August 6, 2026 • 50 mins
Mike Harmon and Jared Smith dropped serious knowledge on all the Dodgers struggles as of late, they debated if the Super Bowl door ever opens for Josh Allen and the Bills. Plus, they tell you if they’re excited or not for the HOF Game. Micah Parsons pointed to "no camp" in 2025 as the contributing factor toward his ACL tear.
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Speaker 1 (00:00):
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Carmon podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern
seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
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Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is the best of the Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Come on now, beautiful Wednesday night here Fox Sports or Radio.
As the Big Voice Man said, there's no Jason Smith tonight.
It's me. You're humble host Mike Harmon alongside Jared Smith.
You hear him on Countdown Saturday Morning, part of the
line up here Fox Sports Radio alongside Rich Ornberger and
Brian no each and every Saturday. You follow him in
(00:49):
the twitterverse at Jared Smith bets, always on your mind,
always on your heart. Check out everything he's got going there,
ready to unleash a veritable flurry of activity and information
on the National Football League. We'll do some of that tonight,
and then you'll go into the wee hours of the
morning and you'll ferret out more information that Jared is
(01:11):
parsing out for you. Jared, welcome back in. Last time
we met, we had the Lebron James news. Nothing seismic
like that today, except for the fact that the Dodgers
have suddenly forgotten what's that important thing, how to win?
That's it. Otherwise, we're getting ready for the Hall of
Fame game and the end of summer for many as
(01:34):
I'm starting to see people going back to school, So
welcome back in. Is it one hundred and thirty five
degrees still in Vegas?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
It's rough. I was just talking to Alex, our technical producer,
and you know, when I do this shift, I usually
have to take the dog on a little bit of
an earlier walk when it's still relatively I would say,
like Aracus out there for those Dune fans, it's time,
it's it's it's it is hot. So he is currently
in the fetal position next to me, completely wiped from
(02:04):
a very hot walk, but all as well because he'll
be nice and quiet for the show. Yeah, not a
whole lot of news this week in terms of I
would say baseball, right, other than I don't know, like
the best pitcher getting traded, and the fact that the
other teams in Major League Baseball just seem completely content
with allowing the Dodgers to collect pieces like Fantos collects
(02:26):
Infinity stones. We'll see where the chips fall in a
couple months. Like it's such a weird And by the way,
the Dodgers will be fine, Like they're on the road
at Wrigley it's a tough environment, tough place to win, Like,
they'll be fine. Scooble pitch fine yesterday. They're gonna be
back on track soon. I think it's just more about
the rest of the league. And right now, based off
(02:47):
of the odds, it's not quite a pick them yet,
but we're getting close to pick them territory in terms
of the Dodgers against the field, and I think by
the time we get to October, I think it will
be Dodgers at almost against the rest of the field.
And I don't know if there's a team out there
in baseball that can beat him in a seven game series.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Well, and that is the fun Matt, that we'll do
a little bit of now as we get things started.
Because they were at Wrigley Field today and while maybe
things haven't changed seismically league wide. Right, it's still a long,
arduous journey before we get to October. Well, we did
see some chains changing in big odds, and part of
(03:27):
it was fueled by PCA hitting another long ball to
help propel the Cubs to another win.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, the MVP market is hot and heavy right now.
I think that's probably the most interesting race of all
the American League National League MVP so I young races.
It seems to be basically a dead heat. I'll pull up.
I haven't looked at the war in the last few days.
I looked at it a couple of weeks ago. Otani
(03:55):
was pretty much, you know, in front, and recently over
the last couple of days is really really gone after
him pretty hard. Yeah. So the difference this year is
Otani is pitching a little bit, not a lot, but
a little bit, and I don't think he's gonna pitch
much any more of the rest of the year. If
it all. He's only pitched eighty five innings this year,
which is not a lot in terms of a starting pitcher.
(04:18):
The hitting war is squarely Petek Armstrong, you know, is
the leader in the clubhouse there and they both have
around the same plate appearances, and PCA is significantly ahead
of Otani in terms of the winds above replacement on
the offensive side. The question is, and I can't answer
this question honestly because I don't think we have enough
precedent frankly to make an educated answer. I can give
(04:39):
you my opinion, but I can't give you any precedent
because I don't know how much the pitching factors in
because he's not as he's not as big of a
pitching factor to where it's like you've got to pay
attention to the pitching numbers. But he's still pitched eighty
five innings this year, which is more than any other
nl MVP can and it has pitched. So it's this weird,
kind of half baked pitching situation. And I think that's
(05:01):
why Otani is getting the love plus the name value.
But if I had to vote today, I probably vote PC. Ye.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, I think when you look at it, I mean,
he pitched very well dominant early on. You still have
eight wins on the season. I mean that's not insignificant
to the largest dress. Yes, the offensive numbers are not
the same as they've been and as dominant as years past,
but you know, it's hitting near three hundred twenty six
home runs. He had two today himself. To try to
(05:28):
do a battle against PCA man for man, you know,
and the RBIs are down batting leadoff certainly is not
going to be conducive to that, because we've seen the
Dodgers as a whole since July first. They're twentieth in
Major League Baseball in runs scored. So you're you're looking
at and think about some of the bottom feeders and
(05:48):
fans of teams out there in Major League Baseball. Yeah,
I know you're thinking about the Mets and whatever else. Yeah, you're,
you're it's shameful some of the output we've seen from teams,
But certainly for the Dodgers, even with all of the
high priced talent and everything, you have a summer swoon
that's going on, averaging four point one eight runs per
(06:09):
game during this period. That's, like I said, twentieth in
Major League Baseball pitching wise, you went and got one
more Ocean's eleven style because we leave no movie or
TV reference stone unturned. See what I did there? I
brought back the stone too. Is the idea that you
go and get one more and the schoolball story since
(06:32):
Friday and Saturday, and we start rolling all the way
through the weekend to where we're at now. It's a
lot of hand ringing and complaining across Major League Baseball,
this is evil, etc. And unless there's sweetheart deals going
on in the background, which I never discount in all
of this, Jared, I mean certainly the you know, you
(06:55):
scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. In terms of sending
guys you're there and anywhere. I never categorically dismiss it.
But the point coming into here when you're looking at Milwaukee,
could they have gone and done a CC Sabbathia Part
two when they went and got him all those years
ago for the Tampa Bay Rays, Like and we had
(07:18):
talked about it a little bit last week before it
went down, Like I was hoping for any team that
was just kind of hanging around to just say, all right,
how much do we have to do and just take
one big shot at it, whether it's the Pirates that
are hanging around five hundred and may just be on
the periphery because you only get so many bites at
it with at the Apple, with what you're looking at it,
(07:40):
with that roster right with Paul Skeins, even though he struggled,
and it's a very unskeened season. All it takes is
one or two starts and all of a sudden, you've
got some noise in September and October. For the Rays,
same thing. Never really big on paying guys long term.
They pony up early, like they did with Camon Arrow
(08:02):
and they have in the past. But you know, would
they go all in with their farm system, which they've
been very good at replenishing, to just say what does
it take to get over here? And I think that
was part of the consternation for people when they see
the final valuation of what the Tigers got because there
wasn't the ready made major league star and then we're
(08:24):
trying to compare, you know, apples to oranges when it
comes to all right, these are guys really highly ranked
in the Dodgers organization? Is it because they're Dodgers they
get overvalued? You and I are both old enough, you're
a Yankees fan. How many of those guys that after
the core four got inflated values because they had that
insignia on their hat. I mean that's been going on forever.
(08:46):
The Dodgers had their run of all those rookies of
the year, So any of the guy that was ranked
in the top ten thereafter must be good, right, They
can't get it wrong. So when it came to trade,
and even we've seen in the last decade when they've
moved guys very inflated and once they leave the organization,
did they all stand out?
Speaker 5 (09:04):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Do they all fail?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I mean the categorically not not for each and every one.
But it's a hit and miss prospect, no pun intended.
When we're talking about that range. Do you bring him
into an organization that knows what they're doing to harness
and develop to where if there's a hitch in the
giddy up, whether it's a pitcher coming back off a
surgery like a River Ryan or some of these guys.
(09:28):
I mean literally they traded for a guy whose last
name is Hope, right, I mean. And so now you
move on and you get rid of Casey Miz at
the deadline when you're still potentially in contention, so you
know that was the other head scratcher. It's like when
school's still there, it's like, all right, why don't you
just ride this thing out? Especially with the al being
(09:50):
what it is that maybe you just find find the
elixir to find yourself in the World Series.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
I hate it. I hate everything about it. I'll get
in a second. I think the first thing I want
to mention is the case against Otani for MVP is
the fact that the Dodgers are eight and a half
up in the division and they can basically cruise control
to a playoff spot, whereas the Cubs are still behind
the Brewers in the division and needing to keep their
wildcard spot. Intact, I think they're a wildcard team, but
(10:18):
they're still looking up in the division, whereas the Dodgers
are not. And that will in my opinion, if the
Dodgers are going to push Otani, there's no need to
now be healthy for October, buddy, that's what we need
you for. Whereas the Cubs are still pushing, and I
think they are going to keep pushing through September and October,
you know, into October. And I think that, to me,
(10:40):
is the case for a guy like Pca to be
the MVP. It doesn't look like other than the al SI,
which is kind of Schlitler and a couple of other guys.
I think Schlitler will win it. It doesn't seem like
there's many other races that are up for graps, Like
it's kind of the NL MVP is really the only
I would say tight race down the stretch in the
MLB Awards.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, I would say this for the just for the
sure Otani part of it. One. It's not his fault
that they're racing it.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Oh yeah, And there could make things right. He might
get a few more extra days off down the stretch
where PC won't well.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
And I think the fact that he won't pitch again
it certainly comes into play. I mean, you look at
the Dodgers record when he did his own record. Yeah,
he had a couple of mediocre or subpar starts mixed
in there, but all in you're still looking at a
guy who was at an era of what one, seven nine?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah, if he pitched the whole year, he's probably the MVP.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
The the stuff on.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
The trade deadline and and here's this is I'm not
an executive, I'm not a scout. I obviously don't have
that background. I played baseball. I feel like I have
a pretty good grasp of baseball. I would say outside
of football, it's the sport that I know the best
when I watched the franchises like Tampa and Milwaukee and
these kind of mid tier mid major teams go through
(12:02):
this song and a dance every single year, which is,
we are gonna keep stacking singles and you know chips
into our cupboard and hopefully one day they turn into
a Tarik s Google. Guess how many World Series that
strategy has netted the Brewers and the Rays in like
(12:23):
eighty something years combined between those two franchises, zero neither
of them have won a World Series. Rays have gotten closed,
Brewers have gotten closed. They haven't been able to get
over the hump. So if your goal as an owner,
as a GM is to win the whole kit and kaboodle,
at what point do you say, for the last forty
(12:44):
something years that the Brewers have been a franchise, we
have gone about our business this way and it has
resulted in zero World Series championships. At what point do
we say, maybe let's reverse course, Maybe let's cash in
some of these chips that we've been storing like chestnuts,
like a squirrel collecting acorns for winter. How about we
go to the store and cash some of these in
(13:06):
and get ourselves an ace and see what happens when
that takes place. The one year the Brewers did it,
it was like the most exciting thing ever. Now, they
didn't win the World Series. The Phillies were able to
upend them in Philly won the World Series that year,
but I would argue that was the most exciting Brewers
run in a long time since eighty two. And they
lost to the Cardinals in the World Series.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So, if the closest you came to winning it all
was when you literally shoved all your chips to the
middle for a rental ace lefty pitcher, why wouldn't you
try that again when from all reports, there were many
other options available to the Dodgers, but they had the
best package. But from what I heard, there were other
(13:50):
teams that could have offered better packages. They just decided
not to it. And that's the part about it that
boggles my mind.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Mind. Well, and that's when we talk about sports in general. Right,
every team, every fan out there would love, I think,
at the core, for their team to just say we're
in right. The White Sox for the first time in
as long as I can remember, actually made additive moves
at a trade deadline. Were the man, you know what
(14:20):
I mean. Were they seismic, No, but there their chips
to steal if you can find catch lightning in the
bottle of the guy he wants. Was you got there?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
You got you got some moves. So for me, very exciting,
not just for what they've done. Obviously on a bit
of a skid here. The battle of the the Socks
did not go our way. Uh, just like they just
took care.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Of the Boston. The hot there, they're hot than Iracus
right now, nicely done, that's what you call it. Seconds
reference in the top of nice cast are over one
and a half dune references.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, it's all, it's all over. You don't even need
another I mean now it was just he's superpluous and
just bludgeoning that over. But it's just the idea of
if you have the chance to win. I think most
fans say, whatever it is. And I'm a realist when
it comes to process. I mean, look at where school
(15:15):
but was drafted right to just to use him as
an example, twenty ninth round by Arizona said to hell
with this, I'm not doing it. The next year gets
drafted ninth round by the Tigers and now he's become
this guy. You run it out, Mizerowski, What does history
tell us about flame throwing guys on the mound at
(15:36):
some point, at some point, the baseball gods don't like
the torque on the arm?
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Right?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, so why don't you go for it when he's
at his power peak and dominant as he is. I
just don't get it, but we'll try to ruminate it
and figure it out before it's all over. If you
have thoughts on this at Jared Smith that's at Fox
Sports Trading, and of course find me over at Swollen Dome.
Coming up next, we turn our attention to the National
(16:02):
Football League. No, they're not the sexiest teams going, but
we've got a Hall of Fame game tomorrow and we're
gonna talk about it because last time Jared and I
got together on these airwaves, he did everything he could
to steer the attention towards the Arizona Cardinals, and damn it,
now it's time to do it. Let's do it. Next
here The Jason Smith Show with Me by Carbon Jared
Smith in for Jason here at Fox Sports Training.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Hey, it's Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington from The Odd
Couple on Fox Sports Radio and in addition to hearing
us live weeknights from seven to ten pm Eastern on
Fox Sports Radio, we are excited to announce brand new
YouTube channel for the show.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
That's right. You can now watch The Odd Couple live
on YouTube every day.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
All you gotta do search Odd Couple FSR on YouTube
again YouTube, just search I Couplet FSR. Check us out
on YouTube and subscribe.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Come with me if you want to live. Our two
of the program begins Welcome back in Jason Smith Show
with me. Why Garman, There is no Jason Smith tonight. No,
it's our guy, Jared Smith. You hear him Saturday Morning's
part of Countdown, getting you ready for the day's action.
Bunch of betting angles, analysis, make you smarter at the bar,
at your cookout, your kids, little league game, whatever you
(17:29):
got popping. You want to tune in each and every
Saturday morning and blessed to have him in with us
tonight at Jared Smith Bets is where you find how's
the dogs holding up? Jackpot doing all right?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
He's passed out, He's great, it's a final. He has
the best life ever see the Heat. The Heat actually
has the best life. See that's in my backyard. I
guess technically he probably thinks it's his backyard. He gets
fed fresh food. Well why Wooden daily gets fresh pumpkin.
He gets everything he wants. He's a spoiled proud I
love him though.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
But that's just it. We're just trying to go one
to know every day, and it sounds like the dog,
no question about it. Hey, you miss any of today's show?
Catch the podcast search Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, wherever you
gets podcast, follow rate, give it five stars, provide that
review again. Search Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, wherever you gets
your podcast, you'll find today's full show and the best
(18:21):
of version posted right after we get off the air.
We've got Emmy and Julian and of course Alex on
the ones and twos, Monsey at the news desk, Garrett
in the back, full team like the Avengers, fully assembled,
trying to take down the sporting universe. How's that fatous?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
He's got no shot against us?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
No there's no question about it. Especially. I mean, look,
Josh Brolin's as tall as I am, so I can
look him square in the eye.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
A couple of what a great Joss brolins it. Speaking
of generational runs, I mean the Thanos he's got Dune.
I mean, it's been an awesome few years for Fantastic Goonies,
Weapon Deadpool too.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Three. Yeah, Deadpool two, he was cable.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
He was in something else recently too.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It's kind of a big deal. There's no question about it.
And he's smart.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Was it The Watchman?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
No?
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I forget there was like a comic something movie that
he was in that was really good. I forget what
the name of it is. Maybe Alex can figure it out.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
See now, now we're trying to go through are you're
thinking of the Old One, kind of like the film Noir?
Look to it.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Yeah, I forget the name of it though it's bothering me.
It's not the One City something else? Yes, thank you,
there you go, like similar, I just had to have
the synapses firing, so fantastic, fantastic in Sin City fantas.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
See, there you have it, and we could go straight
into the rest of the acting world because I celebrate
the entire catalog of Hailey Steinfeld, the wife, Oh yeah,
of Josh Allen. Right now, your favorite to win the
NFL and thep this year coming in ahead of Lamar
Jackson Eese plus five fifty, Lamar at plus six fifty.
(20:10):
And then we start going down our list of heavyweights
to where we start getting into Mahomes and Burrow and
everybody else. But for Josh Allen, you know, the big
question becomes, when are you gonna no, no, no, no, no,
he's got the kid on the way. All of that's
all finny good. When are you gonna get to a Lombardi?
So we can celebrate all those teams in Buffalo that
(20:32):
got to the this is the big game and didn't
get over so we can get past that finish line
and throw a lot of people through the tables. Here's
what Josh Allen had to say.
Speaker 6 (20:42):
Been in the playoffs a lot of times in the
last you know, however many years I've been here now,
and you know, just continuing to find ways to learn
from it. And I think that's it's a hard pill
to swallow sometimes because we haven't gotten it done. But
you're knock enough at the door it's gonna open at
some point, and that's just what we have to keep doing,
to keep knocking on the door and giving ourselves chances
to be in that situation again.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Sing Knock, knock, knocking on Heaven's door, or I did
the Dennis Leary. I think you hear me knocking, and
I think I'm coming in the curiosity with this squad right,
the supporting cast and finding balance and definition to it all.
Do you love James Cook, Ty Johnson and Ray Davis
backing him up. You've got Kincaid who has been great
(21:25):
in spurts, trying to keep him healthy at the tight
end position has been a question. Khalil Shakir great between
the twenties, not a red zone guy. Josh Palmer, formerly
of your Los Angeles Chargers in alongside d J. Moore
and still trying to see if you can harness the
best of Keon Coleman coming into year three of his run.
(21:49):
But for Josh Allen, yeah, it's been the grand expectations
and a lot of a lot of questions of whether
he'll ever break through, and certainly in the AFC vulnerability right,
we look at the muddled mess up front, all the
(22:09):
AFC West squads that are represented amongst the odds favorites,
except for you know, your Nevada rators there. They did
send out a really cool box for the season ticket holder.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
They did.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, so, I mean that looked nice. But you know,
you're looking at the Ravens Steelers. We're ten and seven.
How good are they? Aaron Rodgers another year older, will
get to him a little while from now, But you're
looking at all your big contenders for Josh Allen and
the Bills, opportunity knocks. The Dolphins are still in complete
rebowl rebuild mode. The Jets are the Jets, and the Patriots.
(22:47):
Did they overachieve on the strength of a weaker schedule
or are they fundamentally sound? How much does the mic
variable stuff from the offseason matter, if it does at all?
Is he gonna shield himself by bringing a dog to
a press conference all the time. All of those things matter.
But for Josh Allen and the Bills, just that question
(23:09):
of when do we stop believing?
Speaker 4 (23:12):
That's a good question. I don't think we're there yet.
I'll say this about Buffalo. If you go back and
you watch the playoff game against Denver last year. First
of all, Josh Allen made. I think it was one
really bad fumble and then another interception that was like
a real head scratcher, like. There were multiple turnovers in
that game that were very anti Josh Allen like, and
(23:35):
that obviously you want to say that he was a
little overwhelmed. I would argue it's just a little more
fluky bad bounce. But when you really dive into that game,
and let's be perfectly honest, Buffalo New England would have
been a much better AFC Championship game than the Jared
Stidham situation that we got with Denver. And obviously we
didn't know that Knicks was gonna get hurt and it
(23:55):
was gonna be Stidham. But I even think if it
was Nicks, I still think New England wins, and I
obviously think Buffalo would have given him a much better game.
When you look at the receivers that Josh Allen was
throwing to in that game, it's Brandon Cooks, it's me
Kole Hardman, it's Curtis Samuel. I mean, these are guys
(24:16):
that can't find roster spots.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
They were playing in the AFC Divisional at the highest
level with the best quarterback arguably in the sport. So
now you bring in DJ Moore and at least you
have an adult in the room in terms of the
receiving group. And I know Shakier is a nice piece,
but he is not a one A in this league.
And I don't know if More is, but he's more
of a one A than Shakira is, Who's a slot
guy that obviously can do some nice things, but he's
(24:40):
not a true alpha receiver. And I don't know if
More is that guy yet or if he is currently
or excuse me, key On Coleman is the guy that
I would like to see a send to that status.
But at least with DJ Moore, you bring some stability
to the receiving room as long.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
As you'll finish or route. Oh I'm sorry, is that
salty Bears fan coming in?
Speaker 4 (24:59):
And the Bears fan aren't gonna like that? So I
like that element to Buffalo this year. I like the
fact that you're revamping the defense. I mean the defense
has been shredded. You go back and look at the
defensive performances, and Sean McDermott supposed to be a defensive coach,
go back and look at the defensive performances Buffalo has
had in the postseason over the last six years. They
(25:20):
are bottom barrel defensively. They're averaging thirty three points allowed
per game in their playoff losses since twenty twenty. So
I think that is where you bring you bring it
in a brand new staff, right McDermott's out, the whole
staff is gone. You're promoting Brady from the OC to
the head coach. We'll see how that transition goes. And
then you're bringing in Jim Leonard, who's trying to bring
(25:42):
in a new three to four defense. So I think
there's there's some transition concerns there, Mike, But I also
think the talent's better and I think Brady is more
of a more of a go for it coach, where
McDermott defensive minded coach. And I know that we just
had Mike McDonald win is Super Bowl. We've had plenty
of defensive coaches win Super Bowls over the last decade
(26:03):
or so. But I would prefer a Ben Johnson, Sean McVay,
Kyle Shanahan offensive mind as my head coach. So I
like that they're giving the reins to a young offensive
mind and head coach that the quarterback really likes. In
a new stadium where the win's not a factor. You
got a brand new receiver in there that should be
able to shake things up. So there's definitely a lot
to like. But I just think the AFC is wide
(26:24):
open right now, and I'm not in a position at
this point to make any predictions about the AFC. I
think I'm gonna wait and keep my finger on the
trigger for as long as possible to see who gets
hot and who's a good buy low candidate, because I
think the way the AFC is going to be. You
ever see one of the you know, if you go
to Washington, d C. To a Nationals game, you see
the President's race, sure where you know they get in
those big heads or I think they do it in
(26:46):
Milwaukee they do the sausage race. Well they do it
in Chicago. You could be Ken Harrilson running around, come
on here you go. But usually it's like right like
the way they do it, it's scripted. We're like one guy,
I have a big lead, and then he'll get tripped
in and they have a big lead. Like I think
that's kind of how the AFC is going to be
this year. I think it's gonna be a kind of
whack a mole, like this guy's gonna get off to
a hot start, and this team's gonna be hot, and
then another team's gonna be hot down the stretch. And
(27:08):
I'm not in a position where I feel like we
have to make any decisions about the AC right now.
The NFC is a different story. The Rams are a
runaway for a train. There's a decent chance the best
price you're gonna get on the Rams is right now,
and they're just gonna keep shrinking and drinking and shrinking
as they continue to get closer to the postseason. Whereas
in the AFC, I just I don't know who that
team is right now. It could be Buffalo, it could
(27:28):
be Kansas City, could be New England. Again. I mean,
we're dismissing New England like it was a fluke, but
drink may might be the real deal. So I think
there's a lot of variables in the AFC, and I
just don't know what button to push yet. And the
good news is I don't have to push any buttons
because it's only August.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Well, the fun piece with New England is they're on
that list of teams due for regression, right. I mean,
we did an hour on the show I did on
US on Sunday morning, Anita Marx and I talking about
how Liam Cohen was complaining they were disrespected by not
being disrespected. One of the great sound bites of all
(28:05):
time because those I can scroll through all this and
see all these pictures of Caleb Williams and quotes from
Ben Johnson, but there's nothing about our Jaguars. They won
thirteen games a year ago, for those that don't recall.
So he was mad about that. Ben Jonson is like, yeah,
I think we got enough to worry about as opposed
to somebody's list of whether we're gonna fall off. So
(28:26):
it was a nice little verbal slap fight. But the
Patriots being there as well because of the rise that
they had change of schedule. Like we talk about and
say the Bears all the miracle wins the old they
could actually be a better team and more fundamentally sound,
but win fewer games. As we look at the totals
(28:47):
across the National Football League, let's just go AFC side,
you've got four teams where they're over under his ten
and a half wins. The Bills, the Ravens, the Chiefs
and the Chargers, the Broncos at nine and a half,
the Texans and Jaguars both at nine and a half
in the South, nine and a half for the Bengals
and nine and a half for those Patriots. So and
(29:10):
then we've got a big divide to pretty much everybody
else when we start going down the rest of those runs.
But for the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen, the fact
that you bring in Pete Carmichael as well years in
New Orleans with the offense they were running for all
those seasons a couple of years now in Denver, working
(29:30):
with bow Nicks, working with Sean Payton, still that I'm
intrigued to see what that offense looks like, and how
they deployed James Cook, how they utilize Kincaid and can
they keep him on the field. Like, here's one of
the biggest things, right when you talk about a guy
who eats space in the middle of a field. You know,
we're just seeing clips from the fanatics fest stuff with
(29:52):
Rob Dronkowski again. You just think about when they're at
their best, guys like him and Kelsey McBride in Arizona
and can cage to a point in Buffalo. How much
it opens up your offense and space if you're working
on time down in distance, to where it becomes a
more fluid operation, to where I don't need a bunch
(30:13):
of a list guys on the edge. Yeah, I need
a guy that can go and get it, but we
can work within the margins and be a much more
efficient offense to where we're at least coming away with
a reasonable field goal expectations as opposed to putting so
much pressure on the defense.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
I think the one team in the AFC that I
am willing to buy now is Houston. I think they
have the most i would say stable of any of
the teams that we're talking about at the top here.
I think if you go and you look at the
winners last year and the teams that were all playoff
teams last year, that are kind of in that mix
(30:49):
in the AFC, right, it's Buffalo, it's Denver, it's New England,
and it's Kansas City. It's you know, maybe didn't make
the playoffs last year, but obviously in the mix again.
If if mahomes health, it's it's Baltimore, it's Pittsburgh, it's Cincinnati.
I think you can honestly poke holes in all of
those teams. I think Houston is the most solid of
the bunch. I think defensively is the reason why I
(31:12):
say that. I don't know if the Josh Allen offense
under Brady's gonna hit the ground running right away. It
might take some time. I don't know if Mahomes's knee
is healthy. I don't know if bon Nicks is healthy.
I don't know if Joe Burrow is gonna be able
to hold up this year, because he hasn't held up
in any year since it seems like the Super Bowl run.
I don't know if Lamar Jackson, who also by the way,
(31:33):
new head coach, new situation after what two decades long
with the same at coach, new culture, is gonna come
and hit the ground running right away. It might be
a transition there. I don't know if Aaron Rodgers is
going to be right. I think if there's one thing
I am certain of this year, it's that the Texans
defense is probably gonna be a top five unit again.
In fact, i'd be willing to say that right now.
I think you could put me on the record right
(31:54):
now and say Houston's defense is going to be a
top five unit, and that's probably the only certainty in
the AFC right now. So if you give me Houston
and you say that they can just figure out anything
with the offensive line, for crying out loud, it's been
a train wreck, and you could get stroud to have
some level of stability with that offensive line. I know
that they're not going to need to score more than
(32:15):
twenty to twenty four points to win a bunch of
football games this year. And I think that to me
in that division, with Indy going through some transition, we
know Jacksonville might be a regression candidate, and obviously Tennessee's Tennessee.
I think that's the one team than in the AFC
I feel really comfortable is going to win ten games
this year. Yeah, they win totals nine and a half.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Three news.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
I think if there was a bet to be made
right now in the AFC, it's Houston over nine and
a half.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Three new starters on the offensive line, a couple of
stalwarts from past NFL pass David Montgomery comes into the
backfield of SOLIDI five things. Remember what a mess that
was a year ago, And because I'm a Nerd. I
wish and want and hope to see Tankdell running fly
routes once again. More on this as we continue here
(32:59):
in five Sports Radio. But we talked about disrespect, finding
your motivations, finding fuel and wins. Well, let's talk about
the Philadelphia seventy six ers and one of their new stars,
because well he's doing some chirping, which gives us more
fodder here at Fox Sports Radio. He's Jared, im Mike.
This is the Jason Smith Show with me Mike Carmon.
(33:20):
I'm Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
Hey, it's Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington from The Odd
Couple on Fox Sports Radio. And in addition to hearing
us live weeknights from seven to ten pm Eastern on
Fox Sports Radio, we are excited to announce brand new
YouTube channel for the show.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
That's right, you can now watch The Odd Couple live
on YouTube every day.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
All you gotta do search Odd Couple FSR on YouTube.
Again YouTube, Just search Odd Couple FSR. Check us out
on YouTube and subscribe.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Welcome in our three of the program. Disco Ball, still spinning,
marching band, Get the hell out of here. We have
work to do. Two more hours of glorious aural education,
information entertainment here Fox Sports Radio, Jason Smith Show with Me,
Mike Carmon, No Jason Smith Tonight, our guy, Jared Smith
in his stead at Jared Smith is where you find
(34:24):
Jared Smith. Bets you find me over at Swollen Dome.
Big slate of Major League Baseball over the course of
the day. The Dodgers and the Cubs were the marquee
event at Wrigley Field. A lot of chestiness from the
North Siders right now, as particularly as the South Siders.
(34:44):
My beloved White Sox struggling Jared Smith. We've got the NLMVP.
We talked about it back in hour one, where the
odds have equalized between Pete Crow, Armstrong and Show Heyo
Tani so a fun race to the finish. Still plenty
of work to be done before we get to October tomorrow.
We have the glory of the Hall of Fame game
(35:07):
and I can't I can't lie. I'm actually kind of
excited about it. One that'll be on the air for
whatever the final hour of the broadcast is. But the
other just that it's live football with all those Hall
of famers doing their interviews, Drew Brees and Larry Fitzgerald
and everybody on board, and it gives us the first
glimpse into football twenty twenty six. It's beautiful, isn't it beautiful?
(35:33):
I mean, I was gonna write a poem for it,
but I thought I'd just leave it there.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
How about a haiku? Still have time? It's two hours
left in the show, I think so. My fiscal year
started four days ago.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I like that. The fiscal year it is. Look at you.
I always joke with me Fortune five hundred Jared Smith LLC.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
It's been more like a fortune one hundred recently JLS
Production's LLC. That's the officially the name of the LLS.
Nicely done in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
See, I'm getting ready to do my card one. I'm
just trying to figure out whether it's just swollen down.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
This and it helps come tax season when you're in
when you're a sole proprietor. But that's neither here nor there.
So there's something about the beginning of football season that,
in my opinion, is really the beginning of a sports
fan's year. And it's not that I don't love baseball,
because we're kind of smack dab in the middle of
(36:29):
the dog days right now, So it doesn't make a
lot of sense from a standpoint. You bet baseball every day,
and all of a sudden football comes back, and then
baseball is like that. You know the girl you dated
in high school when you go to college, he's no
caller anymore.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Well, she had a good one, yeah, yeah, yeah, or he,
depending on which way you know that's true.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
It doesn't matter he or she.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
It's like that significant over there, exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
The significant other in high school, and then you go
to college and all of a sudden, that significant other
from high school you don't pay a whole lot of
attention to him or her anymore once once you're in college.
And that's how I feel. Come I would say Labor day,
I think baseball still has my attention for another couple
of weeks, but it's like the sand of an hour glass.
(37:13):
Every day it slips a little bit further towards the
football side of the ledger.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
I thought you were going to float a couple of
lines out of the days of our lives. No, it's
the opening of the show. That's true.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
I'm actually not. I don't even watch I don't think
I've ever even watched.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
That General Hospital guy right here, I was the ABC
soap operas. That's what mom watched. All my children into
one life to live into General Hospital for you. But yeah,
just a year.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
I think starts this week. Okay, I think the first
football game and I started. I made. I made my
first college football bet in terms of the futures market
on July fourteenth.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Okay, do you have some kind of process, like you
got to dress up real h and get yourself to
be honest.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
With that first click in college football is a big deal.
It really is.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Oh, I thought I thought you would have done that
in person for the first one.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
I've done that before. Here's the problem. I have so
many different like apps. It's just it's it's a pain
to have to drive to all these casinos if I
want to make a bet. No, I get that, especially
when it's one hundred and thirty seven degrees exactly. So
I'm an app man, and you know, I get to
stay close to the dog and stay close to home.
But that first click for football, it's like it's almost
(38:34):
like you're going off to college for the first time,
and it's like you get this whole new you get
your you get your schedule for your freshman year. You're like, wow,
I get all these different classes. It's a different feeling.
And then you're watching the games and honestly, and I
obviously I look at it from the gambling perspective, but
that first week of the regular season college or NFL
is probably the most dangerous week because the FOMO hits
(38:57):
so hard and you want action everywhere you look, and
in reality, you shouldn't be betting that much. You know,
you shouldn't be putting that much wagering down on one
specific day of games, but the FOMO on week one
and the FOMO in the preseason is so real that
you bet above your means. Unfortunately, a lot of people
(39:17):
do that and they'll blow your whole bankroll within the
first few weeks. So I think it's obviously it's an
exciting time, but you also have to keep it in
perspective that the season is super long and we are
just in the beginning stages of it, and it has
been a long time without football, so you want to
dive back in head first. But dip your toe in
a little bit, right, see if the water's warm first
(39:38):
before you go into the cold punch.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
No, that's being smart about it. And for those that
might have missed a sentence or two, he was not
saying to go make bets upon arriving at your college
because kids are starting to pack up and go back
to college. No, don't do that. No, no, no, bad, bad.
They can pay the tuition, make sure the room and
board is taken care of, and then we go under evaluation.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Well, of course under it. Drinky's different story. I'm sure
it's gonna be No.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
No, we can't we can't do we can't endorse that either,
be smart about it in every way, shape and form,
because that's also what leads to bad bank roll management.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Also very true, Right, worst decisions I've made never gamble,
drun that. I don't like gambling at the casino, Mike,
because when you gamble at the casino, they give you
free alcohol and you make courts decisions.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Yeah, depending how much how many tickets are flowing through. Right,
I know it was always good if you were betting horses,
because every three to five minutes there was another race
going off in a cast so there was action constantly
going through and paramutual wagering.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
I won't blame any players are their own culture, but
they get taken care of different world.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Right, you want to go for March bad rooms, Right,
you want to go for March madness. You're a pony player,
You get a seat nice in front and center. You
get taken care of because you're you're churning money as
opposed to maybe you made one or two twenty dollars
bets and now you're just standing around like a jackass.
So you know, they need to make some money along
(41:03):
the way as well to where you can get your
water down drink or five. But we're talking about FOMO
and the opportunities that present themselves again. Betting odds are
up and prop bets and everything for the Hall of
Fame game and as we get towards the regular season.
But y'alls have Micah Parsons who is waxing poetic about
his recovery from injury and laying some level of blame
(41:27):
as to what caused it.
Speaker 7 (41:28):
I think it's very realistic. I just got to put
the work in. We got to get to the point
where I'm feeling great, and we say, Mike Ao be
in a really good phase. Is it possible. Yes, at
the same time as and these next how many weeks
is that? Is it ten to twelve weeks from now?
We got to do our part to make it possible.
But you know it's not off the board, but we
(41:52):
got to put the work in.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah, he said. I think of the accumulative things within
my body, pushing through no camp, dealing with injuries through
the season, and I think my body was just overloaded
and it caused my knee to give out going back
to the injury. But the fact that he expressly through
the no camp into process, and it's something we talk
(42:14):
about a lot coming into training camp, right how much
different they are than years ago. I was on the
training camp beat, and I'd go to seven or eight
different teams camps along the East Coast when I lived
out in New York, so I could be at all
we need to watch the Giants and then the next
day drive out to Latrobe. They'd put you up in
a hotel, you'd watch the Steelers go to work. And
(42:37):
that's one of the big stories of this year's camp
with McCarthy versus Tomlin, of how much different it is
in terms of the physicality of everything. But we've watched
that with camps, and once upon a time you'd go
and be like, all right, what do we got today?
Backs on backers, Okay, I want a front row seat,
a little let me up front to watch those kind
(42:58):
of drills go down. Or we're gonna do more life
and we're going to do some live tackling all those
things which have been collectively bargained out in a very
large way. And so when we start going through other
than great conspiracies about substations, Jared, we try to find
other cause effect and try to build those algorithms to
(43:20):
figure out exactly how much of these injuries is due
to the lack of really prepping your body the same
way you once did. And here's Michael Parsons just talking about, Hey,
I was holding out, and I attribute at least some
part of it to not going through the daily grind.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
It's an interesting take. Obviously I'm not at the elite
level of these athletes, but I can tell you I've
had a major body transformation in the last two years
of lost a ton of weight, a lot of it
from fasting, a lot of it from running, and I
would say about six months ago, I felt my body
hit a wall. To be fair, I'm forty and not
(44:01):
in any elite athletic shape, but I'm in the best
shape of my life, and I hit a wall where
I just my legs were gone, my runs were getting slow.
I think every person's body has that point where, no
matter how good of shape you are in, the body
is not meant to go through that kind of punishment
(44:23):
day after day. And everyone has their breaking point. And
I don't know what the exact reason was. I don't
think even God does. Like I just think, you know,
there's just like a certain point where your body just breaks,
and everyone is gonna have that moment, every professional athlet
I do the show with rich Oornberger every Saturday, and
(44:44):
the best part of the partnership we have is he
is just so candid about his his his injury history,
which was long and difficult, and he went through a
lot asolutely, Oh my God, on the offensive line against
some of the best and that was before a lot
of the pel is. You know, that was kind of
on the cusp of when they started to protect these
guys a little bit more and the CT became more
(45:06):
of a thing. So he was kind of on the
tail end of that era. But there's just such a
punishment that these guys take every single day, and that's
why what you put in your body matters. And you
see this a lot with players. You see players go
through this transformation. Whether they're in their twenties and they
(45:27):
are invincible, they believe they are invincible everything they are
told from the time they are in pee wee ball
till the time that they make the NFL. They are invincible, unflappable.
Nothing they do is wrong or going to hurt them.
And then they get to the highest level and they
start to continue to put that body through punishment. And
(45:48):
then right around the time they hit their thirty year
old mark, you know, four or five, six years in
the league, starts to wear on you and it's just nothing.
You don't bounce back the same way. And that's where
you start to see the nutrition become a big thing.
I'm convinced, and I don't know how Tom did it,
but I'm convinced that it was the nutrition element and
(46:11):
the things that Tom was putting in his body, not
the things that he was doing to his body. Stretching
and you know, exercise and that obviously is a factor
as well. But how you fuel your body, the minerals,
the nutrients, the supplements you put in, I think that
matters more on a holistic level than the exercise that
(46:32):
they did.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
A lot of these players.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
Yeah, like these these guys are brought up on fast
food and candy was and DK Metcalf says he eats like,
you know, one hundred thousand skittles before.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
That, said Marshaun Lynch. For all those years he had
got a sponsorship from Skittles out of it.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
I'm willing to bet that if those guys were eating properly,
they would have been able to last just a little bit.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
But that's it.
Speaker 4 (46:55):
I just think what you put in your body matters well.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
But it was what we were told as as kids
back in if you're paying attention to maybe you were
taking a computer class or whatever science you were doing,
or math, garbage in, garbage out. It's the same thing here,
right in terms of you know, how you eat, drink, sleep,
all of those things. I think the ploy for Brady
(47:19):
comes in big but certainly alcohol. I Look, I'm not
saying you know you abstain all the way, I mean,
do what you're gonna do, but recognize to everything that
you ingest, there is a cost, right there, There is
a cost. Except they even say too much water is
too much at times, like as a guy who's a
(47:39):
big coffee that you put in the water the key,
Now there's a whole other thing.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Just water is not going to do much for you.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Hey, you could find scientists that'll tell you it's a problem.
You can always find someone.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
How much of anything is a problem. Yeah, as a
guy who ingested water into you could honestly drink water
into your detriment. You absolutely could. You absolutely good if
you just went crazy.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
But yeah, so for Micah Parsons trying to get on
that comeback trail, get his body right, but try to
put some some logic behind what got to it. We
always talk about hold ins, holdouts, and just the rigors
of where that breaking point is, you know, of what's healthy,
(48:23):
building up the I guess, for lack of a better term,
the callouses of what you need to play in an
NFL season, because look, the first week, first weeks of
the season are usually how should we say, I'm gonna
say uneven to be nice, Jared, when we talk about
tackling and execution and all of those things. Because with
(48:46):
fewer preseason games, with fewer real live live AMMO as
it were, in terms of hitting and all of that
and working to that speed and through contact or whatever else,
it takes a couple of weeks before where we iron
things out. So why Belichick and the Patriots right always
that first month of the season. Don't judge us by that,
(49:08):
right because it's the learning process. You probably turned over
a bunch of your roster and now you're figuring out
what the next evolution is. And I think for the
NFL as a whole, that's kind of where we're at.
So the fast starts in September. It's the all right,
can you hold on from there? And depending on the
schedule makers, a lot of that's going to be decided
(49:29):
how much they want you on national television. Even though
we're so desperate for football. We're talking about the Panthers
and the Cardinals in the Hall of Fame game with
great anticipation at Jared Smith Betts is where you find
him in the Twitter verse. You find me over at
Swollendome as we continue, we'll continue in the football universe.
(49:50):
Jared sent me a giant run he talked about July fourteenth,
opening the can of whoop ass on the Betting Slate.
We're going to talk a little bit of college football
and where we are coming out of the polls that
were released and what to expect is we get ready
for football twenty twenty six that's coming up next. He's
Jared Smith and for Jason, I'm By Herman. This is
(50:11):
Fox Sports Radio.
Thanks for listening to the best of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike Carmon podcast. Be sure to catch us
live every weeknight from ten pm to two am Eastern
seven to eleven pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio. Find
your local station for The Jason Smith Show with Mike
Harmon at Fox Sports Radio dot com, or stream us
live every night on the iHeartRadio app by searching FSR.
Speaker 2 (00:20):
This is the best of the Jason Smith Show with
Mike Harmon on Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 3 (00:29):
Come on now, beautiful Wednesday night here Fox Sports or Radio.
As the Big Voice Man said, there's no Jason Smith tonight.
It's me. You're humble host Mike Harmon alongside Jared Smith.
You hear him on Countdown Saturday Morning, part of the
line up here Fox Sports Radio alongside Rich Ornberger and
Brian no each and every Saturday. You follow him in
(00:49):
the twitterverse at Jared Smith bets, always on your mind,
always on your heart. Check out everything he's got going there,
ready to unleash a veritable flurry of activity and information
on the National Football League. We'll do some of that tonight,
and then you'll go into the wee hours of the
morning and you'll ferret out more information that Jared is
(01:11):
parsing out for you. Jared, welcome back in. Last time
we met, we had the Lebron James news. Nothing seismic
like that today, except for the fact that the Dodgers
have suddenly forgotten what's that important thing, how to win?
That's it. Otherwise, we're getting ready for the Hall of
Fame game and the end of summer for many as
(01:34):
I'm starting to see people going back to school, So
welcome back in. Is it one hundred and thirty five
degrees still in Vegas?
Speaker 4 (01:41):
It's rough. I was just talking to Alex, our technical producer,
and you know, when I do this shift, I usually
have to take the dog on a little bit of
an earlier walk when it's still relatively I would say,
like Aracus out there for those Dune fans, it's time,
it's it's it's it is hot. So he is currently
in the fetal position next to me, completely wiped from
(02:04):
a very hot walk, but all as well because he'll
be nice and quiet for the show. Yeah, not a
whole lot of news this week in terms of I
would say baseball, right, other than I don't know, like
the best pitcher getting traded, and the fact that the
other teams in Major League Baseball just seem completely content
with allowing the Dodgers to collect pieces like Fantos collects
(02:26):
Infinity stones. We'll see where the chips fall in a
couple months. Like it's such a weird And by the way,
the Dodgers will be fine, Like they're on the road
at Wrigley it's a tough environment, tough place to win, Like,
they'll be fine. Scooble pitch fine yesterday. They're gonna be
back on track soon. I think it's just more about
the rest of the league. And right now, based off
(02:47):
of the odds, it's not quite a pick them yet,
but we're getting close to pick them territory in terms
of the Dodgers against the field, and I think by
the time we get to October, I think it will
be Dodgers at almost against the rest of the field.
And I don't know if there's a team out there
in baseball that can beat him in a seven game series.
Speaker 3 (03:06):
Well, and that is the fun Matt, that we'll do
a little bit of now as we get things started.
Because they were at Wrigley Field today and while maybe
things haven't changed seismically league wide. Right, it's still a long,
arduous journey before we get to October. Well, we did
see some chains changing in big odds, and part of
(03:27):
it was fueled by PCA hitting another long ball to
help propel the Cubs to another win.
Speaker 4 (03:34):
Yeah, the MVP market is hot and heavy right now.
I think that's probably the most interesting race of all
the American League National League MVP so I young races.
It seems to be basically a dead heat. I'll pull up.
I haven't looked at the war in the last few days.
I looked at it a couple of weeks ago. Otani
(03:55):
was pretty much, you know, in front, and recently over
the last couple of days is really really gone after
him pretty hard. Yeah. So the difference this year is
Otani is pitching a little bit, not a lot, but
a little bit, and I don't think he's gonna pitch
much any more of the rest of the year. If
it all. He's only pitched eighty five innings this year,
which is not a lot in terms of a starting pitcher.
(04:18):
The hitting war is squarely Petek Armstrong, you know, is
the leader in the clubhouse there and they both have
around the same plate appearances, and PCA is significantly ahead
of Otani in terms of the winds above replacement on
the offensive side. The question is, and I can't answer
this question honestly because I don't think we have enough
precedent frankly to make an educated answer. I can give
(04:39):
you my opinion, but I can't give you any precedent
because I don't know how much the pitching factors in
because he's not as he's not as big of a
pitching factor to where it's like you've got to pay
attention to the pitching numbers. But he's still pitched eighty
five innings this year, which is more than any other
nl MVP can and it has pitched. So it's this weird,
kind of half baked pitching situation. And I think that's
(05:01):
why Otani is getting the love plus the name value.
But if I had to vote today, I probably vote PC. Ye.
Speaker 3 (05:06):
Yeah, I think when you look at it, I mean,
he pitched very well dominant early on. You still have
eight wins on the season. I mean that's not insignificant
to the largest dress. Yes, the offensive numbers are not
the same as they've been and as dominant as years past,
but you know, it's hitting near three hundred twenty six
home runs. He had two today himself. To try to
(05:28):
do a battle against PCA man for man, you know,
and the RBIs are down batting leadoff certainly is not
going to be conducive to that, because we've seen the
Dodgers as a whole since July first. They're twentieth in
Major League Baseball in runs scored. So you're you're looking
at and think about some of the bottom feeders and
(05:48):
fans of teams out there in Major League Baseball. Yeah,
I know you're thinking about the Mets and whatever else. Yeah, you're,
you're it's shameful some of the output we've seen from teams,
But certainly for the Dodgers, even with all of the
high priced talent and everything, you have a summer swoon
that's going on, averaging four point one eight runs per
(06:09):
game during this period. That's, like I said, twentieth in
Major League Baseball pitching wise, you went and got one
more Ocean's eleven style because we leave no movie or
TV reference stone unturned. See what I did there? I
brought back the stone too. Is the idea that you
go and get one more and the schoolball story since
(06:32):
Friday and Saturday, and we start rolling all the way
through the weekend to where we're at now. It's a
lot of hand ringing and complaining across Major League Baseball,
this is evil, etc. And unless there's sweetheart deals going
on in the background, which I never discount in all
of this, Jared, I mean certainly the you know, you
(06:55):
scratch my back, I'll scratch yours. In terms of sending
guys you're there and anywhere. I never categorically dismiss it.
But the point coming into here when you're looking at Milwaukee,
could they have gone and done a CC Sabbathia Part
two when they went and got him all those years
ago for the Tampa Bay Rays, Like and we had
(07:18):
talked about it a little bit last week before it
went down, Like I was hoping for any team that
was just kind of hanging around to just say, all right,
how much do we have to do and just take
one big shot at it, whether it's the Pirates that
are hanging around five hundred and may just be on
the periphery because you only get so many bites at
it with at the Apple, with what you're looking at it,
(07:40):
with that roster right with Paul Skeins, even though he struggled,
and it's a very unskeened season. All it takes is
one or two starts and all of a sudden, you've
got some noise in September and October. For the Rays,
same thing. Never really big on paying guys long term.
They pony up early, like they did with Camon Arrow
(08:02):
and they have in the past. But you know, would
they go all in with their farm system, which they've
been very good at replenishing, to just say what does
it take to get over here? And I think that
was part of the consternation for people when they see
the final valuation of what the Tigers got because there
wasn't the ready made major league star and then we're
(08:24):
trying to compare, you know, apples to oranges when it
comes to all right, these are guys really highly ranked
in the Dodgers organization? Is it because they're Dodgers they
get overvalued? You and I are both old enough, you're
a Yankees fan. How many of those guys that after
the core four got inflated values because they had that
insignia on their hat. I mean that's been going on forever.
(08:46):
The Dodgers had their run of all those rookies of
the year, So any of the guy that was ranked
in the top ten thereafter must be good, right, They
can't get it wrong. So when it came to trade,
and even we've seen in the last decade when they've
moved guys very inflated and once they leave the organization,
did they all stand out?
Speaker 5 (09:04):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Do they all fail?
Speaker 2 (09:05):
No?
Speaker 3 (09:05):
I mean the categorically not not for each and every one.
But it's a hit and miss prospect, no pun intended.
When we're talking about that range. Do you bring him
into an organization that knows what they're doing to harness
and develop to where if there's a hitch in the
giddy up, whether it's a pitcher coming back off a
surgery like a River Ryan or some of these guys.
(09:28):
I mean literally they traded for a guy whose last
name is Hope, right, I mean. And so now you
move on and you get rid of Casey Miz at
the deadline when you're still potentially in contention, so you
know that was the other head scratcher. It's like when
school's still there, it's like, all right, why don't you
just ride this thing out? Especially with the al being
(09:50):
what it is that maybe you just find find the
elixir to find yourself in the World Series.
Speaker 4 (09:58):
I hate it. I hate everything about it. I'll get
in a second. I think the first thing I want
to mention is the case against Otani for MVP is
the fact that the Dodgers are eight and a half
up in the division and they can basically cruise control
to a playoff spot, whereas the Cubs are still behind
the Brewers in the division and needing to keep their
wildcard spot. Intact, I think they're a wildcard team, but
(10:18):
they're still looking up in the division, whereas the Dodgers
are not. And that will in my opinion, if the
Dodgers are going to push Otani, there's no need to
now be healthy for October, buddy, that's what we need
you for. Whereas the Cubs are still pushing, and I
think they are going to keep pushing through September and October,
you know, into October. And I think that, to me,
(10:40):
is the case for a guy like Pca to be
the MVP. It doesn't look like other than the al SI,
which is kind of Schlitler and a couple of other guys.
I think Schlitler will win it. It doesn't seem like
there's many other races that are up for graps, Like
it's kind of the NL MVP is really the only
I would say tight race down the stretch in the
MLB Awards.
Speaker 3 (11:01):
Yeah, I would say this for the just for the
sure Otani part of it. One. It's not his fault
that they're racing it.
Speaker 4 (11:09):
Oh yeah, And there could make things right. He might
get a few more extra days off down the stretch
where PC won't well.
Speaker 3 (11:16):
And I think the fact that he won't pitch again
it certainly comes into play. I mean, you look at
the Dodgers record when he did his own record. Yeah,
he had a couple of mediocre or subpar starts mixed
in there, but all in you're still looking at a
guy who was at an era of what one, seven nine?
Speaker 4 (11:36):
Yeah, if he pitched the whole year, he's probably the MVP.
Speaker 3 (11:39):
The the stuff on.
Speaker 4 (11:40):
The trade deadline and and here's this is I'm not
an executive, I'm not a scout. I obviously don't have
that background. I played baseball. I feel like I have
a pretty good grasp of baseball. I would say outside
of football, it's the sport that I know the best
when I watched the franchises like Tampa and Milwaukee and
these kind of mid tier mid major teams go through
(12:02):
this song and a dance every single year, which is,
we are gonna keep stacking singles and you know chips
into our cupboard and hopefully one day they turn into
a Tarik s Google. Guess how many World Series that
strategy has netted the Brewers and the Rays in like
(12:23):
eighty something years combined between those two franchises, zero neither
of them have won a World Series. Rays have gotten closed,
Brewers have gotten closed. They haven't been able to get
over the hump. So if your goal as an owner,
as a GM is to win the whole kit and kaboodle,
at what point do you say, for the last forty
(12:44):
something years that the Brewers have been a franchise, we
have gone about our business this way and it has
resulted in zero World Series championships. At what point do
we say, maybe let's reverse course, Maybe let's cash in
some of these chips that we've been storing like chestnuts,
like a squirrel collecting acorns for winter. How about we
go to the store and cash some of these in
(13:06):
and get ourselves an ace and see what happens when
that takes place. The one year the Brewers did it,
it was like the most exciting thing ever. Now, they
didn't win the World Series. The Phillies were able to
upend them in Philly won the World Series that year,
but I would argue that was the most exciting Brewers
run in a long time since eighty two. And they
lost to the Cardinals in the World Series.
Speaker 3 (13:28):
Exactly.
Speaker 4 (13:28):
So, if the closest you came to winning it all
was when you literally shoved all your chips to the
middle for a rental ace lefty pitcher, why wouldn't you
try that again when from all reports, there were many
other options available to the Dodgers, but they had the
best package. But from what I heard, there were other
(13:50):
teams that could have offered better packages. They just decided
not to it. And that's the part about it that
boggles my mind.
Speaker 3 (13:58):
Mind. Well, and that's when we talk about sports in general. Right,
every team, every fan out there would love, I think,
at the core, for their team to just say we're
in right. The White Sox for the first time in
as long as I can remember, actually made additive moves
at a trade deadline. Were the man, you know what
(14:20):
I mean. Were they seismic, No, but there their chips
to steal if you can find catch lightning in the
bottle of the guy he wants. Was you got there?
Speaker 4 (14:30):
Right?
Speaker 3 (14:30):
You got you got some moves. So for me, very exciting,
not just for what they've done. Obviously on a bit
of a skid here. The battle of the the Socks
did not go our way. Uh, just like they just
took care.
Speaker 4 (14:44):
Of the Boston. The hot there, they're hot than Iracus
right now, nicely done, that's what you call it. Seconds
reference in the top of nice cast are over one
and a half dune references.
Speaker 3 (14:55):
Yeah, it's all, it's all over. You don't even need
another I mean now it was just he's superpluous and
just bludgeoning that over. But it's just the idea of
if you have the chance to win. I think most
fans say, whatever it is. And I'm a realist when
it comes to process. I mean, look at where school
(15:15):
but was drafted right to just to use him as
an example, twenty ninth round by Arizona said to hell
with this, I'm not doing it. The next year gets
drafted ninth round by the Tigers and now he's become
this guy. You run it out, Mizerowski, What does history
tell us about flame throwing guys on the mound at
(15:36):
some point, at some point, the baseball gods don't like
the torque on the arm?
Speaker 4 (15:40):
Right?
Speaker 3 (15:41):
Yeah, so why don't you go for it when he's
at his power peak and dominant as he is. I
just don't get it, but we'll try to ruminate it
and figure it out before it's all over. If you
have thoughts on this at Jared Smith that's at Fox
Sports Trading, and of course find me over at Swollen Dome.
Coming up next, we turn our attention to the National
(16:02):
Football League. No, they're not the sexiest teams going, but
we've got a Hall of Fame game tomorrow and we're
gonna talk about it because last time Jared and I
got together on these airwaves, he did everything he could
to steer the attention towards the Arizona Cardinals, and damn it,
now it's time to do it. Let's do it. Next
here The Jason Smith Show with Me by Carbon Jared
Smith in for Jason here at Fox Sports Training.
Speaker 2 (16:24):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 5 (16:34):
Hey, it's Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington from The Odd
Couple on Fox Sports Radio and in addition to hearing
us live weeknights from seven to ten pm Eastern on
Fox Sports Radio, we are excited to announce brand new
YouTube channel for the show.
Speaker 3 (16:49):
That's right. You can now watch The Odd Couple live
on YouTube every day.
Speaker 5 (16:54):
All you gotta do search Odd Couple FSR on YouTube
again YouTube, just search I Couplet FSR. Check us out
on YouTube and subscribe.
Speaker 3 (17:05):
Come with me if you want to live. Our two
of the program begins Welcome back in Jason Smith Show
with me. Why Garman, There is no Jason Smith tonight. No,
it's our guy, Jared Smith. You hear him Saturday Morning's
part of Countdown, getting you ready for the day's action.
Bunch of betting angles, analysis, make you smarter at the bar,
at your cookout, your kids, little league game, whatever you
(17:29):
got popping. You want to tune in each and every
Saturday morning and blessed to have him in with us
tonight at Jared Smith Bets is where you find how's
the dogs holding up? Jackpot doing all right?
Speaker 4 (17:38):
He's passed out, He's great, it's a final. He has
the best life ever see the Heat. The Heat actually
has the best life. See that's in my backyard. I
guess technically he probably thinks it's his backyard. He gets
fed fresh food. Well why Wooden daily gets fresh pumpkin.
He gets everything he wants. He's a spoiled proud I
love him though.
Speaker 3 (17:59):
But that's just it. We're just trying to go one
to know every day, and it sounds like the dog,
no question about it. Hey, you miss any of today's show?
Catch the podcast search Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, wherever you
gets podcast, follow rate, give it five stars, provide that
review again. Search Jason Smith, Mike Harmon, wherever you gets
your podcast, you'll find today's full show and the best
(18:21):
of version posted right after we get off the air.
We've got Emmy and Julian and of course Alex on
the ones and twos, Monsey at the news desk, Garrett
in the back, full team like the Avengers, fully assembled,
trying to take down the sporting universe. How's that fatous?
Speaker 4 (18:39):
He's got no shot against us?
Speaker 3 (18:41):
No there's no question about it. Especially. I mean, look,
Josh Brolin's as tall as I am, so I can
look him square in the eye.
Speaker 4 (18:47):
A couple of what a great Joss brolins it. Speaking
of generational runs, I mean the Thanos he's got Dune.
I mean, it's been an awesome few years for Fantastic Goonies,
Weapon Deadpool too.
Speaker 3 (19:06):
Three. Yeah, Deadpool two, he was cable.
Speaker 4 (19:09):
He was in something else recently too.
Speaker 3 (19:12):
It's kind of a big deal. There's no question about it.
And he's smart.
Speaker 4 (19:17):
Was it The Watchman?
Speaker 3 (19:19):
No?
Speaker 4 (19:20):
I forget there was like a comic something movie that
he was in that was really good. I forget what
the name of it is. Maybe Alex can figure it out.
Speaker 3 (19:28):
See now, now we're trying to go through are you're
thinking of the Old One, kind of like the film Noir?
Look to it.
Speaker 4 (19:36):
Yeah, I forget the name of it though it's bothering me.
It's not the One City something else? Yes, thank you,
there you go, like similar, I just had to have
the synapses firing, so fantastic, fantastic in Sin City fantas.
Speaker 3 (19:49):
See, there you have it, and we could go straight
into the rest of the acting world because I celebrate
the entire catalog of Hailey Steinfeld, the wife, Oh yeah,
of Josh Allen. Right now, your favorite to win the
NFL and thep this year coming in ahead of Lamar
Jackson Eese plus five fifty, Lamar at plus six fifty.
(20:10):
And then we start going down our list of heavyweights
to where we start getting into Mahomes and Burrow and
everybody else. But for Josh Allen, you know, the big
question becomes, when are you gonna no, no, no, no, no,
he's got the kid on the way. All of that's
all finny good. When are you gonna get to a Lombardi?
So we can celebrate all those teams in Buffalo that
(20:32):
got to the this is the big game and didn't
get over so we can get past that finish line
and throw a lot of people through the tables. Here's
what Josh Allen had to say.
Speaker 6 (20:42):
Been in the playoffs a lot of times in the
last you know, however many years I've been here now,
and you know, just continuing to find ways to learn
from it. And I think that's it's a hard pill
to swallow sometimes because we haven't gotten it done. But
you're knock enough at the door it's gonna open at
some point, and that's just what we have to keep doing,
to keep knocking on the door and giving ourselves chances
to be in that situation again.
Speaker 3 (21:03):
Sing Knock, knock, knocking on Heaven's door, or I did
the Dennis Leary. I think you hear me knocking, and
I think I'm coming in the curiosity with this squad right,
the supporting cast and finding balance and definition to it all.
Do you love James Cook, Ty Johnson and Ray Davis
backing him up. You've got Kincaid who has been great
(21:25):
in spurts, trying to keep him healthy at the tight
end position has been a question. Khalil Shakir great between
the twenties, not a red zone guy. Josh Palmer, formerly
of your Los Angeles Chargers in alongside d J. Moore
and still trying to see if you can harness the
best of Keon Coleman coming into year three of his run.
(21:49):
But for Josh Allen, yeah, it's been the grand expectations
and a lot of a lot of questions of whether
he'll ever break through, and certainly in the AFC vulnerability right,
we look at the muddled mess up front, all the
(22:09):
AFC West squads that are represented amongst the odds favorites,
except for you know, your Nevada rators there. They did
send out a really cool box for the season ticket holder.
Speaker 4 (22:20):
They did.
Speaker 3 (22:22):
Yeah, so, I mean that looked nice. But you know,
you're looking at the Ravens Steelers. We're ten and seven.
How good are they? Aaron Rodgers another year older, will
get to him a little while from now, But you're
looking at all your big contenders for Josh Allen and
the Bills, opportunity knocks. The Dolphins are still in complete
rebowl rebuild mode. The Jets are the Jets, and the Patriots.
(22:47):
Did they overachieve on the strength of a weaker schedule
or are they fundamentally sound? How much does the mic
variable stuff from the offseason matter, if it does at all?
Is he gonna shield himself by bringing a dog to
a press conference all the time. All of those things matter.
But for Josh Allen and the Bills, just that question
(23:09):
of when do we stop believing?
Speaker 4 (23:12):
That's a good question. I don't think we're there yet.
I'll say this about Buffalo. If you go back and
you watch the playoff game against Denver last year. First
of all, Josh Allen made. I think it was one
really bad fumble and then another interception that was like
a real head scratcher, like. There were multiple turnovers in
that game that were very anti Josh Allen like, and
(23:35):
that obviously you want to say that he was a
little overwhelmed. I would argue it's just a little more
fluky bad bounce. But when you really dive into that game,
and let's be perfectly honest, Buffalo New England would have
been a much better AFC Championship game than the Jared
Stidham situation that we got with Denver. And obviously we
didn't know that Knicks was gonna get hurt and it
(23:55):
was gonna be Stidham. But I even think if it
was Nicks, I still think New England wins, and I
obviously think Buffalo would have given him a much better game.
When you look at the receivers that Josh Allen was
throwing to in that game, it's Brandon Cooks, it's me
Kole Hardman, it's Curtis Samuel. I mean, these are guys
(24:16):
that can't find roster spots.
Speaker 2 (24:17):
Now.
Speaker 4 (24:18):
They were playing in the AFC Divisional at the highest
level with the best quarterback arguably in the sport. So
now you bring in DJ Moore and at least you
have an adult in the room in terms of the
receiving group. And I know Shakier is a nice piece,
but he is not a one A in this league.
And I don't know if More is, but he's more
of a one A than Shakira is, Who's a slot
guy that obviously can do some nice things, but he's
(24:40):
not a true alpha receiver. And I don't know if
More is that guy yet or if he is currently
or excuse me, key On Coleman is the guy that
I would like to see a send to that status.
But at least with DJ Moore, you bring some stability
to the receiving room as long.
Speaker 3 (24:54):
As you'll finish or route. Oh I'm sorry, is that
salty Bears fan coming in?
Speaker 4 (24:59):
And the Bears fan aren't gonna like that? So I
like that element to Buffalo this year. I like the
fact that you're revamping the defense. I mean the defense
has been shredded. You go back and look at the
defensive performances, and Sean McDermott supposed to be a defensive coach,
go back and look at the defensive performances Buffalo has
had in the postseason over the last six years. They
(25:20):
are bottom barrel defensively. They're averaging thirty three points allowed
per game in their playoff losses since twenty twenty. So
I think that is where you bring you bring it
in a brand new staff, right McDermott's out, the whole
staff is gone. You're promoting Brady from the OC to
the head coach. We'll see how that transition goes. And
then you're bringing in Jim Leonard, who's trying to bring
(25:42):
in a new three to four defense. So I think
there's there's some transition concerns there, Mike, But I also
think the talent's better and I think Brady is more
of a more of a go for it coach, where
McDermott defensive minded coach. And I know that we just
had Mike McDonald win is Super Bowl. We've had plenty
of defensive coaches win Super Bowls over the last decade
(26:03):
or so. But I would prefer a Ben Johnson, Sean McVay,
Kyle Shanahan offensive mind as my head coach. So I
like that they're giving the reins to a young offensive
mind and head coach that the quarterback really likes. In
a new stadium where the win's not a factor. You
got a brand new receiver in there that should be
able to shake things up. So there's definitely a lot
to like. But I just think the AFC is wide
(26:24):
open right now, and I'm not in a position at
this point to make any predictions about the AFC. I
think I'm gonna wait and keep my finger on the
trigger for as long as possible to see who gets
hot and who's a good buy low candidate, because I
think the way the AFC is going to be. You
ever see one of the you know, if you go
to Washington, d C. To a Nationals game, you see
the President's race, sure where you know they get in
those big heads or I think they do it in
(26:46):
Milwaukee they do the sausage race. Well they do it
in Chicago. You could be Ken Harrilson running around, come
on here you go. But usually it's like right like
the way they do it, it's scripted. We're like one guy,
I have a big lead, and then he'll get tripped
in and they have a big lead. Like I think
that's kind of how the AFC is going to be
this year. I think it's gonna be a kind of
whack a mole, like this guy's gonna get off to
a hot start, and this team's gonna be hot, and
then another team's gonna be hot down the stretch. And
(27:08):
I'm not in a position where I feel like we
have to make any decisions about the AC right now.
The NFC is a different story. The Rams are a
runaway for a train. There's a decent chance the best
price you're gonna get on the Rams is right now,
and they're just gonna keep shrinking and drinking and shrinking
as they continue to get closer to the postseason. Whereas
in the AFC, I just I don't know who that
team is right now. It could be Buffalo, it could
(27:28):
be Kansas City, could be New England. Again. I mean,
we're dismissing New England like it was a fluke, but
drink may might be the real deal. So I think
there's a lot of variables in the AFC, and I
just don't know what button to push yet. And the
good news is I don't have to push any buttons
because it's only August.
Speaker 3 (27:45):
Well, the fun piece with New England is they're on
that list of teams due for regression, right. I mean,
we did an hour on the show I did on
US on Sunday morning, Anita Marx and I talking about
how Liam Cohen was complaining they were disrespected by not
being disrespected. One of the great sound bites of all
(28:05):
time because those I can scroll through all this and
see all these pictures of Caleb Williams and quotes from
Ben Johnson, but there's nothing about our Jaguars. They won
thirteen games a year ago, for those that don't recall.
So he was mad about that. Ben Jonson is like, yeah,
I think we got enough to worry about as opposed
to somebody's list of whether we're gonna fall off. So
(28:26):
it was a nice little verbal slap fight. But the
Patriots being there as well because of the rise that
they had change of schedule. Like we talk about and
say the Bears all the miracle wins the old they
could actually be a better team and more fundamentally sound,
but win fewer games. As we look at the totals
(28:47):
across the National Football League, let's just go AFC side,
you've got four teams where they're over under his ten
and a half wins. The Bills, the Ravens, the Chiefs
and the Chargers, the Broncos at nine and a half,
the Texans and Jaguars both at nine and a half
in the South, nine and a half for the Bengals
and nine and a half for those Patriots. So and
(29:10):
then we've got a big divide to pretty much everybody
else when we start going down the rest of those runs.
But for the Buffalo Bills and Josh Allen, the fact
that you bring in Pete Carmichael as well years in
New Orleans with the offense they were running for all
those seasons a couple of years now in Denver, working
(29:30):
with bow Nicks, working with Sean Payton, still that I'm
intrigued to see what that offense looks like, and how
they deployed James Cook, how they utilize Kincaid and can
they keep him on the field. Like, here's one of
the biggest things, right when you talk about a guy
who eats space in the middle of a field. You know,
we're just seeing clips from the fanatics fest stuff with
(29:52):
Rob Dronkowski again. You just think about when they're at
their best, guys like him and Kelsey McBride in Arizona
and can cage to a point in Buffalo. How much
it opens up your offense and space if you're working
on time down in distance, to where it becomes a
more fluid operation, to where I don't need a bunch
(30:13):
of a list guys on the edge. Yeah, I need
a guy that can go and get it, but we
can work within the margins and be a much more
efficient offense to where we're at least coming away with
a reasonable field goal expectations as opposed to putting so
much pressure on the defense.
Speaker 4 (30:29):
I think the one team in the AFC that I
am willing to buy now is Houston. I think they
have the most i would say stable of any of
the teams that we're talking about at the top here.
I think if you go and you look at the
winners last year and the teams that were all playoff
teams last year, that are kind of in that mix
(30:49):
in the AFC, right, it's Buffalo, it's Denver, it's New England,
and it's Kansas City. It's you know, maybe didn't make
the playoffs last year, but obviously in the mix again.
If if mahomes health, it's it's Baltimore, it's Pittsburgh, it's Cincinnati.
I think you can honestly poke holes in all of
those teams. I think Houston is the most solid of
the bunch. I think defensively is the reason why I
(31:12):
say that. I don't know if the Josh Allen offense
under Brady's gonna hit the ground running right away. It
might take some time. I don't know if Mahomes's knee
is healthy. I don't know if bon Nicks is healthy.
I don't know if Joe Burrow is gonna be able
to hold up this year, because he hasn't held up
in any year since it seems like the Super Bowl run.
I don't know if Lamar Jackson, who also by the way,
(31:33):
new head coach, new situation after what two decades long
with the same at coach, new culture, is gonna come
and hit the ground running right away. It might be
a transition there. I don't know if Aaron Rodgers is
going to be right. I think if there's one thing
I am certain of this year, it's that the Texans
defense is probably gonna be a top five unit again.
In fact, i'd be willing to say that right now.
I think you could put me on the record right
(31:54):
now and say Houston's defense is going to be a
top five unit, and that's probably the only certainty in
the AFC right now. So if you give me Houston
and you say that they can just figure out anything
with the offensive line, for crying out loud, it's been
a train wreck, and you could get stroud to have
some level of stability with that offensive line. I know
that they're not going to need to score more than
(32:15):
twenty to twenty four points to win a bunch of
football games this year. And I think that to me
in that division, with Indy going through some transition, we
know Jacksonville might be a regression candidate, and obviously Tennessee's Tennessee.
I think that's the one team than in the AFC
I feel really comfortable is going to win ten games
this year. Yeah, they win totals nine and a half.
Speaker 3 (32:33):
Three news.
Speaker 4 (32:34):
I think if there was a bet to be made
right now in the AFC, it's Houston over nine and
a half.
Speaker 3 (32:38):
Three new starters on the offensive line, a couple of
stalwarts from past NFL pass David Montgomery comes into the
backfield of SOLIDI five things. Remember what a mess that
was a year ago, And because I'm a Nerd. I
wish and want and hope to see Tankdell running fly
routes once again. More on this as we continue here
(32:59):
in five Sports Radio. But we talked about disrespect, finding
your motivations, finding fuel and wins. Well, let's talk about
the Philadelphia seventy six ers and one of their new stars,
because well he's doing some chirping, which gives us more
fodder here at Fox Sports Radio. He's Jared, im Mike.
This is the Jason Smith Show with me Mike Carmon.
(33:20):
I'm Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (33:21):
Be sure to catch live editions of The Jason Smith
Show with Mike harmon weekdays at ten pm Eastern seven
pm Pacific.
Speaker 5 (33:29):
Hey, it's Rob Parker and Kelvin Washington from The Odd
Couple on Fox Sports Radio. And in addition to hearing
us live weeknights from seven to ten pm Eastern on
Fox Sports Radio, we are excited to announce brand new
YouTube channel for the show.
Speaker 1 (33:43):
That's right, you can now watch The Odd Couple live
on YouTube every day.
Speaker 5 (33:49):
All you gotta do search Odd Couple FSR on YouTube.
Again YouTube, Just search Odd Couple FSR. Check us out
on YouTube and subscribe.
Speaker 3 (34:00):
Welcome in our three of the program. Disco Ball, still spinning,
marching band, Get the hell out of here. We have
work to do. Two more hours of glorious aural education,
information entertainment here Fox Sports Radio, Jason Smith Show with Me,
Mike Carmon, No Jason Smith Tonight, our guy, Jared Smith
in his stead at Jared Smith is where you find
(34:24):
Jared Smith. Bets you find me over at Swollen Dome.
Big slate of Major League Baseball over the course of
the day. The Dodgers and the Cubs were the marquee
event at Wrigley Field. A lot of chestiness from the
North Siders right now, as particularly as the South Siders.
(34:44):
My beloved White Sox struggling Jared Smith. We've got the NLMVP.
We talked about it back in hour one, where the
odds have equalized between Pete Crow, Armstrong and Show Heyo
Tani so a fun race to the finish. Still plenty
of work to be done before we get to October tomorrow.
We have the glory of the Hall of Fame game
(35:07):
and I can't I can't lie. I'm actually kind of
excited about it. One that'll be on the air for
whatever the final hour of the broadcast is. But the
other just that it's live football with all those Hall
of famers doing their interviews, Drew Brees and Larry Fitzgerald
and everybody on board, and it gives us the first
glimpse into football twenty twenty six. It's beautiful, isn't it beautiful?
(35:33):
I mean, I was gonna write a poem for it,
but I thought I'd just leave it there.
Speaker 4 (35:37):
How about a haiku? Still have time? It's two hours
left in the show, I think so. My fiscal year
started four days ago.
Speaker 3 (35:46):
I like that. The fiscal year it is. Look at you.
I always joke with me Fortune five hundred Jared Smith LLC.
Speaker 4 (35:55):
It's been more like a fortune one hundred recently JLS
Production's LLC. That's the officially the name of the LLS.
Nicely done in twenty twenty.
Speaker 3 (36:04):
See, I'm getting ready to do my card one. I'm
just trying to figure out whether it's just swollen down.
Speaker 4 (36:08):
This and it helps come tax season when you're in
when you're a sole proprietor. But that's neither here nor there.
So there's something about the beginning of football season that,
in my opinion, is really the beginning of a sports
fan's year. And it's not that I don't love baseball,
because we're kind of smack dab in the middle of
(36:29):
the dog days right now, So it doesn't make a
lot of sense from a standpoint. You bet baseball every day,
and all of a sudden football comes back, and then
baseball is like that. You know the girl you dated
in high school when you go to college, he's no
caller anymore.
Speaker 3 (36:42):
Well, she had a good one, yeah, yeah, yeah, or he,
depending on which way you know that's true.
Speaker 4 (36:48):
It doesn't matter he or she.
Speaker 3 (36:50):
It's like that significant over there, exactly.
Speaker 4 (36:53):
The significant other in high school, and then you go
to college and all of a sudden, that significant other
from high school you don't pay a whole lot of
attention to him or her anymore once once you're in college.
And that's how I feel. Come I would say Labor day,
I think baseball still has my attention for another couple
of weeks, but it's like the sand of an hour glass.
(37:13):
Every day it slips a little bit further towards the
football side of the ledger.
Speaker 3 (37:20):
I thought you were going to float a couple of
lines out of the days of our lives. No, it's
the opening of the show. That's true.
Speaker 4 (37:30):
I'm actually not. I don't even watch I don't think
I've ever even watched.
Speaker 3 (37:33):
That General Hospital guy right here, I was the ABC
soap operas. That's what mom watched. All my children into
one life to live into General Hospital for you. But yeah,
just a year.
Speaker 4 (37:44):
I think starts this week. Okay, I think the first
football game and I started. I made. I made my
first college football bet in terms of the futures market
on July fourteenth.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Okay, do you have some kind of process, like you
got to dress up real h and get yourself to
be honest.
Speaker 4 (38:02):
With that first click in college football is a big deal.
It really is.
Speaker 3 (38:06):
Oh, I thought I thought you would have done that
in person for the first one.
Speaker 4 (38:10):
I've done that before. Here's the problem. I have so
many different like apps. It's just it's it's a pain
to have to drive to all these casinos if I
want to make a bet. No, I get that, especially
when it's one hundred and thirty seven degrees exactly. So
I'm an app man, and you know, I get to
stay close to the dog and stay close to home.
But that first click for football, it's like it's almost
(38:34):
like you're going off to college for the first time,
and it's like you get this whole new you get
your you get your schedule for your freshman year. You're like, wow,
I get all these different classes. It's a different feeling.
And then you're watching the games and honestly, and I
obviously I look at it from the gambling perspective, but
that first week of the regular season college or NFL
is probably the most dangerous week because the FOMO hits
(38:57):
so hard and you want action everywhere you look, and
in reality, you shouldn't be betting that much. You know,
you shouldn't be putting that much wagering down on one
specific day of games, but the FOMO on week one
and the FOMO in the preseason is so real that
you bet above your means. Unfortunately, a lot of people
(39:17):
do that and they'll blow your whole bankroll within the
first few weeks. So I think it's obviously it's an
exciting time, but you also have to keep it in
perspective that the season is super long and we are
just in the beginning stages of it, and it has
been a long time without football, so you want to
dive back in head first. But dip your toe in
a little bit, right, see if the water's warm first
(39:38):
before you go into the cold punch.
Speaker 3 (39:40):
No, that's being smart about it. And for those that
might have missed a sentence or two, he was not
saying to go make bets upon arriving at your college
because kids are starting to pack up and go back
to college. No, don't do that. No, no, no, bad, bad.
They can pay the tuition, make sure the room and
board is taken care of, and then we go under evaluation.
Speaker 4 (40:01):
Well, of course under it. Drinky's different story. I'm sure
it's gonna be No.
Speaker 3 (40:04):
No, we can't we can't do we can't endorse that either,
be smart about it in every way, shape and form,
because that's also what leads to bad bank roll management.
Speaker 4 (40:14):
Also very true, Right, worst decisions I've made never gamble,
drun that. I don't like gambling at the casino, Mike,
because when you gamble at the casino, they give you
free alcohol and you make courts decisions.
Speaker 3 (40:24):
Yeah, depending how much how many tickets are flowing through. Right,
I know it was always good if you were betting horses,
because every three to five minutes there was another race
going off in a cast so there was action constantly
going through and paramutual wagering.
Speaker 4 (40:37):
I won't blame any players are their own culture, but
they get taken care of different world.
Speaker 3 (40:42):
Right, you want to go for March bad rooms, Right,
you want to go for March madness. You're a pony player,
You get a seat nice in front and center. You
get taken care of because you're you're churning money as
opposed to maybe you made one or two twenty dollars
bets and now you're just standing around like a jackass.
So you know, they need to make some money along
(41:03):
the way as well to where you can get your
water down drink or five. But we're talking about FOMO
and the opportunities that present themselves again. Betting odds are
up and prop bets and everything for the Hall of
Fame game and as we get towards the regular season.
But y'alls have Micah Parsons who is waxing poetic about
his recovery from injury and laying some level of blame
(41:27):
as to what caused it.
Speaker 7 (41:28):
I think it's very realistic. I just got to put
the work in. We got to get to the point
where I'm feeling great, and we say, Mike Ao be
in a really good phase. Is it possible. Yes, at
the same time as and these next how many weeks
is that? Is it ten to twelve weeks from now?
We got to do our part to make it possible.
But you know it's not off the board, but we
(41:52):
got to put the work in.
Speaker 3 (41:53):
Yeah, he said. I think of the accumulative things within
my body, pushing through no camp, dealing with injuries through
the season, and I think my body was just overloaded
and it caused my knee to give out going back
to the injury. But the fact that he expressly through
the no camp into process, and it's something we talk
(42:14):
about a lot coming into training camp, right how much
different they are than years ago. I was on the
training camp beat, and I'd go to seven or eight
different teams camps along the East Coast when I lived
out in New York, so I could be at all
we need to watch the Giants and then the next
day drive out to Latrobe. They'd put you up in
a hotel, you'd watch the Steelers go to work. And
(42:37):
that's one of the big stories of this year's camp
with McCarthy versus Tomlin, of how much different it is
in terms of the physicality of everything. But we've watched
that with camps, and once upon a time you'd go
and be like, all right, what do we got today?
Backs on backers, Okay, I want a front row seat,
a little let me up front to watch those kind
(42:58):
of drills go down. Or we're gonna do more life
and we're going to do some live tackling all those
things which have been collectively bargained out in a very
large way. And so when we start going through other
than great conspiracies about substations, Jared, we try to find
other cause effect and try to build those algorithms to
(43:20):
figure out exactly how much of these injuries is due
to the lack of really prepping your body the same
way you once did. And here's Michael Parsons just talking about, Hey,
I was holding out, and I attribute at least some
part of it to not going through the daily grind.
Speaker 4 (43:40):
It's an interesting take. Obviously I'm not at the elite
level of these athletes, but I can tell you I've
had a major body transformation in the last two years
of lost a ton of weight, a lot of it
from fasting, a lot of it from running, and I
would say about six months ago, I felt my body
hit a wall. To be fair, I'm forty and not
(44:01):
in any elite athletic shape, but I'm in the best
shape of my life, and I hit a wall where
I just my legs were gone, my runs were getting slow.
I think every person's body has that point where, no
matter how good of shape you are in, the body
is not meant to go through that kind of punishment
(44:23):
day after day. And everyone has their breaking point. And
I don't know what the exact reason was. I don't
think even God does. Like I just think, you know,
there's just like a certain point where your body just breaks,
and everyone is gonna have that moment, every professional athlet
I do the show with rich Oornberger every Saturday, and
(44:44):
the best part of the partnership we have is he
is just so candid about his his his injury history,
which was long and difficult, and he went through a
lot asolutely, Oh my God, on the offensive line against
some of the best and that was before a lot
of the pel is. You know, that was kind of
on the cusp of when they started to protect these
guys a little bit more and the CT became more
(45:06):
of a thing. So he was kind of on the
tail end of that era. But there's just such a
punishment that these guys take every single day, and that's
why what you put in your body matters. And you
see this a lot with players. You see players go
through this transformation. Whether they're in their twenties and they
(45:27):
are invincible, they believe they are invincible everything they are
told from the time they are in pee wee ball
till the time that they make the NFL. They are invincible, unflappable.
Nothing they do is wrong or going to hurt them.
And then they get to the highest level and they
start to continue to put that body through punishment. And
(45:48):
then right around the time they hit their thirty year
old mark, you know, four or five, six years in
the league, starts to wear on you and it's just nothing.
You don't bounce back the same way. And that's where
you start to see the nutrition become a big thing.
I'm convinced, and I don't know how Tom did it,
but I'm convinced that it was the nutrition element and
(46:11):
the things that Tom was putting in his body, not
the things that he was doing to his body. Stretching
and you know, exercise and that obviously is a factor
as well. But how you fuel your body, the minerals,
the nutrients, the supplements you put in, I think that
matters more on a holistic level than the exercise that
(46:32):
they did.
Speaker 3 (46:33):
A lot of these players.
Speaker 4 (46:35):
Yeah, like these these guys are brought up on fast
food and candy was and DK Metcalf says he eats like,
you know, one hundred thousand skittles before.
Speaker 3 (46:42):
That, said Marshaun Lynch. For all those years he had
got a sponsorship from Skittles out of it.
Speaker 4 (46:46):
I'm willing to bet that if those guys were eating properly,
they would have been able to last just a little bit.
Speaker 3 (46:55):
But that's it.
Speaker 4 (46:55):
I just think what you put in your body matters well.
Speaker 3 (46:57):
But it was what we were told as as kids
back in if you're paying attention to maybe you were
taking a computer class or whatever science you were doing,
or math, garbage in, garbage out. It's the same thing here,
right in terms of you know, how you eat, drink, sleep,
all of those things. I think the ploy for Brady
(47:19):
comes in big but certainly alcohol. I Look, I'm not
saying you know you abstain all the way, I mean,
do what you're gonna do, but recognize to everything that
you ingest, there is a cost, right there, There is
a cost. Except they even say too much water is
too much at times, like as a guy who's a
(47:39):
big coffee that you put in the water the key,
Now there's a whole other thing.
Speaker 4 (47:43):
Just water is not going to do much for you.
Speaker 3 (47:45):
Hey, you could find scientists that'll tell you it's a problem.
You can always find someone.
Speaker 4 (47:50):
How much of anything is a problem. Yeah, as a
guy who ingested water into you could honestly drink water
into your detriment. You absolutely could. You absolutely good if
you just went crazy.
Speaker 3 (48:02):
But yeah, so for Micah Parsons trying to get on
that comeback trail, get his body right, but try to
put some some logic behind what got to it. We
always talk about hold ins, holdouts, and just the rigors
of where that breaking point is, you know, of what's healthy,
(48:23):
building up the I guess, for lack of a better term,
the callouses of what you need to play in an
NFL season, because look, the first week, first weeks of
the season are usually how should we say, I'm gonna
say uneven to be nice, Jared, when we talk about
tackling and execution and all of those things. Because with
(48:46):
fewer preseason games, with fewer real live live AMMO as
it were, in terms of hitting and all of that
and working to that speed and through contact or whatever else,
it takes a couple of weeks before where we iron
things out. So why Belichick and the Patriots right always
that first month of the season. Don't judge us by that,
(49:08):
right because it's the learning process. You probably turned over
a bunch of your roster and now you're figuring out
what the next evolution is. And I think for the
NFL as a whole, that's kind of where we're at.
So the fast starts in September. It's the all right,
can you hold on from there? And depending on the
schedule makers, a lot of that's going to be decided
(49:29):
how much they want you on national television. Even though
we're so desperate for football. We're talking about the Panthers
and the Cardinals in the Hall of Fame game with
great anticipation at Jared Smith Betts is where you find
him in the Twitter verse. You find me over at
Swollendome as we continue, we'll continue in the football universe.
(49:50):
Jared sent me a giant run he talked about July fourteenth,
opening the can of whoop ass on the Betting Slate.
We're going to talk a little bit of college football
and where we are coming out of the polls that
were released and what to expect is we get ready
for football twenty twenty six that's coming up next. He's
Jared Smith and for Jason, I'm By Herman. This is
(50:11):
Fox Sports Radio.
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Jason Smith
Mike Harmon
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