Pregame Show - Tim Benz in for Madden, Greed is Good

Tim Benz in for Mark today. Tommy Radio joins for the hour.

See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Guarantee human.

Speaker 2 (00:05):
It was Michael Douglas as Gordon Gecko in the movie
Wall Street who once famously said, greed is good.

Speaker 1 (00:14):
Greed for lack of a better word, is good, greed
is right, greed works.

Speaker 2 (00:24):
That's true. In America, we always want more. We always
want bigger, bigger homes, bigger bank accounts, bigger cars, bigger buildings,
bigger boobs. Yes, especially bigger cars. Sometimes though, it's better
off just leaving well enough alone. And I'll give you

(00:45):
two examples from the sports world going on right now.
These are two conversations taking place on parallel tracks over
the past week in the sports world that seem to
be about sports entities giving more to us, whether.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
We want more or not.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
More regular season football games and more teams in the
NCAA basketball tournament, which by extension would mean a longer
nc DOUBLEA basketball tournament. It's a classic example of enough
is enough. But when we yell, when as loud as
we possibly can, these sports entities and the television network

(01:26):
partners that they usually work with, they just keep pouring
and we just keep drinking. We keep lapping it up.
I'm Tim Benzon for Mark Madden today here on one, O,
five to nine, the X lots coming up. Later on
in the show, Robert Kraft told Vanity Fair that the
NFL would like to get an eighteen game regular season.

(01:50):
Now we all knew that this was the case. We
all knew that the NFL was planning for this. But
Craft says that he would like to get it in
to the next CBA, and that would be by twenty
thirty one, but there's a chance we might see it
as early as twenty twenty seven. Similarly, the NCAA is
on the verge of expanding the basketball tournament from sixty

(02:13):
eight teams to seventy six.

Speaker 3 (02:16):
Now.

Speaker 2 (02:16):
I put up a webpole about both topics today at
tim Benz PGH. For the basketball one, I asked people
to respond by voting, what would you prefer that the
tournament expand to seventy two or seventy six teams or
would you rather see it stay the same at sixty
eight or go back to sixty four.

Speaker 3 (02:37):
So far, slightly less than three.

Speaker 2 (02:41):
Percent of people responding say they want the tournament to
expand to seventy two or seventy six. That's combined, that
means ninety seven percent of people either voted to keep
it at sixty eight.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Or roll it back to sixty four.

Speaker 2 (02:57):
You can't get ninety seven percent cent of people to
agree on anything.

Speaker 3 (03:02):
In America.

Speaker 2 (03:04):
I could say what would you rather drink a milkshake
or battery acid, and I'd probably get about five percent
of people would say battery acid.

Speaker 3 (03:12):
I'm lactose intolerant. Yet this is tracking it.

Speaker 2 (03:16):
Ninety seven percent of people saying leave the NCAA basketball
tournament alone or even go back to sixty four. Personally,
I'm with the majority go back to a true field
of sixty four. But you want to keep the dating
games in sixty eight, fine whatever. On the NFL side,
so far, I've got fifty four percent of people saying

(03:36):
go back to sixteen games and fifteen percent of people
saying stay at seventeen. So that's almost sixty percent of
people saying that they don't want an expanded schedule at all.
Leave it the way it is, or if you don't
leave it the way it is, go backwards to sixteen games.

(03:59):
Percent saying that they want the eighteen game schedule, and
ten percent claiming they want twenty games and no preseason
twenty regular season games. I'd love to go back to
sixteen games. But that horse is out of the bar
and that toothpaste is out of the tube, and much
like Diana Ruscidi and Mike Rabel, those fingers are already interlocked.
Let's bring in Tommy Radio right now. Tom eighteen game

(04:22):
regular season in the NFL, seventy six teams in the
NCAA tournament. Are you in favor of either expansion?

Speaker 4 (04:31):
I wouldn't necessarily say that I'm in favor of either,
but I can understand the nfls and since I've already
heard Roger Goodell say he's going to cut into those
preseason games to make the eighteen game schedule, I'm all
in on that. Forget those preseason games, they're useless. My
only drawback to the NFL one though, is something that's
plaguing them right now in the seventeen game schedule, tim
is there's just meaningless games for like two weeks in

(04:53):
the season now. Like the NFL got saved by the
Steelers choking on a big one in Cleveland in Week
seventeen last year, because if they didn't do that, they
had nothing to put on that Sunday night football game.
They had no like do or die steaky kind of game.
It would have been like for seeding minutia or something
like that. So it's already seeing a watered down final

(05:14):
couple weeks of the season at the seventeen game schedule.

Speaker 3 (05:17):
That's gonna happen at the eighteen game. But I'm okay
with that.

Speaker 4 (05:19):
When it gets to twenty, that's when it becomes overkilled
with the NFL the tournament thing.

Speaker 3 (05:23):
Well, you hold on for a second.

Speaker 2 (05:25):
If you are in favor of what you just said,
which is eighteen, you can do twenty with no preseason
and not extending the calendar.

Speaker 3 (05:34):
Just treat it like college football.

Speaker 4 (05:36):
I don't know, it just feels a little weird to
me to go to twenty, Like twenty does seem like
that's a lot of games. I mean, you just adds
a long season cut into the entire preseason, do you see.
I guess what I'm saying is I hate the preseason,
but I see value in some preseason stuff, like maybe
one or two games of preseason football is fine.

Speaker 2 (05:55):
Eh, you're just done with it. Yeah, I don't care.
Let's make all these games count. The reason I want
to go back to sixteen is part of what you said,
there's less of a chance to have more watered down games.
That's their biggest problem, right, And the hand and glove
that goes along with that is you're getting more disparity
between who's out and who's still in at the end

(06:18):
of the season because odds are if you're a team
that's ravaged by injuries, you're out of it earlier in
the season and there's less games, and you're giving more
chance for more good players to get hurt late in
the season without the ability to come back and play
in the postseason. So you are extending the opportunity for

(06:38):
important players to get hurt late in the regular season
and not be a part of the playoffs.

Speaker 4 (06:43):
No, it's very fair, and that's when you want the
players to be there. Like you can stomach a you
don't want a season ending injury in the preseason, but
you can stomach a preseason injury, a week one, week
two injury knowing that he'll be back for the stretch run.
Can't do that if it happens in this new week, seventeen,
week eighteen, week nineteen, whatever it is. Do you think
the NFL eighteen games is done? Like that's a face,
it's gonna happen. Do you think it does eventually get

(07:05):
to the twenty like it just not in this CBA,
but maybe in the next couple we reach that point
and preseason is done completely. My prediction is it does
get to that point that that there will be a
twenty game NFL season.

Speaker 2 (07:16):
I think they will see greater value in more network windows,
more regular season games and no preseason.

Speaker 3 (07:25):
And when has player safety ever gotten in the way
of them making money?

Speaker 4 (07:28):
Right, Like when it's the all I know that that
ultimately detracts from the product when like Mahomes is hurt.
But at the same time, they know people are gonna
watch like they're addicted to the whether it's Gardner Minshew
or Mahomes playing for the Chiefs in that playoff game,
they're gonna get the eyes.

Speaker 2 (07:41):
Now here's the thing. They could do this without. Look
part of why they're not. It's ironic that these two
teams are coming up against each other now, these two
conversations are coming up against each other because part of
the reason that they would limit themselves to just and
not go to twenty two or twenty four, they would

(08:02):
if they could.

Speaker 3 (08:03):
Yeah, right, but.

Speaker 2 (08:05):
You're talking about ESPN and CBS being two of the
primary network entities that are buying into the NFL. You
start getting beyond where they are in February, you start
getting into college basketball season, and they've got so much
invested into college basketball season and ESPN two for March madness.

(08:27):
Like my point is, they don't want the calendar to
go much beyond February twelfth or whatever it is now.
As it is, they have other entities that they want to,
like the net rates. The networks have to have a
stop to football season at some point or else it
will just consume everything, right, like kind of like the
start cancerous tumor that would just go through all of

(08:47):
the seasons, just eating the ratings of all the other
sports and all the other programs. And you have to
have the ability to get to free agency, and you
have to get the ability, you have to start drumming
up the draft. You have to have the combine all
that stuff. The season has to end at some point,
as much as we wanted to be three sixty five.
So literally thought is, the season has to end at
some point, but it can start whenever. So you could

(09:11):
get to twenty if you just have the preseason start
in early August as opposed to late August or early
late July, instead of.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
You'd bed on like you probably do what training camp.

Speaker 2 (09:25):
You just trim training camp in the off season, OTAs
and all that stuff, because you probably start training camp
a week earlier than usually do and practicing now, and
then the regular season starts August first weekend in August,
so you just give them a longer consecutive break from
the end of the Super Bowl until whenever they report,
and you just roll Phase one into Phase two into

(09:47):
Phase three, and you don't give them that big break
in June before they come back in July.

Speaker 4 (09:51):
You're basically saying less make believe gym short football, right,
more real football.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
Exactly, less practice time, less OTAs, less mini camp, all
that crap, and you just start with training camp earlier,
and then you can get your preseason games in late
July and early August.

Speaker 3 (10:10):
If you even have them, or you just go right
to the regular season so much. Just treat it like college.

Speaker 4 (10:15):
Yes, everything's an interconference game, you know what I mean,
Like AFC versus NFC in that first week of the season,
so you can kind of you have some wiggle room,
right as far as like they're not going to hurt
you in a conference tiebreaker or something like that.

Speaker 3 (10:25):
I don't know.

Speaker 4 (10:26):
I'm just spitballing here, because you can't have, like, you know,
an FCS school. There's no version of that in the NFL,
like where teams can beat up on somebody in Week one.
But you can make the stakes a little bit. Uh,
you can make the stakes as less as possible.

Speaker 2 (10:37):
I think that that would be a possibility to get
to twenty. If you're asking how you get to twenty,
that's how you get to twenty without pushing it further
into February. You just push the calendar up earlier into
the summer. That's how they could do it, because the
only keep the preseason, the only thing that you're eating
into there is the end of baseball season, the dog
days of baseball summer, and that's what the NFL already

(10:59):
eats into.

Speaker 3 (11:00):
Any way, when it starts on its regular schedule. There's
nothing right.

Speaker 2 (11:03):
There are no days on tracks that you're not worried
about the NBA, you're not worried about the NHL. You know,
they're already overlapping with college football as it is, and
World Cup pops up once every four years the Olympics. Yeah, well,
I guess the Olympics would be a problem, but that's
once every four years. You know what, Well, the Olympics
are a problem anyway, because the Olympics are end of July,
so training camps are kind of getting started.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
You're feeling that NFL buzz because we were.

Speaker 2 (11:28):
Talking about that as it related to flag football in
the Olympics. In football in the Olympics, how would that.

Speaker 4 (11:33):
Like Justin Jefferson won't be at Viking's camp that year
because he's playing for Team Aaron Rodgers is going to
go playing for Team USA.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
He's a true patriot. He's not here with the Steelers.

Speaker 2 (11:43):
He's a true Patriot and he's going to play for America.
He can't sign the contract until he's done playing for
a USA. Yes, Like what Schemes was saying, does he
need to be vaccinated before he plays for tv USA?
That might be a qualification.

Speaker 4 (11:57):
Like when Schemes in the World Baseball Classic was like, well,
I wanted to serve, but this is a close second.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
What No, it's not. Hey, you're at air Force. I
guess that gives you a card plush to say that
sort of thing. I guess Eli Heidinrich, what do you
think saying that?

Speaker 3 (12:09):
Though?

Speaker 2 (12:09):
All right, we come back speaking to Rogers, who got
an update to give you about his status at least
going back to yesterday's show. Follow up on that also
a column that I wrote that got a surprising amount
of blowback that I wasn't expecting.

Speaker 3 (12:22):
That's up next here on one A five nine.

Speaker 2 (12:24):
The X this playoff season, Power up your taste buds
with the Pineapple power Play from Doe, Daddy, brus Gjenerovich
and Fisherman. They got your back, night your wallet, Tom.
We spent a lot of time in the first segment
talking about the NFL eighteen game schedule that's being proposed
and advanced by Robert Kraft in this Vanity Fair column,

(12:44):
but we didn't really get into the college basketball and
too much. This is John Rothstein from CBS Sports talking
about why be a bad idea to expand to seventy
six teams in the NCAA Tournament. I warn you in
advance it is peak Rothstein, and I trimmed this so
that it is less peak Rothstein than it really is.
But it's bloviating, it's over the top. But everything he

(13:07):
says is also right. So take a listen.

Speaker 5 (13:10):
Expanding the NCAA Tournament might be the worst idea in
the long said history of bad ideas. The NCAA Tournament,
the rendition that we have all grown up with and
made part of our fabric as part of being the
greatest sporting event that we know in society, is not

(13:32):
going to exist in the same fom moving forward. A
lot of people when they talk about NCUBA tournament expansion,
they talk about what it's going to do to March Madness. That,
to me, is not the primary concern from where I
sit right now behind this microphone. To me, expand the
NCAA Tournament tremendously dilutes college basketball's regular season and waters

(13:59):
it down. Those compelling bubble games that feel like they
go on each and every night from the end of
January up until Selection Sunday. Those games are going, those
games are finished, Those games are over and done with.
And the fact remains this when you evaluate what is

(14:21):
going on right now in terms of adding more teams
to the NCAA Tournament, we are minimizing the accomplishment that
goes along with getting a bid to marsh Madness.

Speaker 2 (14:35):
That part he's definitely right about actually all aspects of that.
It waters down the conference tournaments even further than what
they already are. They're particularly watered down already because all
the big conference schools are getting in way more than
the mid majors are.

Speaker 3 (14:49):
That will continue to be the case. One of the biggest.

Speaker 2 (14:52):
Fallacies in the world is that this will help the
mid majors. Okay, maybe one or two each year, but
it'll just be more mediocre teams from the big conference
schools because they'll just unless they change the net or
you know, the power indexes that they use to get
teams into the tournament. Now, let's they change that by

(15:12):
going to seventy six. Then it's just going to continue
to help the Power five schools. So Rothstein's right about
a lot of that. It's going to mess with the
brackets too, because you know, the brackets are very simple, easy.
There's a reason why everybody likes March badness is because
the brackets and anybody can figure it out. You know
the old joke about the office secretary winning it. The

(15:32):
office secretary can figure out how to make the bracket work.
Now we're talking about what plugging in extra lines for
all if they're going to seventy six. It would be
all the sixteen lines, all the eleven lines, and then
what a couple ten lines too. Is that what we're
talking about here? And you and I have had this
conversation before, Like they could do this at seventy two

(15:56):
and make it not suck because you could just create
a second eight. You could put it in Spokane, Washington,
do the exact same thing as Dayton, but just do
all four Dayton games on one day, all four Spokane
days games on a second day, and then you could
fill in all four sixteens and all four eleven lines

(16:18):
and you could You could accomplish the same thing without
it being too burdensome. But seventy six to me.

Speaker 3 (16:24):
Is just too much. It's too much, and it's going
to add games again.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
You're making it a three week or deal now to
get to the final four, and you're adding there you
went through the conference tournaments.

Speaker 4 (16:36):
I don't want to see more sixteens verus sixteens, Like
I don't want to see more of those games. Like
even you're you're there going to seventy two, I think
you could do that, But to make it not suck,
you'd have you know, eleven exactly, twenteens or something like that,
like sixteens are just in. No one wants to see,
you know, Binghamton take on Bucknell.

Speaker 2 (16:55):
It's just the boring same team is the fourteenth team
from the ACC. Then I don't want to see them
getting into the Big Dance as opposed to a team
that want its conference turnament exactly exactly. And so leave
all the tens and the elevens open and let the
big conference schools the at large teams battle it out.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
Duke it out.

Speaker 4 (17:12):
And I think that's a better television draw anyway. Like
I don't think many people are getting to the TV
at what is it like six h nine pm on
the first four days to see the sixteen seed games,
Like they're waiting for the late tip to watch the
actual names that they recognize.

Speaker 2 (17:25):
No one what they've seen the Southern Conference team against
the MEAC team and Dayton anyway, but they're saying Texas
versus Vcup or they'll watch Texas versus North Carolina. North
Carolina's the last team in from the ACC or something
like that.

Speaker 4 (17:40):
And that's the thing that also irks me about this decision.
This decision sucks to go to seventy six teams. It
completely ruins the NCAA tournament. I'll still watch and fill
out a bracket, but I'll keep saying that it completely
ruins the NCAA tournament. But you're getting in the fourteenth
ACC team, the SEC team, You're you're getting in the
tenth AC team. Now, like just these mediocre teams. There's

(18:03):
no charm that's going to be added to this thing
because there's more cinderellas now and it's like, oh, there's
a chance now for like a twelve seed that just
barely missed it to go on this crazy run and
they're gonna be a thorn in the side of all
these other big brands.

Speaker 3 (18:15):
That's not what's happening here. You're gonna get just a
bunch of.

Speaker 4 (18:18):
Boring old like Arkansas and those kind of schools. LSU's
sneaking in that really have no business being there, and
it's just no one wants that. There's no charm in
seeing this big brand LS regular season. You're creating a
regular season if you start at the conference tournaments and
go through three full weeks now of NCAA tournament action

(18:40):
before you get to Final four weekend he use the
word dilute, that's gonna dilute March.

Speaker 3 (18:46):
Madness because you can't consume all that.

Speaker 2 (18:49):
Like I love college basketball tournament season as much as anybody,
I'm kind of gorged out by that Sunday of the
Elite eight.

Speaker 4 (18:55):
They're doing to themselves what I think football has fallen
victim too right now, where their schedule once postseason hit
is so stretched out, for get the college football's even
a thing, and then the NFL stretch run kicks in
and the playoffs are right around the corner. It's almost
like you remind yourself, like, oh, the college football semifinal
is this week.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
Well, one thing I left out of this conversation is
that there was some story about how some of the
college football Power five schools are talking about wanting it
to they might get rid of the conference championship games,
make sure that the second week in January is the
national championship game. But they're also talking about now making
the tournament twenty four teams.

Speaker 4 (19:34):
It's like they almost had it, Like you were right there,
and then you swerve the make up for the money
that you lose the conference tournament broadcast, so they add
around or a couple of rounds at around that are
still going to get SEC in Big ten teams into
the mix. You know what, I don't hate that though,
if it has to be that, if you can promise
me that it'll end in the second weekend in January,

(19:55):
I'm okay with getting rid of the conference championships and
going to a twenty fourteen playoff real.

Speaker 2 (20:00):
Quick here, because I wanted to reset the basketball part
of that conversation. I want to get to the Aaron
Rodgers news here, and we'll get to that column. And
I said, is getting me a lot of kickback in
a moment. But this is Mike Lafleur on with Jim
Rome talking about the Aaron Rodgers to Arizona conversation that's
bubbled up. Aaron Rodgers still has not committed to the Steelers,

(20:21):
which begs the question is he not sure whether he
wants to turn him play or is he considering other teams?

Speaker 3 (20:28):
Do you have an interest in Aaron becoming an Arizona Cardinal?

Speaker 6 (20:33):
You know, honestly, Jim, right now, we're we're focused on
the guys that we got coming in. You know, you
got you got the unit that we have with you know,
Gardner and Jacoby and Slovas and then we draft Carson
back in the in the third round. He'll be here Thursday. Finally,
we're trying to do some zoom stuff. So we got
a room that we're excited to work with, and that's

(20:54):
solely where my focus is.

Speaker 2 (20:56):
Most importantly, they are keyten Slovas reference. How does that
making He's still kicking around right now. He's in a camp,
in that camp right now. Yes, that can't be right.

Speaker 4 (21:09):
I mean, how desperate are we at that position to
find anybody that can.

Speaker 2 (21:12):
Throw the ball and Aaron Rodgers might wind up there
as a result.

Speaker 4 (21:15):
I would just for once love a coach just be
like no, you know what I mean, Like when Jim
Rome was like, you give any interest in Rogers? You
don't even have to be like blunt about it. You
can be like, Rogers is a Hall of Famer. I
would love to, you know, have dinner with him, pick
his brain.

Speaker 2 (21:27):
But not He's right to say no, because like what
if Jacoby Brissette tears an acl and.

Speaker 3 (21:32):
When the contract thing doesn't resolve itself, I guess.

Speaker 2 (21:35):
Yeah, and he's available, then you've got to turn around
and go grab him. But I liked what you said
during the commercial break. It would be so Aaron Rodgers
to go to Mike Lafleur in the Arizona Cardinals, to
show up Matt Lafleur.

Speaker 3 (21:48):
I mean, like that'd be Rogers breaking.

Speaker 2 (21:50):
Up another family like he did his own, pitting brothers
against each other, like Aaron and Jordan are against each
other in the Rodgers family.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
Yes, exactly. That would be beautiful.

Speaker 4 (21:57):
Do you think Aaron sees Jordan ever pop up up
on TV on ESPN and just like seees like, I
can't believe you just because of that last name.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
You're on ESPN right now.

Speaker 2 (22:08):
I don't think that there's much fire to this smoke
from Arizona, but it does underscore why that UFA tag
was important. Yeah, that's fine, and it's not even they're
not going to reap a huge reward of it, but
they're getting something as opposed to nothing.

Speaker 4 (22:21):
I don't think Arizona is going to pursue Aaron Rodgers
aggressively at any point.

Speaker 3 (22:25):
I don't think it's going to end up at that point.

Speaker 4 (22:27):
But the people that just like eye roll at all
these this stuff and say like this is completely fabricated nonsense,
and if you bought it at all, you're an idiot.
Like there's smoke from the Steelers actions that would make
us think that this is not fabricated nonsense happening right now,
the UFA tender being the main thing that would signal that, hey,
we're picking up as well here. You know, we got

(22:47):
our ear to the ground as an organization, that there
is some rumblings out there Arizona.

Speaker 3 (22:51):
Maybe a little bit of interest.

Speaker 2 (22:53):
Bangwoods talk about if Guinny Malkins, Sergei murshev Archers, shee loves,
and a little discussion about Andrew McCutcheon.

Speaker 3 (23:01):
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Speaker 3 (23:08):
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Speaker 2 (23:38):
Tim Benson for Mark Badden brought to you by Shandarova,
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Speaker 3 (23:44):
They got your back, not your wallet.

Speaker 2 (23:46):
Expanded coverage of the Mark Badden Show here in the
two o'clock hour. Coming up in the three o'clock hour,
Mike de Coursi the Sporting News. He'll have a lot
to say about the college basketball expansion in the eighteen
game regular season for the NFL. Those two tops conversations
Tom and I brought up earlier. I had two columns
that got a little bit more pushback than I anticipated.

(24:07):
One was pushed back, one was traction. I got a
little bit more response to the column that I wrote
today about Sergei Mushov being the goalie next year for
the Penguins.

Speaker 3 (24:18):
I wrote a it's.

Speaker 2 (24:19):
Got to be him. Don't get waylaid by what you
saw from Archer. She loves that have incubated Murushav enough,
give him the job next year. She loves if you
keep them on a restricted free agent deal can be
a number two or a one. B and I wrote
the column, and I didn't feel great about it because
I felt it was too obvious. And then I got

(24:39):
more people than I anticipated, either pushing back on it
and saying that Mroshav is being anointed too quickly, or
people saying that she loves is for real, or people
just flat out saying, yes, I'm glad you said that
it should be Muushov. So I got more traction out

(25:00):
of that than I anticipated. Like I wrote it, and
I thought, this is too obvious. Why did I write
this column? Why did I have this take? It feels
ot but maybe it wasn't. Maybe there are more people
out there who doubt that the Penguins will do it
or have fallen for shoe lobs because of what they
saw against the Flyers.

Speaker 4 (25:17):
You know, that whole notion of Mrshaw's being anointed too quickly.
I pushed back at that. They really slow played his
development a lot this year. I think there was temptation
to bring him up a couple of times throughout this season,
and maybe even coming to the stretch run to say, hey,
could we really reach another level before the playoffs if
Mushaw comes up because he was killing it in Wilkes
like he deserves, Yeah, he deserve to get called up.

(25:40):
That they went in overtime last night too. Did you
see that Rolorady with the tip in? What was the
controversy about that? They thought it came in and out
too quickly or something like what was.

Speaker 3 (25:48):
The hershey ran?

Speaker 4 (25:48):
Why? On Twitter? That was like wasn't even a goal?
Everybody knows that, And I was like, okay, Bud, what
are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (25:54):
Throwing stuff on the ice? Saw that the overhead shot
made it clear as a bell. It was like who
had the shot against the flyers that went off the
crossbar and out against Doer?

Speaker 3 (26:04):
Right, same thing. Yeah, it just was so quick exactly
what it looked like.

Speaker 4 (26:07):
So first of all, that's great news that that happened,
because that's what you want from the Penguins, and this
the baby Penguins in this run, right, is like the
mcgroarty's having big overtime game winning goals.

Speaker 3 (26:19):
Two points.

Speaker 4 (26:20):
This is the playing points or so and part of
the plan that they've stuck to all year long, except
for when injury dictated earlier they had to call him
up is keeping Miroshov down there for development's sake. So
I pushed back on this notion that always being annointed
too quickly. I think they slow played his development. I
think for a good reason. And now, as you should
with any blue chip number one goaltending prospect in the

(26:42):
entire NHL, you bring him up and you make it
back he's that guy or not right, and she lost
is a great fallback to, you know, if he has
a little bit of a stretch where he's showing his rookiness.
Is that even a word, I don't know, but you
need to have him reset a little bit. She lost
can take a game or two in the net, and
it's good on back to backs where you don't have
that drop off too drastically at level.

Speaker 2 (27:03):
You also have to know if you're wrong about Mrshov
fake time, because then you can go to She Loves
and maybe you don't lose Bloomquist for the entirety of
his career because he's kind of been lost in the
shuffle here. So if you're wrong about Mrshoff, you want
to learn that quickly too. So I was glad I
got some positive and negative feedback on it. I just
wanted to feedback on it because I thought it was

(27:24):
too obvious of a take, and I sort of regretted
writing it, and then I got responses that I didn't
expect because there was some debate over it, so I
felt better about that, And then I didn't know how
to feel about the amount of responses I got on
my McCutcheon walkin call.

Speaker 3 (27:40):
A comparison between the two, and I.

Speaker 2 (27:41):
Didn't feel good about that because I don't think people know.

Speaker 3 (27:44):
How to read. That's where your conclusion was.

Speaker 2 (27:48):
My conclusion was reading comprehension is at an all time low,
either in this city or this country, or the world
or all three. Because I got so many responses from
people email, social media, text like complaining that I was
comping McCutcheon the Player to Malkin the Player. Not only

(28:15):
was I not doing that, I specifically said I wasn't
in the column. You're saying, maybe some people just read
the headline and saw the split photo of.

Speaker 4 (28:23):
The No, no, no, no, that's that's it. They don't read
the headline because, as you established, people don't read anymore.
It's picture books now. I think basically it's a little
toddler reading a picture book where it sees malkin and
mccutcha next to each other.

Speaker 2 (28:34):
And it's like Tim Ben's thinks they're the exact same.
This cannot stand, Tim, You're an idiot. I got an
email from a woman named Anne who emailed me and
said I was a jerk and a jag off for
making these guys into bad guys.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Whoa and what?

Speaker 1 (28:49):
I didn't make it.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
Itcho bad guys at all.

Speaker 2 (28:51):
I just I talked about how actually I talked about
how embittered the fan response can be when popular players leave,
Like I didn't make them the bad guys that I
didn't even know how you drew that from that column.

Speaker 4 (29:03):
Now, mccutchein's made himself the bad guy if anybody's made
anybody a bad face and all, my god, and you
know you want to talk about people being like, I
can't believe you're comparing these two as a player, even
though you're not. You know, when you look at the
circumstances with McCutcheon leaving and him being mister powdy face,
I'd give malcolin a little bit more of a leash
to be mister powdy face if he leaves, because he's

(29:24):
the three times Stanley Cup champion, number three at worst,
best penguin of all time, like he can be mister
powdy face and I'm gonna be like, I still love you.
Geno McCutchen really rubbed me the wrong way with how
he handled this. He didn't give me any playoff series
win while you were here. You want an MVP, that's awesome,
and you went to the playoffs a few times, but
you didn't deliver a pennant a championship, and you want

(29:46):
to act like you're in that same kind of threshold
as Gino that.

Speaker 3 (29:50):
I hate that.

Speaker 2 (29:51):
I'll get more into that in the three o'clock hour,
but I was just I was a little bit taken aback,
and I don't get taken aback by much, but I
was sort of taken it back in two different ways
between those two things that are rote.

Speaker 4 (30:01):
So like, you see all these replies of people saying,
I can't believe you're comparing these two as players, and
you just have to be like, I'm not, I'm not,
I'm not, I'm not, over and over and over again.

Speaker 3 (30:09):
It's insane.

Speaker 2 (30:10):
Uh, we're doing pirates for the trifect pirates triffecta disappointing pirates. Ooh,
disappointing pirates. Then I'll save the take that I was
just about to give you. We'll do it next. For
the trifect It's on the way. You're one of five
nine the X.

Speaker 1 (30:22):
It's the Woody Show tomorrow morning from six till Tim whoa.

Speaker 2 (30:26):
You'll get a day Wednesday on.

Speaker 4 (30:29):
Ninety from the one oh five nine the ex Weather Center.

Speaker 3 (30:32):
This report is sponsored by All State.

Speaker 1 (30:35):
It's gonna be cloudy today, can't roll out the show
one d.

Speaker 2 (30:42):
Time? Now for the Trifecto, which is brought to us
by Danny's Pizza and Hogi's family owned and operated since
nineteen sixty Route eighty eight in Bethel Park, Tom, what's
the trifecta today?

Speaker 3 (30:54):
For today's triffect.

Speaker 4 (30:55):
To Tim, We're gonna tab the three most disappointing Pirates
so far this season? Teen and seventeen is the Pirates record?
Are you gonna say maybe the best last place team
you've ever seen in the history of baseball?

Speaker 2 (31:05):
Yes, I'm going to say that the best last place
team ever.

Speaker 4 (31:09):
Absolutely for number three on this list. This is probably
the most unfair entry to this trifecta. But I'm gonna
put the youngster Bubba Chandler on here. I'll put him
at three because I give him a little bit of
leeway because he is young. And I said even yesterday
when I was hosting the show, before Chandler made the start,
I think expectations were a little unfair for him because
of how great Schemes was. So pirates fans are like,
all right, next Phenom up right, Chandler's turn. But E

(31:33):
is at four seven six, Now he's one and four.
I mean, he's command is just all over the place.
He actually leads major League Baseball in walks with twenty six.

Speaker 3 (31:42):
It just doesn't look good for change. I don't think
that's unfair at all.

Speaker 2 (31:46):
In fact, I do think it's been a disappointing start
because he did have some exposure last year. You were
hoping he would be better this year, knowing that he
was going to be in the rotation to start the year.
And that number that you put out there about the walks,
like that's on him, you know, like there's no extraneous

(32:07):
reason why he's struggling. He's struggling because he doesn't have
command and control, and that's disappointing. He's been inconsistent. I
don't think that's unfair at all to put him there.

Speaker 3 (32:18):
Good.

Speaker 2 (32:18):
I get what you're saying that it's unfair to think
that anybody could come in and be schemes. And I
wrote about that today at Trip Live. That part is true.
But I don't think anybody's comparing what Chandler has done
in his time to Schemes his numbers. When they're saying
has he been disappointing or not, we're saying he's disappointing
because he's got like a four to seven six ERA

(32:40):
and leads Batch League Baseball and watts. That's fair on
its own, good point.

Speaker 4 (32:45):
And how about this thirty one and the third innings
pitched last year for Chandler in the Big league's four
total walks, thirty four innings pitched so far this year,
twenty six walks.

Speaker 2 (32:56):
I mean, he's losing guys at O two like the Carol.
He even talked about that after the game last night.
And you'd thank him for someone with the stuff of him.

Speaker 4 (33:05):
You know, that's you know, the strikeout waiting to happen,
right like that's when you be putting him away. But
something's just not clicking there with Bubba Chandler. It's a problem.

Speaker 3 (33:13):
Number two.

Speaker 4 (33:14):
I'm gonna go with Brian Reynolds on this list, even
though he's kind of woken up a bit lately at
the plate. He's just the worst fielder on the Pirates.
And that's saying something because there's a ton of people
that suck at fielding on that team. It's by far
their greatest weakness team wise. But I mean, Reynolds is
arguably the worst fielder in the entire Major leagues. His
defensive war metric is minus point six. That is the

(33:36):
worst of anybody that's qualified. And Tim, I know Cruz
didn't exactly put on a display last night a little
bit before this play in Arizona and allowed a runner
to get into scoring position in a run to score,
but the second out in what was it the fourth inning,
third inning, whenever Chandler was struggling, Renolds just quits on
the ball like his controller got unplugged. It's it's awful

(33:56):
to see him in the field. Right field, left field,
doesn't matter. He's cooked. He can't play.

Speaker 2 (33:59):
Yeah, And maybe this is me being too critical of Cruise,
but I do think there's some there is outfielder PTSD
out there when it comes to outfielders playing on either
side of Cruise because they don't trust what he's going
to do. That ball fell because of a lack of
trust from Reynolds as to what.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
Cruz was going to do.

Speaker 2 (34:19):
They know that he can cover the ground, but they're
not sure if he's going to get there because he
can't make the read. And as a result, they're all
goofy and they're path to the ball and whether or
not to give up on it and expect the center
fielder to be there or not. Like that experiment has
bled into I think problematic fielding for Reynolds and for
O'Hearn or Mangum or whoever's playing in left field.

Speaker 3 (34:41):
That's a fair point.

Speaker 4 (34:42):
But then also was it just over the weekend or
in the Cardinals series where there was a ball hit
directly at Reynolds and it was almost a little leagueer
scared of the ball?

Speaker 3 (34:51):
Right?

Speaker 4 (34:51):
Well, he lost in the lights, he lost. It was
scared of the ball to him. I know scared of
the ball. I was scared to death of the ball
my entire time playing Little league.

Speaker 5 (34:58):
I know that.

Speaker 2 (34:58):
Look, yeah, but you have glasses and you he can't
see either, so now can you throw? Because that's been
his problem?

Speaker 3 (35:04):
And what was funny is.

Speaker 2 (35:06):
They were laughing about this on the broadcast last night too.
Is he's had trouble throwing. His arm has looked bad,
and then he on corks one from right field that
almost like wound up in the field boxes that who's
playing third base last night out Triolo had to back
up into the coaching box to catch it. Came out
so hot from his hand. I just I'm not sure
if he knows where it's going with his arm now either.

(35:27):
The number one disappointing pirate though, is definitely Marcelo Zuna,
especially with the ticket that you paid for him. The
track record as a player. I know he was coming
off of a down here last year in an injury,
but still he's been one of the worst hitters in baseball.
Coming alive a bit lately though, so I'm starting to
see him maybe turn a corner. Have you seen the
home and road splits though on Azuna so far this year? Tim,

(35:47):
you know, how about it's fifteen games each at home,
he's two eighty eight batting average with an eight twenty
five OPS.

Speaker 4 (35:54):
On the road, he's hitting point seventy three with a
two point fifty OPS. What the hell's going on there?

Speaker 6 (36:00):
Well?

Speaker 2 (36:00):
It's the exact opposite of what we thought would be
the case, because he was supposed to death sentence. He
had terrible numbers at P and C Park coming in,
and we all assume that, you know, with the left
field and the left center field issue, that he was
going to lose home runs and it was gonna be
a tough time for him at home, and then he
was going to go into some of these smaller parks
in the NL and particularly in the Division like Cincinnati

(36:21):
and you know, a home run friendly place in Milwaukee,
some of the other places that you play in the Division,
the wind blowing out at Wrigley or whatever, and thinking
make up for it there. But that's that's the inverse
of what a lot of people expected.

Speaker 4 (36:33):
Yeah, so that's why I'm a little optimistic that he'll
find himself on the road. Here's why I'm really disappointed though,
in Ozuna, because you can't get they're not going to
DFAM unless it gets drastically bad because of the money
that they paid him. But when you took a risk
on him, you needed him to come through and be
like your second third best bat in your lineup at worst.

(36:53):
Because he's locked in at DH and he makes it
so you can't have any flexibility with anybody else on
your team in that DH spot, Like I'd love to
put Reynolds there for spells, Rotato Herne through there sometimes,
but that's impossible to do if Ozuna is a part
of your team. So they just got to hope that
he plays a lot better. And that's why I think
it's mainly disappointing, is like he's stuck in that dhroal

(37:16):
and you can't really do anything about it.

Speaker 2 (37:17):
I thought you're gonna go hot take and say Skens
was one of them because he's had two bad starts.

Speaker 4 (37:22):
Yeah, I could definitely see how you could put that
on the list and make an argument for it. I
just I'm not there yet that I'm disappointed. And he
was so good in the middle five. Oh, he almost through
a perfect game against Milwaukee before he got rocked by
the Cardinals.

Speaker 3 (37:35):
And rocked by the Cardinals.

Speaker 4 (37:37):
That wasn't as bad as the Matt's outing agreed three
earn run against the Cardinals.

Speaker 3 (37:41):
He still blew away nine batters. Yeah, he didn't walk anybody. Yeah,
you know.

Speaker 2 (37:45):
And the Metch thing, of course was Cruz. Cruz being
an issue in center field. Yeah, so I can see.
You know, you look at that era right now, what's
it at two nine to one? It's still really good
Major League Baseball standards. But you look at it for
Paul Skien standards and you say it's a little bit
of disappointment. But he'll start tipping that down, just like
he was doing in the middle starts between the Mets.

Speaker 3 (38:05):
And the Cardinals start.

Speaker 2 (38:06):
I thought you might come up with a trifecta of
more surprising quarterbacks still in the NFL than Keten Slovas,
and then give me Keaton Slovas's name three different times.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
Now I'm trying to rack my brain on if there's
another quarterback in the NFL. That's just like absolutely shocking
that he's kicking around. And Dan Sky and I were
talking about quarterbacks earlier today. I can't remember, though. The
name escapes me. Keenan Slovas is the is the peak
there though. I mean, people heard that name Keton Slovas
and they're just like, who the hell are you even
talking about?

Speaker 3 (38:35):
We only know it because of our niche little you know,
he was that pit for a cup of coffee.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Well, if you're Rogers, let's let's think about this real
quick and we got about sixty seconds here, so we
have to bang this out quickly.

Speaker 3 (38:45):
But if you're Rogers and.

Speaker 2 (38:47):
You've got Wilson, Marvin Harrison, Trey McBride, James Connor, Julian
Love and Al Jeer as your options, I mean, my god, like,
do you like that? And as a head coach as
opposed to McCarthy, who do you like better?

Speaker 3 (39:03):
What's what's the better choice there?

Speaker 2 (39:04):
Playing and playing in that division and playing out in
the West and playing in climate controlled environment as opposed
to playing the North, although he's playing in the North,
Northeast or Midwest for most.

Speaker 3 (39:14):
Of his career.

Speaker 4 (39:15):
Yeah, I mean, forget the climate stuff, you know. I
don't think there's any question in my mind that the
Cardinals have a more attractive group of skill position players
on offense to work with and Tim, you're forgetting something
very important. Isaac Ciamalo's in Arizona.

Speaker 3 (39:27):
Now, Well, that's what you need. Theah, the familiarity at
left guard, that's huge.

Speaker 2 (39:31):
I heard today Koboli told Starkey that he's not ruling
out the idea of Fautano going from right tackle to
left tackle, McCormick moving from right tackle to left guard,
Anderson moving to right guard, and then having a Hana
Shore play at right tackle.

Speaker 3 (39:50):
So now you're moving everybody around.

Speaker 2 (39:53):
I'm not rolling that. I'll be so Steelers for them
to do that. Yeah, I'm not rolling that out though.

Speaker 4 (39:57):
I think that that's actually one of the more logical things,
not that I would do, but one of the more
logical things that you would think they would do. My
only little tweak would be and maybe Kaboom was just saying,
this is like a placeholder to start, but Dunker is
probably going to end up being that right guard sooner
or not later, not in the right.

Speaker 3 (40:11):
Guard or the left guard.

Speaker 2 (40:12):
Well that's the thing you might as well make than
just make him the left guard and leave McCormick alone
at right guard. Then Faltanu would be the real switch
that I would make to left and then hey, Hana
Tour play his right I would be with you and
put Dunker at left guard.

Speaker 3 (40:24):
That's how I would do it.

Speaker 2 (40:25):
Okay, we are going to update our eighteen game season
seventy sixteen NCAA Tournament polls. I'll get more into that
Maulkin McCutcheon conversation, and we'll talk to Mike de Courci
in the three o'clock hour.

Speaker 3 (40:36):
We're back in thirty seconds, one of five nine the X.

Speaker 1 (40:40):
Now here's your chance to win one thousand dollars, just
as you're this nationwide keyword on our web