I mean, I probably not.
Speaker 13 (30:30):
And I think a lot more people would like to
see Taylor Swift than some old rich guy up in
the up in the box, you know. So I think
there's a lot of like those sorts of elements that
have existed with every dynasty. You know, the Patriots dealt
with it. You're sitting there in Los Angeles. There are
a lot of people who probably aren't happy about Luca
finding up there and think there's some sort of conspiracy afoot.
Speaker 8 (30:51):
You know.
Speaker 13 (30:51):
It's just with teams like this that reach this sort
of plateau, you have.
Speaker 8 (30:57):
That element of it.
Speaker 13 (30:58):
And I actually think it's good that you and brace
the villain role, you know. It's really they're really right
about the same point, and they're assent and their dynasty,
as the Patriots were.
Speaker 8 (31:08):
When they took on the villain role.
Speaker 13 (31:10):
And I think really things really turned for the Patriots
with Spygate, you know, and two thousand and seven was
when they went from sort of being just a really
good team that was respected into this like kind of
dark operation, you know, and I don't know the Chiefs
lover get that level of villain status, but it definitely
exists to some degree. And I think it's a smart
(31:32):
move for them all to embrace it because you know,
as long as Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid are there now,
I think that'll sort of be the way that they're
lucked at.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Here's one who's under more pressure in this Super Bowl,
Patrick Mahomes or Jalen Hurts. And is there a case
to be made for Mahomes because of the pressure of
the three people, which they've been talking about for basically
a calendar year now, whereas Jalen Hurts is like, I
throw the ball eighteen times a game, This is no
big deal. I'm carrying my briefcase. There's a business trip.
(32:02):
Is there more pressure on Mahomes?
Speaker 8 (32:05):
I don't think so. I mean, I think Mahomes. I
mean to me, I look at where.
Speaker 13 (32:08):
The Chiefs are and it's sort of you're playing with
house money, you know what I mean? Like, And I
know they don't approach it that way, and I know
there's history on the line and everything else, but you know,
I think Mahomes has played so well in so many
of these settings that if he were to, you know,
throw an interception at the end of the game, it's
not going to really affect his legacy. Where if you
(32:29):
come into this in your jail and hurts you've had,
there's gonna be your second opportunity to get there.
Speaker 8 (32:34):
I don't think, you know, most.
Speaker 13 (32:35):
People would view you in that top echelana quarterbacks where
mahomes at the top or underneath them you have Josh Allen,
Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson, you know, and so I
think it's sort of for hers. This is an opportunity
to kind of elevate your legacy, elevate the way that
you're looked at, elevate the way your team has looked at.
There's a lot on the line, Whereas I think with
(32:57):
the Chiefs there's probably a chance to really burnish your
legacy with the three peat. But I think the way
that history's going to look at you is sort of
already set in stone.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Not to get two x's and o's. But I don't
know if it was Hasselbeck or Sanchez yesterday who had
a good point. You know, left tackle had been an
issue for the Chiefs, so they moved Toney out. He's
been great, But for the Eagles, you need interior blocking.
It's paramount against you know, they're two big horses, Davis
and Carter inside. Do you think the Chiefs play a
(33:28):
little musical chairs and kick Tooney back inside?
Speaker 13 (33:32):
Yeah, I J Mack, I'm glad you brought that up
because I think that's one of the more underrated pieces
of this game and decisions to be made in this
game by Andy Reid and Matt Nagi and you know,
all the guys who work with the offensive line. That
left tackle spot was a revolving door for much of
the year and it was a real problem. It's a
credit to Joe Toney, who's been one of the NFL's
(33:52):
ultimate ironman. He's going for his fifth ring here. You
know one two at Brady's won two with Mahomes Brin.
To be able to do that and sort of out
their revolving door and stabilize it's been amazing.
Speaker 8 (34:02):
But you're right to look at it like that.
Speaker 13 (34:04):
The Eagles have good edge guys, but they don't have
a great edge guy, and they've got Jordan Davis and
Jalen Carter inside. Jalen Carter during the playoffs has been
a true game wrecord, like you could argue he really
won that game at the end in the divisional round
against the Rams and the Snow And so you know,
if you take Toney and leave him at left tackle,
(34:25):
then left guard becomes a hole and they've got the
opportunity to match Jalen Carter up and create a mismatch there,
and then you've got to handle that.
Speaker 8 (34:33):
So what do you feel more comfortable with.
Speaker 13 (34:35):
Do you feel more comfortable with Janie Morris or DJ
Humphreys who has been banged up but has a lot
of experience at left tackle handling the edge guys, which
you might still be a disadvantage there but a little
less so. Or do you feel like you need to
put Tuny out of left tackle because that's the mix
that's worked and then just help with the guards.
Speaker 8 (34:56):
On the on the on the on the on the
defensive tack.
Speaker 13 (35:00):
I think it's a pivotal I think he's a pivotal
decision for the Chiefs coaches to make going into this
this game, and it'll be interesting to see what they do.
And maybe it's a mix of both, you know, maybe
it's a field thing where they rotate a little bit
in the first quarter and then go it's with what's working.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, I like Nolan Smith on the outside against Morris
all Dave for the Eagles.
Speaker 8 (35:20):
But that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
So we saw the Buffalo bill struggle with the Tousch
push badly against the Chiefs. I'm just curious, do you
think that was more about what the Chiefs were doing
or the Bills are just not very good at it?
And I don't. It probably won't apply to the Eagles,
who are great at it.
Speaker 13 (35:35):
No, I think it does apply to the Eels to
some degree where I think Steve Spagnolo his defense is
so versatile and he's able to do so many different
things with the group of guys that he has. He
he said to me last year during the playoffs that
this is the smartest group I've ever had.
Speaker 8 (35:49):
So this was during last year's playoffs, and then.
Speaker 13 (35:52):
As I talked to him this year, he's like, and
this group is even smarter than that one. You know,
his point's been like his point, the point he's made
me a few times is like that, you know, he's
always had smart guys. His defense requires having smart guys,
but there always be like a few guys out there
that are kind of iffy. The difference with these two
groups he's had the last two years is that everybody
(36:12):
knows what they're doing and what that allows for. It
allows for you to do different things to mess with
the matchups because you can move guys around and play
them in different spots, and they're smart enough to learn
all the different spots and the different responsibilities, which allows
you to play these situations the way that they were
able to play them against Buffalo. Now that said, I
think we both know that stopping those short yards plays
(36:33):
against the Eagles is a totally different kettle efficient. So
I think there's a little bit of a cascading effect here.
It's stopping Saquon Barkland first down, and then if you
can get them in second and along, that's where you got
to stop Jalen Hurts running the ball because generally that's
when he runs the ball the most, and that's where
he creates those third and shorts, those fourth and shorts
(36:54):
to put them in a position to really take advantage
of being the best team in short yards there is
in football. So I think there's a really cool like
element of game within the game there where yes, the
Chiefs are better at those things than a lot of
other teams.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
But they've got to be capable of staying out of
them too, because if you say, you say.
Speaker 13 (37:15):
You're in four of them, you know over the course
of the game, Well it's easier to say, like, let's
stop three of those and maybe one gets gets biased.
Speaker 8 (37:23):
Then it's going to be if you've got to face
eight or ten of them.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, all right, Let's look at the NFL at large.
You're as plugged in as anybody talking texting Cooper Cup
your best guess at some landing spots, some teams perhaps
interested in in Cup, And then I'm curious, it's the
damage that does to the Rams and Stafford that was
his boy on the team. They were tight. I wonder
if something's a foot with the Rams that maybe we're
(37:47):
not aware of yet.
Speaker 8 (37:48):
Why are you talking about Stafford maybe moving or yep?
Speaker 13 (37:52):
Yeah, So I would say with Cup like just in
a vacuum, you know, things have sort of I think
turned a little bit over the last year too, to
some degree, like he and Pooka are great players, they're
a little redundant to one another, and that they're both
maybe best inside. Neither guy's a burner, and so you know,
(38:12):
you know, when you're building an offense in the way
that Sean McVay builds his offense, there's a way of
doing it where you want to kind of build their
basketball team and have all those guys do different things.
And so as great as those two guys are individually,
you know, you maybe look at it the rams and
it's like, is it a luxury to have two of
them out there? As for landing spots, I mean, I
think you know, Cooper would be great with a young quarterback,
(38:35):
you know, so could he be like a really good
number two for Washington, right, Like imagine him with Terry
McLaurin on the other side where he doesn't have to
be the number one, and as a security blanket for
Jayden Daniels. So maybe Jayden Daniels has to run a
little bit less. That's the sort of situation where I
think it will be ideal. The same way the Panthers
a couple of years ago brought in Adam Dealing to
(38:56):
try to be like, okay, like we want to give
Bryce young somebody that he can count on, a smart
receiver who can do everything. I think Cup can be
that guy for a young quarterback. As for Stafford, I
think this one was really up in the air, Jmac.
I mean that contract negotiation with strained last year.
Speaker 8 (39:12):
It took.
Speaker 13 (39:13):
I mean it took the entire offseason to get it done.
They took all the guaranteed money out of twenty twenty five,
moved money up to twenty twenty four, and created a
decision point after this year. And so by the middle
of March they got a roster bonus do then they're
gonna have to make a decision on what they want
to do with.
Speaker 8 (39:29):
Matthew Stafford going forward.
Speaker 13 (39:31):
And I know this, like, if I'm a team like
the Pittsburgh Steelers, I'm at least calling right now to
see if he's available, because I don't think it's a
sure thing that he's back, in part because if he
was looking for a market correction last year on his contract,
chances are he's gonna be looking for the same sort
of market correction again this year. And I'm not sure
where the rams appetite is for that when you consider
(39:53):
what is there seven or eight or nine quarterbacks making
over fifty million dollars per year?
Speaker 8 (39:56):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (39:57):
All right, real quick, we got a minute left. Miles Garrett.
I floated Washington and the Rams as options, just guessing,
how about you. Any teams for Miles Garrett? Detroit, Yes,
Detroit with Hutchinson, anyone else?
Speaker 8 (40:12):
I love Detroit.
Speaker 13 (40:13):
I just liked the idea of look like, they've had
so much positive momentum in the last couple of years,
right like, and everything's gone so right for them the
last two years, and then they have the shocking loss
of the Commanders and they lose a half dozen coaches,
both their coordinators are gone. It sort of feels like
some of the momentum has gone the other way for them.
So they have Aiden Hutchinson coming back off the injury.
(40:33):
They're gonna pay Aiden Hutchinson, what better way to kind
of make sure that he has some runway and coming
back off the injury and the defense has a real
strength to build off of. Then you get Aiden Hutchinson
back from injury, you'll have a lame McNeil coming back
from injury. And then oh, by the way, you've got
Miles Garrett out there. The key for me with Miles
(40:55):
Garrett is he's got to match up with your timeline,
you know what I'm saying, Like so it's twenty nine
years old, and you have to be a team that's
in a position where you can say, over the next
two years or so, we need to be in a
position to compete for a championship, or we risk by
the time we get there, maybe this guy is starting
to go downhill a little bit. The Choice is the
perfect team for that. The Choice right in the championship window.
(41:15):
They've got cap space, their rosters loaded. There may not
be five or six rookies that make their team next year,
so their draft picks are a little bit more expendable.
I love the idea of having Aiden Hutchinson and Miles
Garrett opposite each other. Maybe it's sort of the same
way Denver had Von Milburn and Aging DeMarcus square on
the other side about a decade ago.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Albert Breer Monday Morning Quarterback. Great stuff. Thank you, Albert.
We are back after this
Thanks for listening to The Herd podcast. Be sure to
catch us live every weekday on Fox Sports Radio in
noon to three Eastern nine am to noon Pacific. Find
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dot com, or stream us live every day on the
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Speaker 2 (00:21):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:24):
Welcome to the Herd. Jason McIntyre in for yes a
sick Colin Cowherd again spoke to the big guy last night.
He was feeling all right and feeling better, but probably
not good enough to go today, so they went back
to the bullpen. Manager came and tapped me on the shoulder. Hey,
j Mac, it's time for the show. We need you
so I'm ready to rock and roll people. We had
(00:46):
a productive morning meeting. I'll pull back the curtain a
little bit. I am flying totally solo today as another
member of the staff went home sick. We're all battling
at folks, but this is what we do, you know,
long season and we're here to play. We got some
great topics, excellent guests. I'm gonna kind of blow your
mind with an NBA take in like seven minutes. But
we've got to start obviously with the NFL. The Super
(01:09):
Bowl week is fully upon US Media Day or Media Night.
Sorry was last night in New Orleans. You had a
lot of people saying interesting stuff. You guys know how
that Super Bowl media night works. It's a big scene.
I saw Pete Schrager walking around with the microphone. I
saw Jameis Winston working for Fox doing some stuff with
our digital side. It was all fun. And I did
(01:30):
see one interesting thing from Pat Mahomes that we're going
to start the show with. And I want to just
talk quickly at large dynasties. Okay, yes, I detested could
not stand the Patriots dynasty. You guys know that. I'm
a Jets fan, but it wasn't just me that didn't
like the Patriots. They were disliked around the league. Fans everywhere.
(01:50):
Nobody liked them. Come on, how could you like a
franchise that had an ornery coach? You know Bill Belichick?
Initially people liked him, right he got runoff in Cleveland.
He did make the playoffs there, but then he got
run off and it was like, ah, Belichick, Oh this
is a great story. Bill Belichick's back and Initially, people
liked the Patriots. Tom Brady a sixth round pick coming
(02:13):
in for the number one pick that drew Bledsoe in
his massive contract, and Brady's a great underdog story. People
loved the Patriots initially. Then they got dominant. The dynasty
started rolling and everybody was out on the Patriots. I
can't stand him. And then you toss in Spygate, which
was a real thing. Guys. You can look it up.
You can deny. Oh, it's no big deal. Look it up.
(02:35):
The facts are not great in Spygate.
Speaker 2 (02:37):
Then you had to.
Speaker 3 (02:37):
Flake Gate, which was probably a little overblown. But at
that point people were so sick of the Patriots that
they had become villains. Everybody nationwide rooted against the Patriots.
It was Boston against the world, you know. And they
kept the dynasty rolling. So enter the Kansas City Chiefs,
and last night Patrick Mahomes was asked, hey man, you
(02:59):
guys kind of the villains now. And I'll get to
that in a second, but here's what Mahomes said, addressing
the villains label to the Chiefs, I.
Speaker 4 (03:07):
Don't even think it's embracing me. In the villains, we
embrace who we are and Now, we believe we play
the game the right way. We believe that we play
with a lot of heart and a lot of passion
for the game, and then we win football games, and
that winning football games makes you a villain. We're gonna
go keep going out there and doing it.
Speaker 3 (03:21):
Ah, Now, listen, I have been vocal against the Chiefs
on this show. I'm not a huge fan of this dynasty. However,
I need to be honest with you guys. I'm gonna
keep it real. They're a likable team. Andy Reid. Who's
more likable than Andy Reid? I mean, he looks like
your neighbor. You're going on vacation, You go, Hey, Andy,
how you doing, budd Hey? You know he's got this
(03:43):
jolly look, the big mustache. Hey, I'm going on vacation.
Do you think you could like take out my trash
cans and then bring them back in? Oh, yeah, no problem, Jay,
I got that. That's how Andy. Those are the vibes
he gives off, right, You've got you've seen the memes
of like the kool Aid Man and Andy Reid. He
looks like, say, who doesn't like Andy Reid. Bill Belichick
was this curmudgeon. He was angry at the podium, just unfriendly,
(04:06):
not chatty, but wore that ratty hoodie with the holes
in it, joked about social media without trying to be funny,
never cracked a smile like Andy Reid. Much more likable
than Belichick now. Tom Brady obviously very likable. You know,
cool guy. Ladies loved him, you wanted to be friends
with him. Same thing with Patrick Mahomes. And listen, I
(04:27):
don't follow a ton of athletes on Instagram, but I
follow Mahomes. He's a likable dude. He's got a wife,
he's got kids. He seems like a normal guy. Right,
They're actually likable, So why are they villains? And again,
I I'm not calling them villains. I just don't really
like their dominance. I'm ready for new teams. But if
you watch how they play, they're a fun, good football team.
Speaker 5 (04:51):
Right.
Speaker 3 (04:51):
They've got less fun since they lost Tyreek Hill, and
they're a little less explosive. Teams started going to the
two high safeties to take away the big plays and
then it's death by seven yard Patrick Mahomes scrambles or
Isaac Pacheco. Carey's the reason I'm out on them. And again, Okay,
this is maybe just me. Is this whole referee thing
they get And again, I'm not saying it's rigged, they
(05:12):
do get a lot of calls every pivotal play involving
a Chiefs game. Guys, No, lie, you're watching the play
ends and you're looking around, where's the flag? Is there
a flag?
Speaker 6 (05:21):
Oh?
Speaker 4 (05:22):
No?
Speaker 3 (05:22):
Flag? Wow? It just feels like on every pivotal third
or fourth down play, somehow it goes the Chief's way.
And I know everybody wants to say, hey, they're buttoned up,
and guys, every good team is buttoned up. Okay, They've
had coaching changes like the rest of the league at
offensive cooridator. They've had guys shuffling on the offensive line,
the defense. They've had a lot of changes. And this
(05:43):
whole villain labels interesting because I'm gonna be honest with you,
if the Eagles pull this off, as I think they will,
are the Chiefs still villains or are the only villains
that they win? I just think it's good food for thought.
And I thought that was fascinating from Patrick Mahomes last night.
All Right, now I want to pivot to the NBA
and this story. I'm kind of sort of obsessed with
(06:04):
So not to give you too much of a peak
behind the curtain, but our morning meeting, you know, they
got all these stories that are percolating. I'll throw out
an idea. People will bat around topics. Sometimes they agree,
sometimes they don't. This one, Oh man, I love this story. Okay,
So we all know that the player empowerment era in
the NBA has been going strong for fifteen is years.
(06:25):
Quick history note it didn't totally start with Lebron, although
it kind of did so Lebron if you go back
to I believe it's two thousand and six beats up
or maybe two thousand and seven beats the Detroit Pistons
in that heroic series where he just goes nuclear, takes
them down, gets the young Calves to the finals. He basically,
if you look at that Calvs roster, he dragged like
(06:47):
the equivalent of my men's basketball team to the finals.
They get swept by the Spurs. But it was Lebron
against the world, and Danny Ainge in Boston saw that
and very quickly realized, ain't nobody stopping Lebron. He's too good.
This guy's about to take over the league. So the
Celtics went out and got their own superteam. They built
the first super team. Let's bring on Kevin Garnett. We
(07:08):
got already got Piers, Let's bring on Ray Allen and
they had the superteam. They took down Lebron, so a
couple years later, Lebron's like, shucks, Cavs can't build me
a super team. I'm gonna create my own superteam. And
he did that in Miami, ushering in the player empowerment era,
and for about the last fifteen years NBA players around
(07:28):
the league, Hey, you know what, I kind of want
to play with that superstar. Come on over and a owner,
I want the Max deal, and then five minutes later,
I want out of here. The players controlled the league.
They ran everything. It was. It was all players teaming up,
players calling the shots. The owners were kind of beholding
to the superstars. It's a superstar league. A funny thing
(07:51):
happened over the weekend. Okay, Luka Doncics got traded, and
the reaction was universally, who the hell trades Luka Doncic?
It can't just be because the GM and Michael Finley
is assistant gim thought that Luca was like, you know,
fat and out of shape and didn't want to grind.
(08:12):
You gotta run that by the owner, right, you can't
just trade Luka Doncic And it really shook up the league.
And twenty four hours later, guess what dearon Fox he
got shipped to San Antonio zach Levine, who apparently wasn't
gonna get traded anywhere. He goes to Sacramento owners. It's
almost like they've had it. They've had it with the
(08:34):
player empowerment era. And I'm sure you guys have seen
that movie Captain Phillips, right, it has Tom Hanks as
he's like, you know, the captain of a cargo liner.
It gets overtaken by Somali pirates and at one point
in the movie, and you could go watch this on YouTube,
you know, they're like, who's the captain and Tom Hanks
is like, I'm the captain, this is my ship. And
(08:55):
this guy goes, no, no, no, look me in my eyes.
I'm the captain. Now, I'm the It feels like the
owners are looking their star players in the eye and saying,
no more player empowerment. I'm running the show. This is
my show. I'm the billionaire now. And if Luka, donc
just can get traded. Shuck shucked. Anybody can get traded.
(09:17):
Anybody can get traded. I'll get you to the big
name who's starting to percolate now in a second. But
I bring up this player empowerment stuff because one of
the guys in the morning meetings said something I just
totally forgot about. So last year, the Timberwolves go to
the conference finals and I get all these guys on
social media saying, Jason stop with the Carl Anthony Towns
to New York. It's not happening. I've been saying this
(09:38):
for like three years. We knew he wanted to go
to New York. And this guy made like a friendly
bet with me on social media. I bet you he
doesn't get traded. Now, they went to the conference finals,
and I was like, I'll just stick with my prediction.
Even though they went to the conference finals. Folks, do
we forget Minnesota was in the conference finals and just
traded away their second best player. Now why is that, Well,
(10:00):
you could say they're not a great fit, but they
went to the conference finals. It's because the owner didn't
want to pay that luxury tax that they were going
to be in for because Carl Anthony Town's a salary
and Gobert and Anthony Edwards. It's like, holy cow, they
traded away Carl Anthony Towns And that was kind of
glossed over at the time. But Dallas. The real reason
(10:20):
that's coming out that they didn't want to pay Luka
doncis they traded him. They don't want to pay him
three hundred and forty five million because it's tough to
build around one guy making that much money. As a
side note, NFL owners take note, quarterbacks, they're headed in
this direction. You know what's happening. We saw it with
Dak Prescott. He got paid. Had the Mavericks do sorry,
(10:41):
had the cowboy the can Kun Cowboys as I'm told
they're called, Now, how did they do? So? Just file
that away, NFL. What's happening in the NBA is these
owners are like, these salaries are out of control. We're
not winning paying all these guys all the money. Let's
go trade Luka Doncic. And I'll wrap up with this
because this is the other name that emerged here in
the last twenty four hours, and that's Kevin Durant. Kevin
(11:04):
Durant was in Brooklyn said, get me the hell out
of here. I'd like to go to Phoenix. Okay, yes, yes, Kevin,
we got you. We'll let you go to Phoenix. And
Kevin Durant is now sitting in Phoenix. Wait, everybody's waiting
for Bradley Beal to get traded, but it doesn't look
like it's gonna happen. And as a result, Phoenix sitting
tenth in the West. They could miss the playoffs, miss
(11:24):
the play in and all of a sudden, we're starting
to hear Oh, everybody's calling about Kevin Durant, and you
have to if you're the young owner in Phoenix, how
do we get better? We might have to trade Kevin Durant.
We might have to get off our second best player,
because you know what, we can't miss the playoffs and
pay a massive luxury tax bill because of the salaries
(11:46):
and folks. Unbelievably, Dwayne Wade kind of sort of addressed
this this week on the Why podcast. Here's his take
on why Luca was traded.
Speaker 7 (11:56):
This was billionaire business.
Speaker 8 (11:57):
Yes, this was at the top.
Speaker 7 (11:59):
This was the last Twitter fifteen years. The players have decided,
right what we want to do. This was the owners
the governor's yep. The billionaires, Yeah, deciding what they want
to do it. So you got the top international player
in LA. So the viewership, the ticket sales, everybody you
were Spain, they're all coming into LA.
Speaker 5 (12:20):
We know how this.
Speaker 7 (12:20):
So I'm looking at the business and I'm like, the
hold up, this was an amazing business decision by billionaires. Yes,
sure to say this is what I want for now
and this is what we need as a league.
Speaker 3 (12:34):
You guys, remember when Otani went to the Dodgers. They
paid all of the money. It was like, oh my god,
how can they afford? This kind of worked out well,
didn't it. They won the World Series merch sale through
the roof, ticket sales spiking. They're printing money now the
Dodgers by spending money, and I wonder did the Lakers
make this move? Hey, we are set up for the future,
(12:55):
but we just got Luca, an international superstar that's going
to open a gateway to Europe for US financially. I mean,
I don't know if you guys saw the reports the
Dallas Mavericks social media accounts were just hemorrhaging followers, tens
of thousands. I saw a report hundreds of thousands of followers.
I don't know if it's official they lost a lot
of followers because they're out on They traded Luca and
(13:19):
Dwyane Wade is totally onto something here. This was a
great business move. And coming up next here on the Herd,
I will tell you the next big NBA star on
the move. I don't think you're gonna know Kevin Durant
to the mix, but there are a couple others. Keep
an eye out that's next here on the Herd.
Speaker 2 (13:34):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and noon Eastern not am Pacific on Fox Sports Radio
FS one and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 3 (13:42):
Welcome back. We've got Albert Breer stopping by in about
fifteen to twenty minutes. Albert Brier, really good guy, really
plugged in. I think he's already in New Orleans at
the super Bowl. I'm sure he'll offer us some great
stuff from last night at Super Bowl Media Night, which
look a big time party down in New Orleans. All right,
let's quickly go back to the NBA. Anthony Edwards is
(14:06):
a young ascending star. I know this is probably the
first time in the show's history we've actually mentioned the
Timberwolves twice in the first hour. But Anthony Edwards. I
thought he would be taken over the league. There's a
new book coming out on him shortly. Anthony Edwards took
the Timberwolves to the conference finals last year. It appeared
to be one of these like face of the league guys,
(14:27):
very likable individual, the dunking machine scorer. Everything about Anthony
Edwards is awesome, But a weird thing starting to happen again.
This Luka Doncis trade really shook everybody up. And this
idea that nobody's safe and owners have the power and
they can move off anybody. Well, Anthony Edwards saw what
happened with Luka Doncics and he talked to the media
(14:49):
about it last night.
Speaker 9 (14:51):
They say that none of it. Nobody knew about the trades. Yeah,
so that's crazy. At twenty five they traded probably.
Speaker 8 (14:59):
The best score in the NBA. At twenty five, he
didn't know about it.
Speaker 9 (15:04):
So there's a lot more digging somebody got to do
to find out why you got to trade it, because you.
Speaker 8 (15:08):
Don't just trade him at twenty five, he just went
to the finals.
Speaker 9 (15:11):
You know what I'm saying, everybody three everybody getting Yeah,
I'm scared. Yeah, I'm scared. Tim, Hey, if you're gonna
trade me, let me know when Luca got traded, anybody
is able to trade at that point.
Speaker 3 (15:29):
I'm scared. I like that, and that's it feels. It
felt authentic from Anthony Edwards, like I'm sure he's joking.
Speaker 4 (15:35):
Ha ha ha.
Speaker 3 (15:37):
You know one of those deals? Are you looking over
your shoulder a little bit? Listen, if you could trade
Luka Doncic, why wouldn't you trade Anthony Edwards. Now, obviously
Anthony Edwards is a foundational piece in Minnesota. I would
say there's zero point zero percent chance of him getting moved,
But post Luca, maybe you got to add like a
point zero zero one chance, which brings me. By the
way Luca's meeting with the media, I think like right
(15:58):
now out here in LA they're doing the press conference,
will have sound as soon as the good stuff comes out.
But it got me thinking, like who else could be
moved this week? What else is happening around the league?
And I touched on Kevin Durant earlier we got like
forty eight hours left, folks, Kevin Durant would not surprise
me at all, if he got shipped. The interesting team
is the Golden State Warriors. And I know some people
(16:19):
are like, come on, they're not going to do that again. Listen,
the Warriors needed Kevin Durant when they got him in
twenty sixteen. I don't care. I hear so many just goofballs.
Oh they didn't need him. They won seventy three games. Hello.
They lost in the finals to Lebron and Kyrie. They
lost after being up three to one. They lost the series.
(16:40):
They needed Kevin Durant. And it's not like Kevin Durant
came on to the Warriors and was like, you know,
riding shotgun. He was the MVP of the Finals two
years in a row. He was the best player on
the best team in for my money, in NBA history.
Of course, the Warriors needed him. Well, you know who
else needs him right now? The Golden State Warriors. I'm
looking at the standings. Oh look at that, Golden State
(17:02):
is eleventh in the West. Steph Curry thirty six, turns
thirty seven later this year. Come on, guys, are we
really gonna waste the prime final prime years of Steph Curry.
We saw what he did in August at the Olympics.
For my money, that was the greatest sports moment in
twenty twenty four, Like Steph Curry putting everybody asleep with
(17:26):
the unbelievable finish at the Olympics spectacular and now he's
gonna miss the freaking playoffs. What they're eleventh in the West.
Jimmy Butler said he doesn't want to go there because
he's not going to sign long term. Which brings me
to Kevin Durant. Why wouldn't the Warriors say, hey, how
do we get Kevin Durant? I was reading. You guys know,
(17:47):
Brian Windhorse covers the league, probably one of the best
plugged in reporters out there. He used to joke, if
you have a three team trade idea, you have a
no team trade idea, because it's so difficult to make
him work. And now he's reversed course and said, geez,
with all these new salaries. I mean, the Utah Jazz
got in on that Luka Donci's trade. They didn't even
(18:08):
know about it until thirty minutes before. Hey, Jazz, by
the way, you guys are taking this in the deal.
You don't have to do anything, you just take this. Okay,
we'll take more picks. Sure, and it's like, why couldn't
you figure out a way if you're Golden State to
pry Kevin Durant away? And now the question becomes with
Kevin Durant want to Golden Golden State? Does he have
(18:28):
a choice? Hey, KD, you're with the Sons, they are
currently tenth in the West. You're going to the Warriors,
who are eleventh in the West. Why not? I mean,
if you're the owner of the Phoenix Suns and you've
got to make the playoffs and you've got to do
something you can't stand pat nobody takes Brad deal, Why
wouldn't you move off KD and get Jimmy Butler, who's
(18:48):
a tougher defender, more of a leader. No disrespect, KD.
You know I'm a fan. I don't need KD coming
after me. Yes, I'll tag him when I post this
video that Wes clips off, but don't come after me, KD.
I still think you can help Warriors. I don't think
y'all are winning a title. I don't know that you'd
want to go back and play with Draymond Green, who
was kind of a jerk to you many moons ago,
and you know Sucker punch Jordan Poole, and I don't
(19:12):
know that you want to go there. But do the
Warriors have anything that the heat would want? Kuminga pods like?
It becomes very difficult. But if I'm a Warriors, I'm
working the phones and I'm gonna toss this other name.
Two other names in there, so number one and Anton.
You just heard Anthony Edward say nobody's safe. I'm just
(19:33):
gonna mention him. Yannis and Milwaukee. The Bucks currently are
fifth in the East. The Damian Lillard thing, we've given
it a while. I don't know that it's working. I
just don't. I don't know what the future holds for
Dame in Milwaukee. Ain't nobody taken on Dame's contract. That's
just not happening.
Speaker 8 (19:52):
You can't.
Speaker 3 (19:52):
It's like not quite Bradley be old bad. But you know,
Dame's a better player now than Bille. But it becomes
a little onerous. And if you're the owner's group and
you're looking around, like, geez, we don't have a path
to success. Middleton keeps getting injured. Do we just hey,
we got a title with Yannis. Do we just start over?
And I know it sounds stupid, but look what the
Mavericks just did with Luca. Now janis obviously less of
(20:16):
an issue fitness wise, allegedly. I'm not calling Luca fat
or anything, but that's it's become clear that Mavericks shipped
him for two reasons and out of shape and reluctance
to work as one of them. There's none of that
with Yannis. But you have to wonder, do the Bucks
consider Shucks. Maybe we move on from Yannis and start
over and it's too late to get into Cooper Flag sweepstakes.
(20:40):
But it's like, I don't know, And again I know
you guys are listening, like, come on, they're not trading
y honest. Look around the league. Towns went to the
conference finals. They shipped him, Luca went to the finals,
traded like things are happening. The other name I'll put
out there, and his name has been out in the past,
including for the Lakers, although that's not happening now is
(21:00):
Trey Young. Trey Young a guy who hit this league
like something of a comet. Remember he was taking the
Hawks to the playoffs, took down the Knickson MSG, took
down Embiid and the Sixers. Do you guys remember that. Okay,
that was yes, I know that Ben Simmons pass whatever,
and Babe was on the court, had seven turnovers game seven.
I don't want to hear it. And now the Hawks,
(21:21):
by the way, are ninth in the East. They lost
their budding star Jalen Johnson for the season, and if
you look at that roster, they're playing dudes that and
you guys know, I'm a big college basketball nerd. I
don't know some of these guys in their roster, and
it's like they might miss the playoffs. What's the point?
And again, you know, I don't know what the market
(21:41):
is for a small point guard like Trey Young, who
really I know, he's leading the league and assists and
Barkley and Shack love him. Now weird, the Hawks stink
and they love Trey Young. It does Trey Young have
a market? I don't know, but I think the Hawks
have to ask themselves what are we doing with Trey Young.
We're not a playoff team anymore, We're maybe a play
(22:03):
in team. He's not our foundational piece Jalen Johnson is
do we reconfigure around a guy and just shoot for
the moon next year and we move on? From Trey Young.
I would keep an eye on Trey Young. I would
keep an eye on Giannis. And to go back to
Jimmy Butler real quick, we have some sound from Kevin Garnett.
People are fired up about this Butler thing because I
do believe it is kind of the end of the
(22:24):
player empowerment era, and Jimmy Butler's kind of, you know,
thinking he's still got power and he's got no juice
and it's like failing miserably. The heat keeps suspending him.
Here's Kevin Garnett on the Jimmy Butler situation.
Speaker 6 (22:40):
When you step out of being professional and then you
step out of not you know, to your oath and
holding up your inn and the bargain, or you open
up all this right here, bro, this is how non
guarantees are going to come into our league right here,
For like this, we falled our ass off through five
and six blockouts to get to a point is no
(23:01):
where we protect the integrity of the talent and then
that talent has a responsibility to be professional coming here
and do your job. We came here, we did our jobs.
You got paid, and you went home. You go home
as soon as you get opportunity to change that, you
change it.
Speaker 3 (23:18):
M Kevin Garnett very fired up about that, and listen,
I have been a huge Jimmy Butler fan essentially for
the last like ten years. His story is incredible. You know,
had a rough family upbringing, no real offers out of
high school, had to go to Juco route, ends up
at Marquette, I think to sign with Marquette he had
to go to like a McDonald's to fax his letter
(23:39):
of intent. Like it was that kind of situation for Butler.
It basically does nothing and then kind of pops, you know,
falls in the draft a little bit and just works
his way up from benchwarmer in Chicago to legitimate All
star ends up like just the gritty nature of Jimmy
Butler carrying the Heat to the finals twice. I know
they didn't win a chip, but it's like, come on, man,
(24:02):
Jimmy Butler is a warrior. I love his style of play.
He doesn't take crap from anyone. You know, he's one
of these He's like a legit dog. Like if you've
got him on your team, you're gonna have a chance.
Because he's Jimmy Butler. You know, there are legendary stories
about him in Minnesota when when he ran into issues
with the front office and he would come into practice
and say, I don't want to run with the starters.
(24:22):
I'm gonna take these four benchwarmers and we're gonna beat
their ass. And he would then go into practice and
they would win the scrimmage. Like the stories are out there.
Jimmy Butler is an absolute dog, and you think everyone
would want him, but he's kind of killed his value
with these actions in Miami. He thought he had the power,
but the players kind of sort of have lost it right.
Coming up next here on The Herd, Luke got introduced
(24:44):
in La. Wait for what you hear about his departure
from Dallas. Oh Boy and Albert, We're live from New Orleans.
Speaker 2 (24:51):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Herd weekdays
and noon Eastern not a Empacific.
Speaker 10 (24:56):
Hey, Steve Covino and I'm Rich David and together we're
Covino on Rich on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 11 (25:01):
You could catch us weekdays from five to seven pm
Eastern two to four Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and
of course the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 5 (25:08):
Why should you listen to Covino and Rich?
Speaker 11 (25:10):
We talk about everything, life, sports, relationships, what's going on
in the world.
Speaker 10 (25:14):
We have a lot of fun talking about the stories
behind the stories in the world of sports and pop culture,
stories that well other shows don't seem to have the
time to discuss.
Speaker 11 (25:23):
And the fact that we've been friends for the last
twenty years and still work together, I mean that says something.
Speaker 5 (25:27):
Right, So check us out.
Speaker 10 (25:29):
We like to get you involved too, Take your phone calls,
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Speaker 5 (25:36):
Most interactive show on planetar.
Speaker 10 (25:38):
Be sure to check out Covino and Rich live on
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Speaker 5 (25:50):
That's Covino and Rich.
Speaker 3 (25:53):
Back here on the Herd. Albert Brier coming up in
a second. But folks, Luka Doncitz just met the media
in law said Dula's Oh boy, oh wait to hear this.
So Luca is very measured. He actually looks slim. I
was expecting him to wear black to look skinnier, you know,
like because of all the jokes. But Luca just met
with the media and uh, oh boy, here's a veiled
(26:15):
shot at the MAVs front office from Luka Doncic.
Speaker 12 (26:20):
I'm just excited, you know, to be here to start
this new journey, journey and obviously, uh, at some point
I knew this was gonna happen, But I would say,
I always take the high road, you know, I had
my amazing moments in Dollars with all my teammates, coaches
and the most importantly defense, you know that always supported me.
(26:41):
And it was it was an amazing.
Speaker 3 (26:43):
Journey, players, coaches, fans. I knew this was gonna happen.
Oh gosh, that's delicious. So I found, you know, people
put stuff online and this this came from an article
that the Mavericks have in August or twenty three, fired
their player of health and performance coaching, and then they
(27:05):
fired two other strength coaches and a therapist. And the
common thread was all those guys were friendly with Luca.
I know this sounds losory to say as a guy,
but some guys are just cool guys that everybody likes,
you know, And I know people are laughing in the
control room. Luca just seems like a cool guy. He's friendly,
he's funny. I don't know if you guys have seen
some of the clips that the MAVs used to put
(27:26):
out of him playing like horse or one on one,
Like everybody likes Luka Doncic. Why didn't the front office
like him? That was the issue. They fired the people
that liked Luca, right, get them out of the building. Hey,
let's get some people who Luca's not tight with. And
it's like, it's just very ugly in Dallas and him
(27:47):
knowing this was gonna happen and saying that, oh, that
is not good. I think the clock is if it
wasn't already, the clock is ticking on Nico Harrison in Dallas.
Speaker 7 (27:56):
Hey.
Speaker 3 (27:57):
By the way, if they missed the playoffs, is either
GM next year?
Speaker 11 (28:00):
Uh.
Speaker 3 (28:00):
Luca also talked about playing with Lebron. He's a little excited.
Speaker 12 (28:04):
It's just like a dream come shoe, you know. I
always look up to him. Uh. And there's so many
learning There's so many things I can learn from him,
and I'm just excited, you know, just to learn everything.
You know, I get to play with him, So it's
an amazing feeling.
Speaker 3 (28:19):
Yeah, very excited. All right, let's get to Albert Breer
live from New Orleans the Monday Morning Quarterback dot Com. Brear,
what is up? You look like you're where are you
chucked in?
Speaker 13 (28:30):
Some some like I'm at the No, I'm at the
Chiefs Hotel. I'm like outside their access and I'm sure
like Dave and the guys in the studio probably aren't
happy about this, like light that's coming down on me
and washing me out a little bit, But I trust
you can help me fight through it.
Speaker 8 (28:45):
Jmax.
Speaker 3 (28:46):
Yes, yes, yes, so Chiefs. What's the vibe around the team?
You're in the hotel? Have you seen Taylor Swift? That's
gotta be the first question.
Speaker 13 (28:52):
Right, Yeah, I don't think. I don't think Taylor so
I'm staying at the Maria. Might be wrong about that,
but but I don't think she staying at the Marriott.
Speaker 4 (29:01):
No.
Speaker 13 (29:02):
Man, Like, it's like, this is a confident group, you know,
and they've been here obviously five times and six years now,
that's unprecedented. You know, you can kind of feel with
them where they really know this is a business trip.
They know what to expect and they know the ins
and outs of the week and kind of the way
everything goes, and so, you know, I think that's their
advantage is that they'll be able to take the stage
(29:23):
without having to deal with a lot of the unknown
that another team might, you know, whether it's the length
of warm ups, the length of of the the introductions,
a lot of the standing around, you know, during game day.
Speaker 8 (29:38):
The halftime show.
Speaker 13 (29:40):
They know, you know, how to prepare for every single
piece of that, which you know, I know they hope allows.
Speaker 8 (29:45):
Them to hit the ground running on Sunday.
Speaker 3 (29:47):
Yeah, what do you make of this? A villain's comment
from Patrick Mahomes. You know, we don't mind being the villains,
will embrace it. It's weird, Albert, Like, I don't know
that people hate them. I think I think people hate
their winning, but people like don't dislike Andy Reid or
Patrick Mahomes.
Speaker 13 (30:04):
You know, Yeah, I don't think that there's a hatred
towards the individual people.
Speaker 8 (30:08):
But I do think there's a little bit of that
villain thing with.
Speaker 13 (30:11):
The way people complain about the officiating, the way I
think people have grown a little tired of them. You know,
obviously all the conversation Sean Taylor Swift, which and the
reality is like, if you count up all the seconds
that she's actually on TV during NFL games, is it
more than like the owner is of the team.
Speaker 8 (30:29):
I mean, I probably not.
Speaker 13 (30:30):
And I think a lot more people would like to
see Taylor Swift than some old rich guy up in
the up in the box, you know. So I think
there's a lot of like those sorts of elements that
have existed with every dynasty. You know, the Patriots dealt
with it. You're sitting there in Los Angeles. There are
a lot of people who probably aren't happy about Luca
finding up there and think there's some sort of conspiracy afoot.
Speaker 8 (30:51):
You know.
Speaker 13 (30:51):
It's just with teams like this that reach this sort
of plateau, you have.
Speaker 8 (30:57):
That element of it.
Speaker 13 (30:58):
And I actually think it's good that you and brace
the villain role, you know. It's really they're really right
about the same point, and they're assent and their dynasty,
as the Patriots were.
Speaker 8 (31:08):
When they took on the villain role.
Speaker 13 (31:10):
And I think really things really turned for the Patriots
with Spygate, you know, and two thousand and seven was
when they went from sort of being just a really
good team that was respected into this like kind of
dark operation, you know, and I don't know the Chiefs
lover get that level of villain status, but it definitely
exists to some degree. And I think it's a smart
(31:32):
move for them all to embrace it because you know,
as long as Patrick Mahomes and Andy Reid are there now,
I think that'll sort of be the way that they're
lucked at.
Speaker 3 (31:41):
Here's one who's under more pressure in this Super Bowl,
Patrick Mahomes or Jalen Hurts. And is there a case
to be made for Mahomes because of the pressure of
the three people, which they've been talking about for basically
a calendar year now, whereas Jalen Hurts is like, I
throw the ball eighteen times a game, This is no
big deal. I'm carrying my briefcase. There's a business trip.
(32:02):
Is there more pressure on Mahomes?
Speaker 8 (32:05):
I don't think so. I mean, I think Mahomes. I
mean to me, I look at where.
Speaker 13 (32:08):
The Chiefs are and it's sort of you're playing with
house money, you know what I mean? Like, And I
know they don't approach it that way, and I know
there's history on the line and everything else, but you know,
I think Mahomes has played so well in so many
of these settings that if he were to, you know,
throw an interception at the end of the game, it's
not going to really affect his legacy. Where if you
(32:29):
come into this in your jail and hurts you've had,
there's gonna be your second opportunity to get there.
Speaker 8 (32:34):
I don't think, you know, most.
Speaker 13 (32:35):
People would view you in that top echelana quarterbacks where
mahomes at the top or underneath them you have Josh Allen,
Joe Burrow, and Lamar Jackson, you know, and so I
think it's sort of for hers. This is an opportunity
to kind of elevate your legacy, elevate the way that
you're looked at, elevate the way your team has looked at.
There's a lot on the line, Whereas I think with
(32:57):
the Chiefs there's probably a chance to really burnish your
legacy with the three peat. But I think the way
that history's going to look at you is sort of
already set in stone.
Speaker 3 (33:08):
Not to get two x's and o's. But I don't
know if it was Hasselbeck or Sanchez yesterday who had
a good point. You know, left tackle had been an
issue for the Chiefs, so they moved Toney out. He's
been great, But for the Eagles, you need interior blocking.
It's paramount against you know, they're two big horses, Davis
and Carter inside. Do you think the Chiefs play a
(33:28):
little musical chairs and kick Tooney back inside?
Speaker 13 (33:32):
Yeah, I J Mack, I'm glad you brought that up
because I think that's one of the more underrated pieces
of this game and decisions to be made in this
game by Andy Reid and Matt Nagi and you know,
all the guys who work with the offensive line. That
left tackle spot was a revolving door for much of
the year and it was a real problem. It's a
credit to Joe Toney, who's been one of the NFL's
(33:52):
ultimate ironman. He's going for his fifth ring here. You
know one two at Brady's won two with Mahomes Brin.
To be able to do that and sort of out
their revolving door and stabilize it's been amazing.
Speaker 8 (34:02):
But you're right to look at it like that.
Speaker 13 (34:04):
The Eagles have good edge guys, but they don't have
a great edge guy, and they've got Jordan Davis and
Jalen Carter inside. Jalen Carter during the playoffs has been
a true game wrecord, like you could argue he really
won that game at the end in the divisional round
against the Rams and the Snow And so you know,
if you take Toney and leave him at left tackle,
(34:25):
then left guard becomes a hole and they've got the
opportunity to match Jalen Carter up and create a mismatch there,
and then you've got to handle that.
Speaker 8 (34:33):
So what do you feel more comfortable with.
Speaker 13 (34:35):
Do you feel more comfortable with Janie Morris or DJ
Humphreys who has been banged up but has a lot
of experience at left tackle handling the edge guys, which
you might still be a disadvantage there but a little
less so. Or do you feel like you need to
put Tuny out of left tackle because that's the mix
that's worked and then just help with the guards.
Speaker 8 (34:56):
On the on the on the on the on the
defensive tack.
Speaker 13 (35:00):
I think it's a pivotal I think he's a pivotal
decision for the Chiefs coaches to make going into this
this game, and it'll be interesting to see what they do.
And maybe it's a mix of both, you know, maybe
it's a field thing where they rotate a little bit
in the first quarter and then go it's with what's working.
Speaker 3 (35:15):
Yeah, I like Nolan Smith on the outside against Morris
all Dave for the Eagles.
Speaker 8 (35:20):
But that's the thing.
Speaker 3 (35:21):
So we saw the Buffalo bill struggle with the Tousch
push badly against the Chiefs. I'm just curious, do you
think that was more about what the Chiefs were doing
or the Bills are just not very good at it?
And I don't. It probably won't apply to the Eagles,
who are great at it.
Speaker 13 (35:35):
No, I think it does apply to the Eels to
some degree where I think Steve Spagnolo his defense is
so versatile and he's able to do so many different
things with the group of guys that he has. He
he said to me last year during the playoffs that
this is the smartest group I've ever had.
Speaker 8 (35:49):
So this was during last year's playoffs, and then.
Speaker 13 (35:52):
As I talked to him this year, he's like, and
this group is even smarter than that one. You know,
his point's been like his point, the point he's made
me a few times is like that, you know, he's
always had smart guys. His defense requires having smart guys,
but there always be like a few guys out there
that are kind of iffy. The difference with these two
groups he's had the last two years is that everybody
(36:12):
knows what they're doing and what that allows for. It
allows for you to do different things to mess with
the matchups because you can move guys around and play
them in different spots, and they're smart enough to learn
all the different spots and the different responsibilities, which allows
you to play these situations the way that they were
able to play them against Buffalo. Now that said, I
think we both know that stopping those short yards plays
(36:33):
against the Eagles is a totally different kettle efficient. So
I think there's a little bit of a cascading effect here.
It's stopping Saquon Barkland first down, and then if you
can get them in second and along, that's where you got
to stop Jalen Hurts running the ball because generally that's
when he runs the ball the most, and that's where
he creates those third and shorts, those fourth and shorts
(36:54):
to put them in a position to really take advantage
of being the best team in short yards there is
in football. So I think there's a really cool like
element of game within the game there where yes, the
Chiefs are better at those things than a lot of
other teams.
Speaker 8 (37:11):
But they've got to be capable of staying out of
them too, because if you say, you say.
Speaker 13 (37:15):
You're in four of them, you know over the course
of the game, Well it's easier to say, like, let's
stop three of those and maybe one gets gets biased.
Speaker 8 (37:23):
Then it's going to be if you've got to face
eight or ten of them.
Speaker 3 (37:25):
Yeah, all right, Let's look at the NFL at large.
You're as plugged in as anybody talking texting Cooper Cup
your best guess at some landing spots, some teams perhaps
interested in in Cup, And then I'm curious, it's the
damage that does to the Rams and Stafford that was
his boy on the team. They were tight. I wonder
if something's a foot with the Rams that maybe we're
(37:47):
not aware of yet.
Speaker 8 (37:48):
Why are you talking about Stafford maybe moving or yep?
Speaker 13 (37:52):
Yeah, So I would say with Cup like just in
a vacuum, you know, things have sort of I think
turned a little bit over the last year too, to
some degree, like he and Pooka are great players, they're
a little redundant to one another, and that they're both
maybe best inside. Neither guy's a burner, and so you know,
(38:12):
you know, when you're building an offense in the way
that Sean McVay builds his offense, there's a way of
doing it where you want to kind of build their
basketball team and have all those guys do different things.
And so as great as those two guys are individually,
you know, you maybe look at it the rams and
it's like, is it a luxury to have two of
them out there? As for landing spots, I mean, I
think you know, Cooper would be great with a young quarterback,
(38:35):
you know, so could he be like a really good
number two for Washington, right, Like imagine him with Terry
McLaurin on the other side where he doesn't have to
be the number one, and as a security blanket for
Jayden Daniels. So maybe Jayden Daniels has to run a
little bit less. That's the sort of situation where I
think it will be ideal. The same way the Panthers
a couple of years ago brought in Adam Dealing to
(38:56):
try to be like, okay, like we want to give
Bryce young somebody that he can count on, a smart
receiver who can do everything. I think Cup can be
that guy for a young quarterback. As for Stafford, I
think this one was really up in the air, Jmac.
I mean that contract negotiation with strained last year.
Speaker 8 (39:12):
It took.
Speaker 13 (39:13):
I mean it took the entire offseason to get it done.
They took all the guaranteed money out of twenty twenty five,
moved money up to twenty twenty four, and created a
decision point after this year. And so by the middle
of March they got a roster bonus do then they're
gonna have to make a decision on what they want
to do with.
Speaker 8 (39:29):
Matthew Stafford going forward.
Speaker 13 (39:31):
And I know this, like, if I'm a team like
the Pittsburgh Steelers, I'm at least calling right now to
see if he's available, because I don't think it's a
sure thing that he's back, in part because if he
was looking for a market correction last year on his contract,
chances are he's gonna be looking for the same sort
of market correction again this year. And I'm not sure
where the rams appetite is for that when you consider
(39:53):
what is there seven or eight or nine quarterbacks making
over fifty million dollars per year?
Speaker 8 (39:56):
Right now?
Speaker 3 (39:57):
All right, real quick, we got a minute left. Miles Garrett.
I floated Washington and the Rams as options, just guessing,
how about you. Any teams for Miles Garrett? Detroit, Yes,
Detroit with Hutchinson, anyone else?
Speaker 8 (40:12):
I love Detroit.
Speaker 13 (40:13):
I just liked the idea of look like, they've had
so much positive momentum in the last couple of years,
right like, and everything's gone so right for them the
last two years, and then they have the shocking loss
of the Commanders and they lose a half dozen coaches,
both their coordinators are gone. It sort of feels like
some of the momentum has gone the other way for them.
So they have Aiden Hutchinson coming back off the injury.
(40:33):
They're gonna pay Aiden Hutchinson, what better way to kind
of make sure that he has some runway and coming
back off the injury and the defense has a real
strength to build off of. Then you get Aiden Hutchinson
back from injury, you'll have a lame McNeil coming back
from injury. And then oh, by the way, you've got
Miles Garrett out there. The key for me with Miles
(40:55):
Garrett is he's got to match up with your timeline,
you know what I'm saying, Like so it's twenty nine
years old, and you have to be a team that's
in a position where you can say, over the next
two years or so, we need to be in a
position to compete for a championship, or we risk by
the time we get there, maybe this guy is starting
to go downhill a little bit. The Choice is the
perfect team for that. The Choice right in the championship window.
(41:15):
They've got cap space, their rosters loaded. There may not
be five or six rookies that make their team next year,
so their draft picks are a little bit more expendable.
I love the idea of having Aiden Hutchinson and Miles
Garrett opposite each other. Maybe it's sort of the same
way Denver had Von Milburn and Aging DeMarcus square on
the other side about a decade ago.
Speaker 3 (41:34):
Albert Breer Monday Morning Quarterback. Great stuff. Thank you, Albert.
We are back after this
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Colin Cowherd
Jason McIntyre
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