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Episode Transcript
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(00:00):
On this week's Great Iron Report we have Lions final few coaching pieces are starting to
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fall into place, the Red Wings and Pistons are possibly the hottest teams in their respective
leagues and the Detroit Tigers are starting to show signs of life.
(00:42):
Welcome to the Great Iron Report, your Lions first all Detroit sports podcast today is
Wednesday February 5th and the Dan Campbell coaching tree across the NFL has just become
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larger as Tanner Eggstrand has officially moved on from the Detroit Lions and taking
his talents to the New York Jets.
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Yeah it's huge, I feel like David Shaw was such a hot commodity as a coach.
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I feel like he was being groomed to be that next big coach in the NFL.
Not sure what happened with it, he left Stanford in 2022, he's been a couple different jobs
since then.
But yeah, Andrew Luck was just on PMT this week, he had nothing but good things to say
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about David Shaw.
He's the 4xever coach of the year.
The dude, he can clearly coach and I think he's going to be a really good presence in
this team.
His one loss was to our Michigan State Spartans.
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During his time with Stanford he finished, I believe as high as third in the AP post
at some point in his 10 year.
Yeah, he's, the last coaching role was in 2022 with Stanford.
Since then, he was a senior personnel executive
for the Broncos alongside Johnny Morton.
So you know that connection is there.
That's probably how he kind of got his foot
in the door a little bit,
(03:09):
bringing Johnny Morton over from the Broncos.
He has some connections to David Shaw.
There's also other connections to David Shaw in Detroit.
His dad, I believe, was a Lions coach back in the 80s.
So he's familiar with Detroit in one way or another.
But it's kind of surprising to see
that we were able to get him in the same role
as a passing game coordinator.
Because I know he interviewed for the Bears
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head coaching position last month.
And there were a number of talking heads on ESPN
and all those other first take, all those things
that were talking about how he'd be an absolute home run
hire for the Bears as their head coach.
So to bring him over with Johnny Morton,
I think just kind of re-stabilizes this organization,
and this offense at least.
We talked about how there's so much turnover
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and so much more potential turnover
that didn't end up happening,
that we're grateful for.
But you have all these guys that are coming and going.
And we just mentioned Dan Campbell's coaching tree
is just getting larger and larger across the NFL.
But then to bring in guys like Johnny Morton,
who has ties to Detroit and Dan Campbell,
and has shown that what you want about his time with the Jets,
he's shown that he can be a good offensive coordinator.
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You bring in David Shaw, who's obviously,
like we just said, is very proven.
It makes me feel a lot better about this offense moving forward,
having lost Ben Johnson and his fantastic offensive mind,
and then obviously now Tanner Eggstrand as well.
Yeah, for sure.
And if David Shaw to the Bears is going to be a home run
hire, well, I guess Ipso facto, right?
(04:34):
He's a clear home run hire, maybe a grand slam
hire for the Lions as our passing game coordinators.
Yeah, shout out to Brad Holmes for bringing
another really, really good coach into this coaching room.
We mentioned it last week.
I think it was last week, maybe two weeks ago,
I'm hoping that this offense is coaching by committee kind
of thing, in which we have a number of different voices
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in that room making the play calling, making the schemes,
including Dan Campbell himself, who we talked about,
has shown that he can be the primary play caller.
When it gets tough, he's the one who
is able to make that decision to go for it
and on forth and stuff like that.
So it's really going to come in handy,
because we also have got the news this past week
that Scott Montgomery was interviewing for the Cowboys
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offensive coordinator.
He was one of the guys, again, a few weeks ago
that we were talking about was in line for this offensive
coordinator position.
He was him, Tanner, Hank Fraley, a number of other guys.
And like I said, we kind of assumed
that whoever didn't get this job would be looking elsewhere
across the NFL to try and potentially get that job
somewhere else, because they were also worthy of it.
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So it wasn't, again, it wasn't a surprise.
It was more surprising that Scott Montgomery didn't get
this job than it was that he's out there interviewing
with other organizations.
So we did get the news that he was interviewing for the Cowboys
offensive coordinator position.
I haven't seen anything come back about whether he got the job,
is in second round interviews, anything like that.
I just know that he was out there,
(06:01):
that he was interviewing with Jerry Jones and that squad.
So even if Scotty does go, I feel
confident with David Shaw in this organization,
in this offense, saying pretty much the same and being
able to hit maybe a little bit differently.
They might switch up the run cadence and the passing
cadence and stuff.
But I'm pretty confident that we'll
be able to hit the ground running just as much as we were
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last season and even the season before.
For sure.
And if Scotty Montgomery, if he does get that Cowboys
offensive coordinator job, best of luck to him
and wishing him a really good time in Dallas.
I know we're not huge on the Dallas Cowboys,
but still, he's our boy and we want him to do well.
It's just a rumor right now.
And I guess speaking of rumors, Ty,
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can we touch on probably the biggest trade rumor right now?
And that is Miles Garrett, former Texas A&M Aggie,
Miles Garrett, of course, one of the best defensive ends
in the entire NFL.
He requested a trade.
And your Detroit Lions are the favorite to land him
at plus 350 odds, so about three and a half to one odds.
(07:05):
So yeah, Ty, what do we think about Miles Garrett?
Do we sell the farm on him?
Do we try to low ball?
Is there a place for him in this Detroit Lions defense?
I'll tell you what.
This is such perfect offseason, at least offseason
for the Lions NFL banter, because you're damned if you do,
you're damned if you don't.
If I'm sitting over here saying, yeah,
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the Lions need to go all in in the sky,
our Super Bowl window is right now.
Go out and get him, pair him with Hutch.
It'll be the best defensive line in the NFL.
That all sounds great.
But then you also had the other side
that people are saying, why would we give up what we think
it will cost him, cost to get him, thus basically closing,
putting a cap on our Super Bowl window,
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limiting how much we can pay our other guys and stuff.
So again, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
What I will say is that I think it depends on the price
at which Miles Garrett can be had for.
The Browns are an absolute dumpster fire.
I know Detroit is comically one of the worst franchises
in sports.
You've got the Lions, the Sacramento Kings,
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a few other bad franchises out there.
The Browns, I truly think, are surpassing the Lions
in their incompetency just because they've
been bad for so long.
And at least we have something going now.
So there is a chance in which you could go out there,
you could low ball them, low ball the Browns,
and try and go after them.
I think it depends on what you're able to low ball them with.
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I think it would be absolutely insane
if you can get Hutch on one side,
Aline McNeill in the middle, and then Miles Garrett
on the other side.
That easily would be the best defensive line in the NFL,
possibly up there with NFL history.
But you've got to think after this year, because Miles Garrett
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would be, I think he only has one year left on his contract.
So after this year, you're going to need to start,
he's going to want a contract.
Actually, I believe he has two years.
So he could play his one year, and then that next year,
he could technically sit out and say,
I want my new extension, I want a new contract,
and I'm not playing until I do.
And that's right about the time that Detroit has a lot of guys
they had to play.
All these young guys that are driving this,
had driven this rebuild, and now here
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are going to need new contracts.
So you need to think about the money wise.
And it's so easy to be like, I don't care.
Super Bowl window is now.
Let's win Super Bowl now this upcoming year,
and worry about the money later.
And that's totally fine if you want to do that.
That's fine.
I'm OK with one year of Miles Garrett,
and then worry about the money later.
But I ask you, what do you think?
(09:37):
What would you give up to get that done?
Don't even think about the contract down the line.
What would you be willing to give up to get Miles Garrett here
in Detroit?
Yeah, and I think you said don't think about the contract.
I think first of all, I am going to comment on the contract,
just a little bit if that's OK.
So Miles Garrett is 29 right now, so two years
will be about 31 if my math is correct there.
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And there's no reason to think that a 31-year-old defensive
end is going to be holding out for some massive contract.
I mean, we could probably go look in the history books
just to see how many prestigious defensive ends
get another major contract.
I know he still has a lot left in the tank.
You see what TJ Watt is still doing at a couple years older
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than Miles Garrett is right now.
But I just want to say, there's no reason
to think that he would just absolutely hold out
and screw over the Lions after next season.
But with that said, to answer your question, Ty,
I feel like the Browns don't have a ton of leverage
in this trade because Miles has requested the trade.
So I'm going to put on my procurement hat for a little bit
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if that's OK.
Just talk a little bit negotiating.
So I do think that if you're Brad Holmes,
you can try and low ball a deal.
I mean, hell, if the Lakers can do it, then I think so can we.
And you mentioned that the Browns just as an organization,
not very well run.
I think the D'Shawn Watson trade really
did cripple the Browns' future.
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And it's going to go down as one of the worst
trades in sports history, in my opinion, not just in the NFL.
And so I think that further hurts their leverage.
I think they have to move on from this guy.
One of the best defensive linemen,
defensive ends in the National Football League,
really the only good player on this roster.
I don't mean to just straight up bash the Browns,
but they have this incredible player and then just a whole bunch
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of holes that they have to fill up.
So I see why they're trying to get some picks for them.
But the leverage just doesn't seem like it's there for me.
I think that to answer your question,
I would like to see the Lions give.
They're obviously going to need at least one first round pick.
If you can get it done with a 2025 first and second round
pick, multiple mid rounds in future drafts, maybe,
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they don't have a quarterback right now.
You could potentially throw in Hended Hooker
to sweeten that deal.
I personally would be a little bit hesitant to throw
just multiple first round picks, like a 25 first,
2026 first.
I think that at that point you are kind of hemorrhaging
the Lions' future.
And you never know what's going to happen with Garrett
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if he does, maybe try to hold out after next season.
So I'd be a little hesitant to just straight up
throw the farm at him.
I think that you can use some leverage
and kind of get a good deal for the Lions, just based
on where the Browns are right now as an organization.
I think the beautiful thing about Brad Holmes
is his ability to locate the diamonds in the rough
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at the end of the drafts.
You have all these guys that are playing meaningful minutes
in football games that have come outside the first round.
They're coming in the third, fourth, fifth round
of the NFL draft.
And even that first round pick is going to be, even if we do,
the worst happens, we fall short again.
It's going to be somewhere around 27 to 29 reigns.
So it's not going to be a high first round draft pick.
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So I think you do have those two things going for you that.
It's not a super high draft pick that we'd be giving up.
And Brad Holmes has proven he can find diamonds in the rough
later on in the draft.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just alone in this.
I've seen Head and Hooker thrown in on multiple deals.
He kind of seems to be that sweetener
for a lot of different teams.
I've seen some mocks for guys like Max Crosby and stuff
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like that.
And it always seems like Head and Hooker seems
to be the guy that's thrown in there.
I don't see it.
I'm not sad to give up Head and Hooker.
I don't know what other teams really see in him.
He's already an older QB.
We can spend a breakdown on Head and Hooker and the roster
and stuff like that in a different day.
But I don't see Head and Hooker being
that vital to this organization.
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So that's what it takes to get us across the goal line
or the finish line.
I'm all for it.
Just like as a quick comp, I saw this on Twitter.
I think Chefty tweeted this out a few days ago.
Khalil Mack, when he was 27 years old,
was traded from the Oakland Raiders to the Chicago Bears.
The Chicago Bears gave up two first round picks, a third
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round pick, and a sixth round pick for Khalil
Mack, a second round pick, and a fifth round pick.
So it was kind of a lot going out and a lot coming in.
They got Mack in a second and a fifth for the two first,
a third, and a sixth.
Now Khalil Mack was 27 years old.
Miles Garrett is 29 years old.
But Miles is coming off of 14 sack season.
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So I think it might come down to,
I think what could get it done is two first round picks.
And I think if you're confident, and there's
a lot smarter guys in the organization who
are thinking about the contracts down the line,
they know who will be ready when they can really
start getting these guys signed on their extensions
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and what guys can wait to try and spread it out as much
as possible to try and limit the impact of all these contracts
coming down.
You can kind of confidently say, OK,
I think that we can handle a Miles Garrett contract
in two years.
And you can confidently say, we can kind of keep the band
together as much as possible.
At least money is not going to be an issue.
If people leave, it's going to be because they want other
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opportunities or whatever.
I think I'm giving up two firsts for Miles Garrett.
I think that's where I'll do two firsts.
And maybe if you want to throw in any more than that,
maybe we'll get a few.
You can get crazy.
We'll do two firsts in a fifth.
And you give us Miles in a third or something.
You get crazy with some extra add-ons and stuff like that.
But I think if you're confident, you can resign.
And I'm giving up two firsts.
And I think that's right where I land.
(15:22):
Yeah.
And I'm fine with it, too.
As much as I would like to keep that maybe 2026 first round
pick, if that's what it takes.
I mean, I'm just picturing 8 and 100s in on one side
and Miles Garrett on the other side of a defense.
And if you're in offense, you don't stop that.
Like you literally don't.
(15:42):
You hope for some kind of miracle or God forbid an injury.
But yeah, I think that they are clear Super Bowl favorites
if that happens.
So yeah, if you do the deal and you win a Super Bowl out of it,
I mean, that's more than the Lions have ever
been able to say.
So yeah, it's worth it.
Yeah.
You would start the season with probably the top two best
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odds for defensive play of the year
on the same defensive line in Aiden and Miles Garrett.
And then in the middle, you have DJ Reader and Aleem McNeil,
who are two of the top run-stopping nose tackles
and defensive tackles.
I mean, that would be, like I said,
that would easily be the best defensive line in the NFL.
It would be pushing it for best defensive line in the NFL
history, I think.
(16:25):
And that might be Homer, bias, bullshit.
But I think it truly would be.
It would be up there.
So we wouldn't be a Lions sports podcast
if we didn't address the Miles Garrett rumor.
I think the odds that actually came out for Detroit,
it was on some kind of obscure book.
I did see you going around Twitter.
I'd be curious to see if there actually
are odds on ESPN bets or something like that.
(16:47):
But it wouldn't be a sports podcast,
especially about the Lions, if you didn't talk about that one.
The other one that just recently came out yesterday
is that of Cooper Cup.
Cooper Cup a little bit different.
The opposite, Cooper Cup doesn't want to leave his team.
But his franchise and his organization
are literally kicking him out the door.
I think it was a little bit of disgruntleness.
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I think Cooper, they probably wanted
to keep it in-house a little bit.
And they told Cooper, we're looking to trade you.
Cooper said, no, please don't.
They came back and said, that's too bad.
That's how the business works.
And then Cooper came out and publicly said,
hey, everyone, just let you guys know.
I don't want to leave.
But they are looking to trade me.
So it's probably something that they would have wished
kept in-house.
(17:30):
But because of the bad blood or whatever happened,
it got released.
So Cooper Cup is being rumored to be connected to Detroit
as well.
We don't have to go as in-depth with Cooper Cup to Detroit,
because it's definitely a different position,
whether of need and stuff like that.
Are you giving up anything for Cooper Cup?
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Maybe pennies.
Certainly not a lot.
As much as I love Cup as a player,
I think he is a hell of a player, or at least he used to be.
Just looking at his stats, he hasn't played a full season
since his Triple Crown season.
And of course, that was an incredible season.
I went for almost 2,000 yards, 16 touchdowns.
But since then, he's started nine games, 12 games,
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and then 11 games in the three seasons since.
And now he's 31.
I believe he'll be 32 before the NFL season kicks off next fall.
And for me, I don't know.
I don't see a whole lot of value.
I mean, maybe you can bring him in.
If you can throw a sixth round for him,
I think maybe that makes sense.
And he becomes your wide receiver three.
(18:33):
Can still get some yardage.
I mean, I did see some flashes out of him
when he was on the field before he got the injury.
And then, of course, he missed some games.
He came back.
And it seemed like he was mostly just running
cardio the last four or five weeks of the season
while Stafford was throwing a wide open puk in a kua.
So again, maybe that's scheme.
Maybe that's Stafford just going to a different guy.
And maybe Cup does still have something left in the tank.
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Again, love him as a player.
But yeah, I'm certainly not giving up more than realistically
like a fifth round, one fifth round, maybe one sixth round
for him.
I don't see myself going more than that if I'm Brad Holmes.
It's just it's different than the Miles Garrett deal
because of, like I said, Miles Garrett
is an absolute position of need.
Cooper Cub, if he came to Detroit, like you said,
(19:18):
he is a great talent.
He was a great talent.
He is just made of glass.
And you look at the list, I mean,
Amin Rajasthil would be our wide receiver number one.
Because of Jamos' 1,000 yard season last year
and what he's kind of exploded and being a what he can do
to take the top off the defense, Jamos still
going to be number two.
Because of Jameer Gibbs, even David Montgomery,
(19:40):
like their ability to catch out of the backfield
and having Sam Laporta as tight end,
some kind of combination of those three
would probably be your receiver.
I mean, at what point, how much would you
give up for wide receiver 3, 4, 5 in Cooper Cub?
So I agree with you.
I don't know what I'd give up for him.
(20:01):
Would you, and I'm just thinking about this out loud,
who clears who?
Amari Cooper or Cooper Cub?
It's tough to say because I feel like Cooper is just
better right now.
But I don't know.
He went to the Bills and talk about guys who were running
cardio.
He didn't do anything when he went to the Bills.
I would love to be proven wrong.
But from what I saw, he didn't do much.
(20:22):
I do think Cooper is probably, I think he's a bit younger.
And I do think he's probably better right now in their career.
But I don't know.
He didn't do anything for the Bills either.
It's hard to say.
He didn't.
He's 30 years old.
Like I said, I don't have Cooper Cub's age in front of me.
But Amari Cooper is 30 years old.
The Bills traded for Amari Cooper this year.
(20:42):
It was Amari Cooper and a sixth round draft pick
for a third round and a seventh round.
So if that's, maybe if you're talking about that,
and again, if Amari Cooper is slightly better than Cooper
Cub at the moment, maybe you pull that out a little bit.
I guess maybe I would do that.
I don't know.
It was just interesting Detroit being tied to Amari Cooper
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or to Cooper Cub.
Got too many Coopers going on right now.
But I did like it.
I saw what, let's see, Gary Davenport
wrote in Belajer Port today.
So regardless of whether you think we should trade for Miles
Garrett or Cooper Cub or anything,
Gary Davenport had just an awesome quote today.
He said, deal for Cub.
Go flip a couple first for Cleveland, Browns, Edge,
(21:26):
Russia, and Miles Garrett, and go win the damn Super Bowl.
And you can't really argue with that.
Hell yeah.
Hell yeah.
If it leads to a Super Bowl, I mean, I'm giving up anything.
But yeah, I joke.
I don't want them to give up anything.
I want them to be smart about it.
And Brad Holmes is proven to be one of the best GMs
in all of the national football leagues.
So I know he's going to do the right thing.
But if it leads to a Super Bowl, I mean, get it done.
(21:47):
Yeah.
I mean, you look at the Rams, the Matt Stafford, Jared
Goff trade, they kind of kicked off our rebuild.
They kind of traded everyone for a Super Bowl,
put it all on the line, got their Super Bowl.
And they've been able to kind of piece it back together
and not go to the bottom from that trade.
They're still in the playoff picture and stuff like that.
So if that's the case, we're putting all on the line
(22:09):
for a Super Bowl, and you were able to come away with one.
I'm doing it 100%.
So yeah, like we said, we want to be a Lions sports podcast.
If we didn't, at least bring up the Miles Garrett thing.
And it was just fun to bring up the Cooper Cup.
I don't personally think either one of those get done.
I want to just go on the record saying,
I don't think it's going to be possible.
I just feel like big swinging deals like that
(22:30):
don't happen very often.
And more times than not, when you have a star,
the caliber of Miles Garrett demanding a way out,
I feel like they normally will figure it out
or he'll go to a different team.
I feel like it never happens to us.
So I don't think either one will happen,
but we had to at least bring it up.
OK, we do have a listener voicemail
(22:52):
surrounding the Detroit Lions.
And really football in general.
So let's give that a listen right now.
Hey, guys, it's Megan.
I just want to say I really love your podcast as somebody who
is just now starting to get into football
and more specifically Detroit football.
You're informative, you're entertaining,
you always come with the hot Detroit takes.
(23:13):
So thank you.
My question is not necessarily about Detroit,
but more about football in general.
No matter how much that I read about it,
I'm trying to learn.
The one thing I can't wrap my head around
is clock management.
Can you give a football for dummy's explanation of how
and why coaches might manipulate that time clock
for their benefit?
(23:34):
And then following up, who do you think in the league
has the best time management and why?
What does that do for them?
Can't wait to hear next week's episode.
Thanks, guys.
Talk to you soon.
All right, yeah.
Thanks, Megan, for the call.
I love that it's sort of you took it and zoomed it out
and essentially had this, like you said,
the football for dummies question.
(23:54):
Because a lot of times, especially on this podcast,
other sports podcasts and stuff, we
can get kind of too much in the weeds.
So it's nice to take a step back and just kind of explain
stuff like this.
It's a great question.
So really clock management kind of
can come down to a number of different aspects
and come into play in a number of different ways.
The way that kind of makes the most sense to me
is really, depending on how your team is built out,
(24:17):
the type of players that you have, the type of coach you are,
the type of plays that you like to call,
the way you manage the clock can really change and alter
the way the game is being played.
And by that, I mean, depending on what you're calling,
you can try and speed the game up.
If you want to try and get as many possessions as possible,
you want to try and get down the field and score and get
(24:37):
the ball back, get down the field and score and keep going,
you're going to basically manage the clock in a way
and call certain plays that manages the clock in a way
that makes sure that you continue to have the ball.
You can kind of go into the shootout.
If you kind of feel that a shootout,
like a 50 to 45 kind of score is the best way for you to win.
So you can kind of manage the clock and call your plays
(24:59):
in the best way that you see fit to make that happen.
And the vice versa of that is saying,
if you know a shootout is not the best case for us,
we want to try and keep this game at like a 13 to 16 score.
That's going to be the best way for us to win.
You're going to want to treat the clock completely different.
You want to really start to slow things down
and take your time, slow things down on the field,
(25:20):
but let that clock run.
Take your time getting up to the ball.
Run plays that, running plays, the clock
is going to continue to run.
So you're going to do a lot of running plays
and let that clock run in between the different plays
and different possessions to try and basically cut it.
In one game, you could have a five drive play,
or excuse me, a five play drive.
And that drive could go for seven minutes.
(25:41):
You also could have a different game
and you could have a five play drive.
And that drive could go for two and a half minutes.
So it really depends on how you are trying to win that game,
what fits your team, and your players best.
Yeah, and I'll probably just jump in there.
Megan, thanks so much for the voicemail and for listening.
Glad we can kind of bridge a little bit of that gap
(26:04):
in football knowledge.
And yeah, for me, like clock management,
I think that it's really under the microscope
during a two minute drill or a one minute drill,
either at the end of the half or more often than not
at the end of a game.
And it could be really difficult.
And I know it's really easy for me on my couch,
or Tyler on his couch, to be yelling at the TV,
(26:25):
like why are you not calling a timeout
if there's like 45 seconds left?
It's really situationally dependent.
But it's easy for us just looking at the game
and nothing else, just staring at that clock.
But putting yourself in the shoes of a head coach
who is probably thinking about a million different things,
potentially calling plays and personnel and the likes.
(26:45):
And so it can be really difficult.
The two minute drill, the one minute drill
can be really difficult.
And I'm looking at you, Mattie Bruffleuss,
on Thanksgiving for what not to do on that one minute drill.
But yeah, for me, I think if I was a head coach,
I would probably hire someone if this is even allowed,
just to be my clock management expert to say like,
(27:05):
hey, there is 45 seconds left.
We still have all three timeouts.
We are on our own 40 yard line.
We should clock it now because if we let it,
another play happened and there's 25 seconds left,
we're not gonna be able to use all three of those timeouts.
And one's gonna be wasted.
So it's really just, it's all about timeout management,
clock management, having plays ready so that you can,
(27:28):
it be dial up multiple plays in one huddle
and then really run that turbo offense
or that no huddle offense after that.
So again, it's extremely difficult.
I don't even pretend to really understand,
if I was a head coach, I'd probably be horrible at it.
We see a lot of head coaches that are insanely horrible
at clock management.
Tyler, I'm wondering, any coaches,
(27:49):
just to answer the last part of Megan's question,
what coaches stick out to you as, you know,
actually being good at this clock management?
Cause so many suck.
Yeah, the immediately who comes to mind is someone like,
Varebel or Bill Belichick who they know,
and it's not so much clock management, I guess it is,
but they know specific rules and know how to,
(28:11):
like the loop holes in the rule book
in which they can manipulate the clock
by running certain plays and getting penalties on purpose
in certain times to run the clock and manage the clock
in a way that benefits them.
So I don't necessarily go immediately
to who has the worst clock management,
but actually go to who has the best.
I will say, I know you mentioned that Averfluse
on Thanksgiving with the Bears,
(28:32):
hand up, I might be the actual worst at clock management,
at least in NCAA 25, the amount of times I've run out
of time at either halftime or at the game
on the two yard line, cause I mismanaged a timeout
or something is egregious.
I mean, it's just disgusting.
So hand up, I will say Varebel and Belichick,
probably the best NFL, the worst might actually be me.
(28:55):
Yeah, and I think my last point, all of these NFL coaches,
just play Madden, just play couch football 25.
Like if you keep on getting yourself into these situations
where you don't know when to call timeout,
like you're just, you're just, you know,
just play a little Madden and like then you'll just
feel it out, you know, it's like a simulation for you.
So yeah, it's not easy, but yeah, it's seemingly
from the couch, it can't be that hard.
(29:17):
Yeah, life's just a simulation, but great question, Megan.
And it really does tie back because talking about David Shaw
and Johnny Morton, as we have all this turnover
on the offensive side, there was a lot of, you know,
a point in time when we thought we were gonna have
a first time OC running our team.
And there was, and with first time OCs,
you can sometimes get into that issue of they're not,
they're not working the clock as they should be.
And they might forget about timeout.
(29:38):
You know, accidentally run things.
So it actually does tie back really well
because bringing guys like David Shaw on the staff,
who we know has been a really good head coach
in, you know, in the past at Stanford
and has been around NFL teams for a long time.
A guy like Dan Campbell, who sometimes can struggle
with the clock a little bit, having, you know,
a David Shaw on the sideline, a Johnny Morton on the sideline,
(30:00):
who we know can run a proper clock,
will be extremely beneficial.
And it'll just help our offense not skip a beat.
So really does tie back, great question,
ties back perfectly.
And that kind of wraps up our Lions talk.
But for the probably the first time
in Great Iron podcast history,
we're really balanced podcast today
because we have more stuff to talk about
(30:22):
with the Detroit Pistons.
The NBA trade deadline is this week.
So jumping into that, we've seen a number
of different trades go across the NBA.
A lot of them people thought the Detroit Pistons
would be involved into, they obviously are pretty much
the only team to have NBA cap space,
meaning they're the only team that can like,
(30:43):
basically match numbers.
So if two other teams are making deals for two,
you know, two superstars or something in the salaries,
don't match up or anything, Detroit can kind of jump in.
You can give us a second round pick for our troubles
and we can make sure the money,
the money basically checks out, essentially buying,
you know, draft assets, maybe somebody who's, you know,
(31:04):
kind of out of favor on a different team.
We can kind of buy our way there.
That's kind of the way the Detroit Pistons
were expected to operate this trade deadline.
So far we haven't seen it.
It was reported that the Pistons are seeking
a future first round draft pick as facilitator,
using their $14 million in cap space
and in a multi-team trade scenario.
(31:24):
The league source is told Hoops hype.
The two deals that have gone through the Zech Levine trade
and Deer and Fox trades,
the ones that we kind of expected to come through,
Detroit hasn't been a part of.
So that was a little bit shocking
that they weren't involved in any way,
trying to collect some, you know,
some kind of capital there.
But there are still a number of trades down the line
that we're expecting to see at some point
(31:45):
that Detroit could step in and start to collect some assets.
The Jimmy Butler trade, Brendan Ingham trade, you know,
there are still time in the next, what, 24, 36 hours
before the trade deadline comes and goes.
Yeah, for sure.
So I guess, I mean, there's a couple of different things
that the business can do, right?
You know, Stampat, not do anything.
They can, you know, try to go get someone
(32:07):
who can contribute or really, you know,
they could just, you know, try to, like you said,
take on an aging contract or maybe a, you know,
a non-team friendly contract from another team
and potentially get some picks for it too.
So I guess with all of those in mind,
what do you see the Pistons doing
before the trade deadline on Thursday?
(32:28):
So out of those three, I'm gonna say my priority.
Number one, what I want us to do the most
is standing pat.
I know that's boring and by standing pat,
I don't mean literally do nothing.
I mean, like, let's not make too much of a splash
any which way we're not gonna buy, we're not gonna sell.
We're gonna do exactly like we just said
and like Dave come out and said,
(32:49):
they're gonna facilitate bigger trades.
We're gonna use this money that we have collected
over the last five years of being absolute dog water
and taking on bad contracts
and we're gonna help facilitate the big trades
and in return, you're gonna throw us
a few second round picks.
You're gonna throw us a guy, like I said,
who has fallen out of favor of the head coach
who still has some potential.
(33:09):
You're gonna give us, I don't want any corpses or anything.
I want somebody who can actually participate
in basketball activities, but I don't want us to go
either way, too hard one way or the other.
My second sort of priority behind there would be,
if I had to choose and we can't stay pat or anything,
I would say I wanna be buyers and when I say
I wanna be buyers, I don't want us to go out
(33:31):
and get CJ McCollum, I don't think that's gonna happen.
I don't know he's been tied to Detroit.
I don't want us to go out and get Brandon Ingram,
back before Levine was traded.
I don't want us to go out and sign Zach Levine.
Stuff like that is win now, forget about the future
sort of thinking and I think in too many times,
if you're the lion, so we talk about with Miles Garrett,
you can kind of think like that.
(33:52):
Like we truly are a win right now.
We are Super Bowl window is right now.
We don't necessarily have to think about the future.
You add one of those guys to this Detroit Pistons team.
You're not winning the championship now,
so it's win now, don't think about later,
but you're not winning right now.
So adding those guys I think would be a mistake.
It kind of would be reminiscent of the Blake Griffin trade
what back in 2017, 2016, and that was so much fun
(34:15):
to watch Blake actually ball out,
but it kind of set us back a few years
and I guess it just took us on a different trajectory
that I'm not willing to go back onto.
So if we are gonna go out and buy,
I'm looking at like a Lonzo ball with the Chicago Bulls,
Lonzo's averaging 7.2 points per game,
5.4 rebounds, excuse me, 5.1 assists,
(34:36):
and shooting a three ball at 42%.
Detroit needs a secondary ball handler.
Now that J. and Ivy went down,
you have Marcus Sasser who's doing pretty well
and is a secondary backup ball handler,
but Lonzo would be perfect.
He's good defensively on the ball.
You also could look at Kobe White,
who's also on the bulls.
He's averaging 18.4 points per game,
3.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists,
(34:57):
and he's shooting 36% from three.
I don't think Kobe would actually be available,
but he's someone that kind of fits that.
Bobby Portis, another name who's been thrown around,
averaging 13.4, 7.9, two assists,
and he's shooting 36% from three.
So like if you're gonna go out and buy,
I'm not buying on the big shiny names.
I'm looking at these guys that can kind of be had
(35:18):
for a lot less.
Bobby and Kobe White both have one more year
on the contract, Lonzo is up this year.
So I think that kind of is where I fit in there.
If you're gonna buy, it's kind of,
it's not breaking the bank buy.
And then the last option would be to sell.
That's just not gonna happen.
There's no one, I think maybe coming into this year,
we maybe could have sold at the deadline.
(35:40):
You guys guys that you kind of brought in,
like Tim Hardaway Jr., Malik Beasley,
Bebop Paul, that would be prime selling candidates.
But because they've really overshot their trajectory here,
they're having more success than we thought this year,
there's no reason to sell these guys.
In fact, I would actively be pissed off
(36:00):
if we went out and sold and shipped Malik Beasley out.
Like I want Malik Beasley to stay here
for the rest of his career.
I love that man.
So selling would be actively, you know,
angering fans if you had to go that route.
Yeah, for sure.
Friesley's the man.
He's been really, really incredible
for the pistons this year.
Yeah, I just, I see the remaining free agents
(36:21):
and I don't know, no deals look good to me.
I don't really like what I'm seeing out of them.
And I don't think it would make sense to, you know,
make some huge splash right now,
given that, yeah, Jayden Ivy is most likely out
for the season and the team is probably still
a couple of years away from being an actual contender.
No one thinks they're a contender right now,
even though they are playing well.
(36:42):
And I like what I'm seeing out of the Detroit Pistons,
but they're not there yet at being a contender.
So it just, it wouldn't really make sense
to make a huge splash right now at the deadline.
So yeah, I'm with you on that.
And yeah, I mean, just the team is playing really well.
Just a couple more things on the pistons, you know, in 2025,
they are 11 and six, possibly 11 and seven now.
(37:06):
They did just lose last night,
but at any rate, they're playing extremely well.
Cade Cunningham in his last 10 games,
nearly 29 points per game,
five rebounds and nearly nine assists.
So yeah, I love what I'm seeing,
but I just don't think they are there yet to, you know,
to jump up to that next echelon of teams in the East,
(37:26):
you know, a top three, top four team in the East,
where you could make a run, they're just not there yet.
So I would love for them to stay pat here.
Yeah, and so I'm with you like that.
And like I said, stay pat to me means
you can still facilitate, you can still collect assets,
not trading anyone out.
But if you're gonna go out and you're gonna be able
to kind of work as a facilitator and get a Lonzo ball,
or, you know, maybe even like a Malcolm Brogdon
(37:47):
or someone like that, I'm okay with that.
But you mentioned the loss that we just had
and we were 11 and six and then we lost.
I have to say, Trey Young is just such a bitch.
Trey Young is a little bitch.
Watching him play, watching Cade play,
like last night against the Hawks,
or two nights ago against the Hawks was so pure.
Cade plays the game so well in such a pure basketball form.
(38:11):
He shoots, I think he shot one free throw the other night.
Like he still had 30 plus points.
He plays the game so well in such the right way.
I watched no less than three possessions in a row
where Trey Young went down there damn near at half court
and not even trying to get the ball anywhere near the basket,
just literally going up for a shot at half court,
trying to get the foul.
That is not how basketball is made to be played.
(38:33):
I just don't understand how anyone could be
a Trey Young fan and watch that and be like,
that's our guy, that's the guy we wanna get behind and play.
I just had to say that.
He didn't always piss out of me.
Yeah, a little bitch ball and I mean,
I think the Hawks are never gonna win with him.
It's not to say that he couldn't win on another team,
but yeah, yeah, and that's more just a testament
to Cade as a player too.
(38:54):
I mean, he just, he grinds, he hustles and yeah,
I just, I love how he plays.
Yeah, I mean, but it is, I think now we have to say
like the Hawks won the Trey Young
for Luca Donczyk trade, right?
Cause Luca is now on the Lakers.
Dude, I don't know if we wanna like jump into that.
We probably don't have time, but I just wanna say
like the Mavs owner, I feel like you should be like
(39:17):
thrown in prison or something, not legitimately prison,
but I mean, what you did to the Mavs franchise there,
probably set him back, you know, years.
And when, you know, you could have gotten a haul of,
I don't know, five, six, seven, eight first round picks
for Luca, I mean, the number might not even exist.
And to just get one and Anthony Davis
(39:38):
who is literally made of glass, it's insane.
So I don't, Lakers GM, Rob Blinka,
I don't know how you did it, man.
You must be Houdini.
Yeah, and Mark Cuban, a known listener of the podcast.
Shout out Mark Cuban.
Thanks for listening, guy.
I'm sorry.
And all the Mavericks fans out there,
I'm sorry you guys had to put up with that.
If you guys wanna join us on the Pistons bandwagon,
(39:59):
we'll make room for you.
We're not denying anyone from the Pistons bandwagon.
Come watch us.
You can come watch your boy, Tim Hardaway Jr.
ball out for us, I got some love for the Dallas Mavericks.
So yeah, we don't have much time to go into that,
but anything else on the Pistons trade deadline?
I'm just, I'm looking forward to seeing,
(40:20):
trade deadline is Thursday, so hopefully we'll be talking
to some good things that Tray John Langdon
has done on next Tuesday's episode
or when we release it next Wednesday.
I have all the faith in the world in him,
so yeah, I know he's gonna do the right thing.
Yeah, I do too.
I'm confident we're gonna come on next week
and talk about how they either were able to use that money
to get some more draft picks and draft assets
(40:41):
or actually get somebody that can step in
and play for the season.
So excited for that.
Let's move on to the Detroit Tigers
because it's official, Love is Dead.
Chris Illich and his wife filed for divorce today.
So it's only natural that we're gonna see some sort of
repercussion with the Detroit Tigers
(41:01):
and the Detroit Red Wings, right?
Yeah, and I've seen this on social media a lot.
They could go both ways, right?
Like Chris Illich could just go in his spending phase
and just go crazy or he could not spend another dime
on the Red Wings or the Tigers again.
So I'm hoping it's the former, but Chris,
(41:21):
you gotta do what all divorced dads do.
You gotta go wild, you gotta throw on some Creed,
go buy a Corvette and that Corvette
better be named Alex Bregman.
At this point, it's absolutely insane.
We can jump into the Bregman
because they've actually had some good signings
this past week, but let's jump into Bregman here first
because it is insane that Saga is still continuing.
I agree with you now that a few different dominoes
(41:44):
have fallen, we have single Illich going on,
it's single Illich summer.
I've just coined that, it's what it's gonna be.
I think the Bregman domino will fall here shortly,
but it does sound, the Tigers are, quote unquote,
still very much in the Bregman Saga and the Bregman race.
They did come out today that the Astros had said
they are, quote unquote, I think Dana, their GM,
(42:07):
said they're out on Bregman or it said that they feel
they lost on Bregman, meaning the Astros
are essentially out on Alex Bregman.
And just to kind of go through his numbers
and what he brings for Detroit last year,
Alex Bregman hit 260 on the batting average,
had an OPS of 768, 26 home runs and 75 RBIs.
(42:27):
He's obviously a righty bat in a lineup of Detroit Tigers
that are primarily only lefties, which is not,
it's pretty unique in the MLB, but it actually was
too unique and we were too lefty centric,
so having a righty bat in there,
his OPS of seven, what do I say, 768 would be
(42:49):
the third best OPS compared to last year's season
for the Tigers, only Riley Green and Kerry Carpenter
had a better OPS and he would have led the team
on home runs and RBIs.
I mean, adding him is a true middle of the order bat
that can take this team.
Like I said, it's a righty when we need it, righties.
He can hit for power, he can hit for,
his slugging is great, his defense is great.
(43:10):
Like he is truly, it lines up perfectly
to be added to this Detroit team.
Yeah, and Bregman also, he's slumped for like
a decent portion of last year.
I think that, and I'm totally speculating here,
I think that maybe the pressure was on him
to perform in a contract year and he did struggle.
(43:30):
Now it might have been a little injury as well
that maybe I'm just not a,
he was hitters from last year
and he still would have hit the most homers in RBIs.
So yeah, I mean, I think it's a no brainer.
I think you know what you're getting out of Alex Bregman.
I think his numbers are, you know,
if assuming he's healthy this year,
(43:51):
they're gonna be better than last year.
He's a hell of a player and he's a hell of a third baseman
as well, so would love to see it happen.
I live in Houston and I've watched a ton of
Alex Bregman over the years and I'm a huge fan of him,
objectively, I guess subjectively,
but would love to see him on the Tigers.
Yeah, and he's 30 years old.
He's been to what, multiple world series.
(44:12):
He would bring a veteran presence into this locker room
that is still a young lineup.
So we'd bring that in there.
I mean, it just makes so much, it makes too much sense.
Shout out Ben Verlander, obviously Justin Verlander's
younger brother, also drafted into the Tigers organization.
He's still a huge Tigers fan, does a lot for Tigers media
and stuff like that.
I think he's tweeted every single day,
(44:33):
as far as I've seen, tweeted every single day.
Today would be a great day for the Tigers
to sign Alex Bregman.
I have a feeling he's going to every single day
until Bregman signs somewhere.
So, but like we said, the Tigers actually have signed
a number of different guys this past week
and have done a pretty good job.
So first they signed the reliever Tommy Kano.
(44:53):
Apologize if that's not how you say his last name.
To a one year deal, this bullpen is absolutely
going to be insane.
Now last year we did the sort of ride the hot hand
bullpen by committee, really pitch,
starting pitch by committee.
And it really worked out.
It obviously came back to sort of bite us in the ass
towards the end with our starting pitcher,
but starting pitching, but the bullpins numbers
(45:14):
were fantastic.
And this Tommy signing was absolutely great.
So last year he had a two 11 ERA, 1.148 whip,
46 strikeouts and 42.2 innings pitched.
It isn't, to me, it just bolsters,
it further bolsters what was already a strength
of this team and that was the bullpen.
Yeah, and I think to your point on,
(45:35):
you know, the starting pitcher by committee
working in the playoffs, kind of that chaos of the mound.
Yeah, it did work at times for the Tigers,
but I do think that that's a recipe that you could
and should use occasionally in the playoffs.
I don't think it's a recipe that you should use
whenever your starter Tariq Schuylville isn't playing,
which is basically how the Tigers deployed it
(45:56):
in last year's playoffs.
And yeah, the luck did run out there kind of.
So yeah, I like where they're going.
I think this bullpen, just kind of solidifying it
from last year, which was, it was very good last year.
Love the signing there.
I hope that he doesn't pronounce his name, Tommy,
like you said he does, but you know,
who knows more power to him if he does pronounce it, Cannell.
(46:18):
But yeah, I think that the bigger signing
that I think we should probably talk about,
Jack Flaherty, welcome back to Detroit, buddy.
Two year deal, $35 million with an opt out after year one.
So, you know, a relatively friendly, you know,
team friendly deal there.
Flaherty just by the numbers last year.
(46:41):
With the dot.
It's,
Moore Homer's given up 38 walks,
nearly 200 strikeouts at 194 and then an ERA of 3.17.
Pretty low whip, actually very low whip.
1.08 the average is closer to 1.3.
So, love this trade.
I think this is a Scott Harris masterclass.
(47:02):
I mean, you trade Flaherty at the deadline last year.
You get Trace Weenie who contributed towards the end
of the regular season and also in the playoffs.
You get a top 100 prospect,
I believe he's Kutcher in first base there in Lorenzo.
And then you get Jack back for, yeah, like I said,
a relatively team friendly deal with some flexibility.
(47:22):
You can trade him at next year's deadline.
If things don't go well, you know,
we're hoping they go well, I think they will,
but you still have that flexibility there.
So, yeah, hats off to Scott Harris, man.
I love this because Jack so clearly wanted to be in Detroit.
He was, when he was traded, he said like,
I'm pretty sure before the deadline even came,
like he said he wants to be in Detroit.
(47:43):
His family was here.
He enjoyed his short time in Detroit.
He wanted to be here.
He understood that it was a business.
They had to make the deal and that's how that works.
But he obviously then did one of the only,
I don't, we talk about this a lot,
like, oh, if he loves Detroit so much
and he doesn't want to leave,
we can trade him, collect some chips for him
and then he can sign here in the off season.
How often does that actually happen?
(48:04):
That literally never happens.
And Jack Flaherty wanted to be here so badly.
He literally did that.
I just love it.
He's a dog.
He can be our number two guy behind Scooby.
And he loves, he generally loves Detroit.
I just absolutely love that.
I know, I think you mentioned it
and a few other people have mentioned it online.
Like, he would have given this team,
(48:25):
that extra boost in the playoffs.
Maybe we would have beaten the Guardians if we had him.
That probably would be true if we did.
But I think the piece is,
we were playing with House Money.
We were running on fumes
towards the end of the last playoff series.
The pieces that we got in him and Trace Weenie.
Maybe if we had him and didn't trade,
like you said, Trace Weenie actually contributed
last year in the playoffs.
(48:46):
So maybe if we didn't trade for Trace Weenie,
we wouldn't even gotten there in the first place.
So I absolutely love that we were able to bring him back
like we did, but then he wants to be here so much.
It just, like this rotation and this bullpen
with Tommy Cannell, maybe?
Maybe Cannell, maybe Cannell.
I don't know, well, Tommy, listener of the pod,
call in, let me know how you say your last name.
It's gonna be such a strength that like,
(49:09):
if single Chris Illich goes out and does the thing
that we want him to do,
and that's just sign Alex Bregman,
this might be like one of the best off seasons
I've had the Tigers have in so long
in getting signing Tommy, Jack Flaherty,
Glaibre Torres, Alex Bregman.
I mean, I'm sure I'm missing one or two years
with other guys.
I mean, that would just be the perfect
(49:30):
off season for the Tigers.
Yeah, it's huge, man.
And just a couple more things for me
from the gritty tags.
You mentioned Jack Flaherty on Twitter.
I'm pretty sure he tweeted out after the deal
got announced the picture of Tupac in the Red Wings jersey
after I think it was a court case that he had in the 90s.
(49:50):
And then, yeah, I think the other picture he tweeted out
was probably Isaiah Thomas
celebrating a championship with Dennis Rodman.
So, yeah, I mean, the guy, he's pumped up to be back.
He deserves to be here.
And we're pumped up to have him.
He absolutely deserves to be here.
And you look at the Tigers' potential starting rotation.
And this might not be a day one rotation.
(50:11):
It depends on Jackson Job.
And if he's gonna be a day one starter.
But regardless, I mean, you got, you know,
Tariq Skouble speaks for himself.
I mean, Triple Crown, Cy Young,
he's, in my opinion, the best pitcher in baseball.
Then you got Jack Flaherty.
You have Reese Olson, Jackson Job, and Alex Cobb.
And you even have Casey Meyes,
(50:32):
who may or may not be anything.
I don't know, he's probably still a bust.
But at the very least, you have him as a piece
in the rotation as well.
I mean, I think it's easily a top 10 rotation in baseball
and in a fringe top five, in my opinion.
I mean, there are teams that are clearly better.
Looking at the Dodgers, the Braves,
probably the Yankees as well.
But, I mean, the Tigers are up there.
(50:54):
Yeah, I'm actually surprised, speaking of the Dodgers,
I'm actually surprised it was the L.A. Lakers
that traded for Luca Doncik.
And it wasn't the Dodgers who just put him
on a deferred contract because they've been doing that
with everyone and they're insane.
But yeah, this team, I mean, we struggle with offense.
So if we get a Bregman, that kind of makes us so much
level, even if we don't get Bregman,
because of this rotation that you just mentioned,
(51:15):
we have to be at least second best favorites
in the L.A. Central.
And like you said, probably a top five to 10 rotation
in the MLB in general.
So absolutely love it.
Just finish the job.
Do what you need to do, Chris.
Go out, have a few beers tonight.
Get wasted, call Alex Bregman and get the deal done.
(51:35):
Yeah, hit on some milfs.
You know, whatever you gotta do, man.
Yeah, and just, I guess, one more thing.
We talk about Chris Illidge and, you know,
way wanting him to spend more money.
Don't look now, the highest payroll in the L.A. Central
now belongs to the Detroit Tigers.
So, you know, we are slowly increasing that payroll
and spending smartly, in my opinion,
and that's a testament to Scott Harris.
(51:57):
And yet, Tigers 17th highest payroll in the MLB right now.
So we are, we're creeping up there.
It might even creep up a little higher
after we signed Bregman.
Yeah, I think I saw just base numbers
as to what Bregman is rumored to be asking for.
If we sign him for what he's asking for,
and maybe even a little more to get him to come to Detroit,
I think that would move us to the 14th highest payroll
in baseball, which is still, you know,
(52:17):
a far cry from what, you know,
all Mike Illidge would have done.
But to see that from Chris is at least a sign
of things going in the right direction.
So let's get it done.
Let's move right along though.
Shout out to the Tigers.
We actually had decent stuff to talk about with them.
So hopefully we can come back next week,
talk about the Pistons making a good move at the deadline
and the Tigers signing Bregman.
Hopefully that's what our whole episode is next week.
(52:39):
But the Red Wings deserves some credit this week too.
They've been fantastic.
Dude, Wings, I mean, hottest team in the NHL.
The Winstryk now hits six games.
And don't look now, but the Red Wings
are in a playoff spot now.
They own the number one wild card spot.
At least as of right now, 6-11 on Tuesday recording this.
(53:00):
But yeah, I mean, can't say enough good things
about Todd McClellan and the Todd McClellan bump
that the Red Wings are receiving right now.
They are 14, four and one under Todd.
And, you know, that's the,
they own the best record in the NHL since December 28th.
And this is not the first six game Winstryk,
(53:22):
but it's actually the second that they've had.
They had a seven game Winstryk
and now are currently on a six game streak.
And, you know, when McClellan took over,
the Wings were 15th in the East and quite literally dead.
They were the dead Wings.
And now, you know, they sit, like I said,
at the top wild card spot.
They're only one point off the third, you know,
(53:43):
the third playoff spot in the Atlantic as well.
So, I mean, they're playing so hot.
I will say that some of their play style,
at least in this current Winstryk,
it's probably not sustainable in my opinion.
You know, their first Winstryk under McClellan,
they were scoring goals at will,
four and a half goal score per game.
And the power play was scoring at about a 52% clip.
(54:06):
In the current Winstryk, they're scoring 3.3 goals per game
and power play is only at 14%.
So, they're scoring less goals.
You know, some of it could be said about, you know,
a West Coast trip, a Canadian trip that, you know,
maybe a couple back to backs.
It's hard on the boys skating.
I think that's definitely part of it.
But a big part, and this is a good thing, the defense,
and more importantly, I would say that the goalie,
(54:29):
the goal tender work, 1.5 goals allowed per game.
The goalies have been just so incredible
over this Winstryk and really laying it all on the line.
I do think the offense probably should pick it up
and can pick it up.
But yeah, I mean, overall,
love what I'm seeing out of the boys.
Dude, what the fuck was Derrick LeLan
doing to those guys in the locker room
that had them playing so terribly
(54:50):
and just the firing of him?
Turn this team around.
We talked about it in previous weeks
about how in the NHL, there is a real thing you can track.
That's the head coaching firing,
you know, interim head coach, new head coach bump.
You know, you see a team that has success
with a new head coach mid-season.
It's a real thing that happens year to year.
But Derrick LeLan must have had these poor guys
(55:12):
just absolutely hating their lives,
going to play this game every single night.
Cause just the energy is so awesome.
He was, it must have been like limiting all the young guys
potential too, because all the young guys
we talked about in previous weeks, they're showing out
and the young red wings are the ones
that are really driving all this.
Yeah, I think Derrick LeLan, like, I mean, you should be,
(55:34):
if fired again, I don't know, fired again.
Like the one firing wasn't enough in my opinion.
I mean, it's insane that, yeah, I just, I don't,
and I don't pretend to know, you know,
hockey schemes too particularly or well,
but you know, whatever LeLan was doing,
do the exact opposite if you're, if you're a head coach
in the NHL, because yeah, I mean, he should be, you know,
tried for like domestic terrorism or something.
(55:54):
But yeah, it was insane, you know,
the underperformance of the team
and now they're finally skating well,
the young guys are skating well,
and just love what I'm seeing.
And I think probably one last shout out,
I mentioned the goalie play, Alex Lyon,
he's been incredible.
His last three starts, 100 shot attempts on him.
(56:16):
He has 94 saves, which is just really insane
and the two-on-one record to boot there.
So huge shout out to Alex Lyon in that.
And you know, he's a big reason
why the wings are so hot right now.
Yeah, we'll get to see coming up here
in the next few weeks, if they're able to continue it.
They obviously have some games coming up against the Lightning.
They play the Blue Jackets, the Ottawa Senators coming up.
(56:39):
So we have some important games coming up
that will really decide, because as Detroit is having,
you know, this sort of fantastic last month,
there's a number of different teams who are also,
just this year in general, not performing
as they should have, similar to Detroit to start the year.
So there's a lot of different teams
that are right in that middle sort of pack of teams.
(57:01):
So we'll know hopefully in a few weeks
whether as April and the D kind of come storming up,
if we can have some playoff Red Wings hockey
in the next few weeks.
So yeah, shout out to Red Wings,
shout out to McClendon, shout out to Larkin,
who's been there for all the disgusting, different lineups
that they've had and coaching and stuff like that.
(57:21):
So just shout out all the Red Wings boys.
Yeah, and I know it's only February right now,
but I need that April and the D music on my Twitter timeline,
like I need to breathe right now.
So I mean, it can't come soon enough.
We might even have to change our theme song
for when it comes to April and just of that song,
(57:42):
just for the month of April.
If we do get playoff, if we get playoffs for multiple teams
and during April, we'll change our theme song to April and D
if we're allowed to because of copyright
and all that bullshit and stuff.
If we can, we will change it
if we get multiple teams in the playoffs,
that's our promise.
All right, we gotta get out of here.
That's our show.
Thank you guys for tuning into this week's episode.
(58:02):
You can find us on Twitter at dotten underscore Tyler
and Kyle underscore Marino.
Join the conversation next week
by calling into the grit iron report voicemail
for us to play and discuss on the podcast.
That number is 313 306 7 9 39.
And if you like this episode, please take a moment
to rate it five stars and leave us a review.
(58:24):
Thanks guys, restore the roar.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Every hotline to journey roads paved with fire,
sweat tears and hustle that never expired
from the rookies on the rise to the old hands retire.
Grit iron is the place for fans to conspire.
Hustle on blast be starting them loud champion
from crust or the crowd with a story to blog
(58:46):
soon and when the heat may.
They just end them about
ticketing them about
On this week's Great Iron Report we have Lions final few coaching pieces are starting to
(00:08):
fall into place, the Red Wings and Pistons are possibly the hottest teams in their respective
leagues and the Detroit Tigers are starting to show signs of life.
(00:42):
Welcome to the Great Iron Report, your Lions first all Detroit sports podcast today is
Wednesday February 5th and the Dan Campbell coaching tree across the NFL has just become
(01:06):
larger as Tanner Eggstrand has officially moved on from the Detroit Lions and taking
his talents to the New York Jets.
(01:34):
Yeah it's huge, I feel like David Shaw was such a hot commodity as a coach.
(02:04):
I feel like he was being groomed to be that next big coach in the NFL.
Not sure what happened with it, he left Stanford in 2022, he's been a couple different jobs
since then.
But yeah, Andrew Luck was just on PMT this week, he had nothing but good things to say
(02:26):
about David Shaw.
He's the 4xever coach of the year.
The dude, he can clearly coach and I think he's going to be a really good presence in
this team.
His one loss was to our Michigan State Spartans.
(02:49):
During his time with Stanford he finished, I believe as high as third in the AP post
at some point in his 10 year.
Yeah, he's, the last coaching role was in 2022 with Stanford.
Since then, he was a senior personnel executive
for the Broncos alongside Johnny Morton.
So you know that connection is there.
That's probably how he kind of got his foot
in the door a little bit,
(03:09):
bringing Johnny Morton over from the Broncos.
He has some connections to David Shaw.
There's also other connections to David Shaw in Detroit.
His dad, I believe, was a Lions coach back in the 80s.
So he's familiar with Detroit in one way or another.
But it's kind of surprising to see
that we were able to get him in the same role
as a passing game coordinator.
Because I know he interviewed for the Bears
(03:29):
head coaching position last month.
And there were a number of talking heads on ESPN
and all those other first take, all those things
that were talking about how he'd be an absolute home run
hire for the Bears as their head coach.
So to bring him over with Johnny Morton,
I think just kind of re-stabilizes this organization,
and this offense at least.
We talked about how there's so much turnover
(03:50):
and so much more potential turnover
that didn't end up happening,
that we're grateful for.
But you have all these guys that are coming and going.
And we just mentioned Dan Campbell's coaching tree
is just getting larger and larger across the NFL.
But then to bring in guys like Johnny Morton,
who has ties to Detroit and Dan Campbell,
and has shown that what you want about his time with the Jets,
he's shown that he can be a good offensive coordinator.
(04:13):
You bring in David Shaw, who's obviously,
like we just said, is very proven.
It makes me feel a lot better about this offense moving forward,
having lost Ben Johnson and his fantastic offensive mind,
and then obviously now Tanner Eggstrand as well.
Yeah, for sure.
And if David Shaw to the Bears is going to be a home run
hire, well, I guess Ipso facto, right?
(04:34):
He's a clear home run hire, maybe a grand slam
hire for the Lions as our passing game coordinators.
Yeah, shout out to Brad Holmes for bringing
another really, really good coach into this coaching room.
We mentioned it last week.
I think it was last week, maybe two weeks ago,
I'm hoping that this offense is coaching by committee kind
of thing, in which we have a number of different voices
(04:57):
in that room making the play calling, making the schemes,
including Dan Campbell himself, who we talked about,
has shown that he can be the primary play caller.
When it gets tough, he's the one who
is able to make that decision to go for it
and on forth and stuff like that.
So it's really going to come in handy,
because we also have got the news this past week
that Scott Montgomery was interviewing for the Cowboys
(05:19):
offensive coordinator.
He was one of the guys, again, a few weeks ago
that we were talking about was in line for this offensive
coordinator position.
He was him, Tanner, Hank Fraley, a number of other guys.
And like I said, we kind of assumed
that whoever didn't get this job would be looking elsewhere
across the NFL to try and potentially get that job
somewhere else, because they were also worthy of it.
(05:39):
So it wasn't, again, it wasn't a surprise.
It was more surprising that Scott Montgomery didn't get
this job than it was that he's out there interviewing
with other organizations.
So we did get the news that he was interviewing for the Cowboys
offensive coordinator position.
I haven't seen anything come back about whether he got the job,
is in second round interviews, anything like that.
I just know that he was out there,
(06:01):
that he was interviewing with Jerry Jones and that squad.
So even if Scotty does go, I feel
confident with David Shaw in this organization,
in this offense, saying pretty much the same and being
able to hit maybe a little bit differently.
They might switch up the run cadence and the passing
cadence and stuff.
But I'm pretty confident that we'll
be able to hit the ground running just as much as we were
(06:22):
last season and even the season before.
For sure.
And if Scotty Montgomery, if he does get that Cowboys
offensive coordinator job, best of luck to him
and wishing him a really good time in Dallas.
I know we're not huge on the Dallas Cowboys,
but still, he's our boy and we want him to do well.
It's just a rumor right now.
And I guess speaking of rumors, Ty,
(06:44):
can we touch on probably the biggest trade rumor right now?
And that is Miles Garrett, former Texas A&M Aggie,
Miles Garrett, of course, one of the best defensive ends
in the entire NFL.
He requested a trade.
And your Detroit Lions are the favorite to land him
at plus 350 odds, so about three and a half to one odds.
(07:05):
So yeah, Ty, what do we think about Miles Garrett?
Do we sell the farm on him?
Do we try to low ball?
Is there a place for him in this Detroit Lions defense?
I'll tell you what.
This is such perfect offseason, at least offseason
for the Lions NFL banter, because you're damned if you do,
you're damned if you don't.
If I'm sitting over here saying, yeah,
(07:28):
the Lions need to go all in in the sky,
our Super Bowl window is right now.
Go out and get him, pair him with Hutch.
It'll be the best defensive line in the NFL.
That all sounds great.
But then you also had the other side
that people are saying, why would we give up what we think
it will cost him, cost to get him, thus basically closing,
putting a cap on our Super Bowl window,
(07:50):
limiting how much we can pay our other guys and stuff.
So again, you're damned if you do, damned if you don't.
What I will say is that I think it depends on the price
at which Miles Garrett can be had for.
The Browns are an absolute dumpster fire.
I know Detroit is comically one of the worst franchises
in sports.
You've got the Lions, the Sacramento Kings,
(08:11):
a few other bad franchises out there.
The Browns, I truly think, are surpassing the Lions
in their incompetency just because they've
been bad for so long.
And at least we have something going now.
So there is a chance in which you could go out there,
you could low ball them, low ball the Browns,
and try and go after them.
I think it depends on what you're able to low ball them with.
(08:34):
I think it would be absolutely insane
if you can get Hutch on one side,
Aline McNeill in the middle, and then Miles Garrett
on the other side.
That easily would be the best defensive line in the NFL,
possibly up there with NFL history.
But you've got to think after this year, because Miles Garrett
(08:55):
would be, I think he only has one year left on his contract.
So after this year, you're going to need to start,
he's going to want a contract.
Actually, I believe he has two years.
So he could play his one year, and then that next year,
he could technically sit out and say,
I want my new extension, I want a new contract,
and I'm not playing until I do.
And that's right about the time that Detroit has a lot of guys
they had to play.
All these young guys that are driving this,
had driven this rebuild, and now here
(09:17):
are going to need new contracts.
So you need to think about the money wise.
And it's so easy to be like, I don't care.
Super Bowl window is now.
Let's win Super Bowl now this upcoming year,
and worry about the money later.
And that's totally fine if you want to do that.
That's fine.
I'm OK with one year of Miles Garrett,
and then worry about the money later.
But I ask you, what do you think?
(09:37):
What would you give up to get that done?
Don't even think about the contract down the line.
What would you be willing to give up to get Miles Garrett here
in Detroit?
Yeah, and I think you said don't think about the contract.
I think first of all, I am going to comment on the contract,
just a little bit if that's OK.
So Miles Garrett is 29 right now, so two years
will be about 31 if my math is correct there.
(09:58):
And there's no reason to think that a 31-year-old defensive
end is going to be holding out for some massive contract.
I mean, we could probably go look in the history books
just to see how many prestigious defensive ends
get another major contract.
I know he still has a lot left in the tank.
You see what TJ Watt is still doing at a couple years older
(10:18):
than Miles Garrett is right now.
But I just want to say, there's no reason
to think that he would just absolutely hold out
and screw over the Lions after next season.
But with that said, to answer your question, Ty,
I feel like the Browns don't have a ton of leverage
in this trade because Miles has requested the trade.
So I'm going to put on my procurement hat for a little bit
(10:41):
if that's OK.
Just talk a little bit negotiating.
So I do think that if you're Brad Holmes,
you can try and low ball a deal.
I mean, hell, if the Lakers can do it, then I think so can we.
And you mentioned that the Browns just as an organization,
not very well run.
I think the D'Shawn Watson trade really
did cripple the Browns' future.
(11:02):
And it's going to go down as one of the worst
trades in sports history, in my opinion, not just in the NFL.
And so I think that further hurts their leverage.
I think they have to move on from this guy.
One of the best defensive linemen,
defensive ends in the National Football League,
really the only good player on this roster.
I don't mean to just straight up bash the Browns,
but they have this incredible player and then just a whole bunch
(11:24):
of holes that they have to fill up.
So I see why they're trying to get some picks for them.
But the leverage just doesn't seem like it's there for me.
I think that to answer your question,
I would like to see the Lions give.
They're obviously going to need at least one first round pick.
If you can get it done with a 2025 first and second round
pick, multiple mid rounds in future drafts, maybe,
(11:48):
they don't have a quarterback right now.
You could potentially throw in Hended Hooker
to sweeten that deal.
I personally would be a little bit hesitant to throw
just multiple first round picks, like a 25 first,
2026 first.
I think that at that point you are kind of hemorrhaging
the Lions' future.
And you never know what's going to happen with Garrett
(12:09):
if he does, maybe try to hold out after next season.
So I'd be a little hesitant to just straight up
throw the farm at him.
I think that you can use some leverage
and kind of get a good deal for the Lions, just based
on where the Browns are right now as an organization.
I think the beautiful thing about Brad Holmes
is his ability to locate the diamonds in the rough
(12:30):
at the end of the drafts.
You have all these guys that are playing meaningful minutes
in football games that have come outside the first round.
They're coming in the third, fourth, fifth round
of the NFL draft.
And even that first round pick is going to be, even if we do,
the worst happens, we fall short again.
It's going to be somewhere around 27 to 29 reigns.
So it's not going to be a high first round draft pick.
(12:51):
So I think you do have those two things going for you that.
It's not a super high draft pick that we'd be giving up.
And Brad Holmes has proven he can find diamonds in the rough
later on in the draft.
I don't know.
Maybe I'm just alone in this.
I've seen Head and Hooker thrown in on multiple deals.
He kind of seems to be that sweetener
for a lot of different teams.
I've seen some mocks for guys like Max Crosby and stuff
(13:14):
like that.
And it always seems like Head and Hooker seems
to be the guy that's thrown in there.
I don't see it.
I'm not sad to give up Head and Hooker.
I don't know what other teams really see in him.
He's already an older QB.
We can spend a breakdown on Head and Hooker and the roster
and stuff like that in a different day.
But I don't see Head and Hooker being
that vital to this organization.
(13:36):
So that's what it takes to get us across the goal line
or the finish line.
I'm all for it.
Just like as a quick comp, I saw this on Twitter.
I think Chefty tweeted this out a few days ago.
Khalil Mack, when he was 27 years old,
was traded from the Oakland Raiders to the Chicago Bears.
The Chicago Bears gave up two first round picks, a third
(13:56):
round pick, and a sixth round pick for Khalil
Mack, a second round pick, and a fifth round pick.
So it was kind of a lot going out and a lot coming in.
They got Mack in a second and a fifth for the two first,
a third, and a sixth.
Now Khalil Mack was 27 years old.
Miles Garrett is 29 years old.
But Miles is coming off of 14 sack season.
(14:17):
So I think it might come down to,
I think what could get it done is two first round picks.
And I think if you're confident, and there's
a lot smarter guys in the organization who
are thinking about the contracts down the line,
they know who will be ready when they can really
start getting these guys signed on their extensions
(14:39):
and what guys can wait to try and spread it out as much
as possible to try and limit the impact of all these contracts
coming down.
You can kind of confidently say, OK,
I think that we can handle a Miles Garrett contract
in two years.
And you can confidently say, we can kind of keep the band
together as much as possible.
At least money is not going to be an issue.
If people leave, it's going to be because they want other
(15:00):
opportunities or whatever.
I think I'm giving up two firsts for Miles Garrett.
I think that's where I'll do two firsts.
And maybe if you want to throw in any more than that,
maybe we'll get a few.
You can get crazy.
We'll do two firsts in a fifth.
And you give us Miles in a third or something.
You get crazy with some extra add-ons and stuff like that.
But I think if you're confident, you can resign.
And I'm giving up two firsts.
And I think that's right where I land.
(15:22):
Yeah.
And I'm fine with it, too.
As much as I would like to keep that maybe 2026 first round
pick, if that's what it takes.
I mean, I'm just picturing 8 and 100s in on one side
and Miles Garrett on the other side of a defense.
And if you're in offense, you don't stop that.
Like you literally don't.
(15:42):
You hope for some kind of miracle or God forbid an injury.
But yeah, I think that they are clear Super Bowl favorites
if that happens.
So yeah, if you do the deal and you win a Super Bowl out of it,
I mean, that's more than the Lions have ever
been able to say.
So yeah, it's worth it.
Yeah.
You would start the season with probably the top two best
(16:05):
odds for defensive play of the year
on the same defensive line in Aiden and Miles Garrett.
And then in the middle, you have DJ Reader and Aleem McNeil,
who are two of the top run-stopping nose tackles
and defensive tackles.
I mean, that would be, like I said,
that would easily be the best defensive line in the NFL.
It would be pushing it for best defensive line in the NFL
history, I think.
(16:25):
And that might be Homer, bias, bullshit.
But I think it truly would be.
It would be up there.
So we wouldn't be a Lions sports podcast
if we didn't address the Miles Garrett rumor.
I think the odds that actually came out for Detroit,
it was on some kind of obscure book.
I did see you going around Twitter.
I'd be curious to see if there actually
are odds on ESPN bets or something like that.
(16:47):
But it wouldn't be a sports podcast,
especially about the Lions, if you didn't talk about that one.
The other one that just recently came out yesterday
is that of Cooper Cup.
Cooper Cup a little bit different.
The opposite, Cooper Cup doesn't want to leave his team.
But his franchise and his organization
are literally kicking him out the door.
I think it was a little bit of disgruntleness.
(17:09):
I think Cooper, they probably wanted
to keep it in-house a little bit.
And they told Cooper, we're looking to trade you.
Cooper said, no, please don't.
They came back and said, that's too bad.
That's how the business works.
And then Cooper came out and publicly said,
hey, everyone, just let you guys know.
I don't want to leave.
But they are looking to trade me.
So it's probably something that they would have wished
kept in-house.
(17:30):
But because of the bad blood or whatever happened,
it got released.
So Cooper Cup is being rumored to be connected to Detroit
as well.
We don't have to go as in-depth with Cooper Cup to Detroit,
because it's definitely a different position,
whether of need and stuff like that.
Are you giving up anything for Cooper Cup?
(17:50):
Maybe pennies.
Certainly not a lot.
As much as I love Cup as a player,
I think he is a hell of a player, or at least he used to be.
Just looking at his stats, he hasn't played a full season
since his Triple Crown season.
And of course, that was an incredible season.
I went for almost 2,000 yards, 16 touchdowns.
But since then, he's started nine games, 12 games,
(18:11):
and then 11 games in the three seasons since.
And now he's 31.
I believe he'll be 32 before the NFL season kicks off next fall.
And for me, I don't know.
I don't see a whole lot of value.
I mean, maybe you can bring him in.
If you can throw a sixth round for him,
I think maybe that makes sense.
And he becomes your wide receiver three.
(18:33):
Can still get some yardage.
I mean, I did see some flashes out of him
when he was on the field before he got the injury.
And then, of course, he missed some games.
He came back.
And it seemed like he was mostly just running
cardio the last four or five weeks of the season
while Stafford was throwing a wide open puk in a kua.
So again, maybe that's scheme.
Maybe that's Stafford just going to a different guy.
And maybe Cup does still have something left in the tank.
(18:56):
Again, love him as a player.
But yeah, I'm certainly not giving up more than realistically
like a fifth round, one fifth round, maybe one sixth round
for him.
I don't see myself going more than that if I'm Brad Holmes.
It's just it's different than the Miles Garrett deal
because of, like I said, Miles Garrett
is an absolute position of need.
Cooper Cub, if he came to Detroit, like you said,
(19:18):
he is a great talent.
He was a great talent.
He is just made of glass.
And you look at the list, I mean,
Amin Rajasthil would be our wide receiver number one.
Because of Jamos' 1,000 yard season last year
and what he's kind of exploded and being a what he can do
to take the top off the defense, Jamos still
going to be number two.
Because of Jameer Gibbs, even David Montgomery,
(19:40):
like their ability to catch out of the backfield
and having Sam Laporta as tight end,
some kind of combination of those three
would probably be your receiver.
I mean, at what point, how much would you
give up for wide receiver 3, 4, 5 in Cooper Cub?
So I agree with you.
I don't know what I'd give up for him.
(20:01):
Would you, and I'm just thinking about this out loud,
who clears who?
Amari Cooper or Cooper Cub?
It's tough to say because I feel like Cooper is just
better right now.
But I don't know.
He went to the Bills and talk about guys who were running
cardio.
He didn't do anything when he went to the Bills.
I would love to be proven wrong.
But from what I saw, he didn't do much.
(20:22):
I do think Cooper is probably, I think he's a bit younger.
And I do think he's probably better right now in their career.
But I don't know.
He didn't do anything for the Bills either.
It's hard to say.
He didn't.
He's 30 years old.
Like I said, I don't have Cooper Cub's age in front of me.
But Amari Cooper is 30 years old.
The Bills traded for Amari Cooper this year.
(20:42):
It was Amari Cooper and a sixth round draft pick
for a third round and a seventh round.
So if that's, maybe if you're talking about that,
and again, if Amari Cooper is slightly better than Cooper
Cub at the moment, maybe you pull that out a little bit.
I guess maybe I would do that.
I don't know.
It was just interesting Detroit being tied to Amari Cooper
(21:05):
or to Cooper Cub.
Got too many Coopers going on right now.
But I did like it.
I saw what, let's see, Gary Davenport
wrote in Belajer Port today.
So regardless of whether you think we should trade for Miles
Garrett or Cooper Cub or anything,
Gary Davenport had just an awesome quote today.
He said, deal for Cub.
Go flip a couple first for Cleveland, Browns, Edge,
(21:26):
Russia, and Miles Garrett, and go win the damn Super Bowl.
And you can't really argue with that.
Hell yeah.
Hell yeah.
If it leads to a Super Bowl, I mean, I'm giving up anything.
But yeah, I joke.
I don't want them to give up anything.
I want them to be smart about it.
And Brad Holmes is proven to be one of the best GMs
in all of the national football leagues.
So I know he's going to do the right thing.
But if it leads to a Super Bowl, I mean, get it done.
(21:47):
Yeah.
I mean, you look at the Rams, the Matt Stafford, Jared
Goff trade, they kind of kicked off our rebuild.
They kind of traded everyone for a Super Bowl,
put it all on the line, got their Super Bowl.
And they've been able to kind of piece it back together
and not go to the bottom from that trade.
They're still in the playoff picture and stuff like that.
So if that's the case, we're putting all on the line
(22:09):
for a Super Bowl, and you were able to come away with one.
I'm doing it 100%.
So yeah, like we said, we want to be a Lions sports podcast.
If we didn't, at least bring up the Miles Garrett thing.
And it was just fun to bring up the Cooper Cup.
I don't personally think either one of those get done.
I want to just go on the record saying,
I don't think it's going to be possible.
I just feel like big swinging deals like that
(22:30):
don't happen very often.
And more times than not, when you have a star,
the caliber of Miles Garrett demanding a way out,
I feel like they normally will figure it out
or he'll go to a different team.
I feel like it never happens to us.
So I don't think either one will happen,
but we had to at least bring it up.
OK, we do have a listener voicemail
(22:52):
surrounding the Detroit Lions.
And really football in general.
So let's give that a listen right now.
Hey, guys, it's Megan.
I just want to say I really love your podcast as somebody who
is just now starting to get into football
and more specifically Detroit football.
You're informative, you're entertaining,
you always come with the hot Detroit takes.
(23:13):
So thank you.
My question is not necessarily about Detroit,
but more about football in general.
No matter how much that I read about it,
I'm trying to learn.
The one thing I can't wrap my head around
is clock management.
Can you give a football for dummy's explanation of how
and why coaches might manipulate that time clock
for their benefit?
(23:34):
And then following up, who do you think in the league
has the best time management and why?
What does that do for them?
Can't wait to hear next week's episode.
Thanks, guys.
Talk to you soon.
All right, yeah.
Thanks, Megan, for the call.
I love that it's sort of you took it and zoomed it out
and essentially had this, like you said,
the football for dummies question.
(23:54):
Because a lot of times, especially on this podcast,
other sports podcasts and stuff, we
can get kind of too much in the weeds.
So it's nice to take a step back and just kind of explain
stuff like this.
It's a great question.
So really clock management kind of
can come down to a number of different aspects
and come into play in a number of different ways.
The way that kind of makes the most sense to me
is really, depending on how your team is built out,
(24:17):
the type of players that you have, the type of coach you are,
the type of plays that you like to call,
the way you manage the clock can really change and alter
the way the game is being played.
And by that, I mean, depending on what you're calling,
you can try and speed the game up.
If you want to try and get as many possessions as possible,
you want to try and get down the field and score and get
(24:37):
the ball back, get down the field and score and keep going,
you're going to basically manage the clock in a way
and call certain plays that manages the clock in a way
that makes sure that you continue to have the ball.
You can kind of go into the shootout.
If you kind of feel that a shootout,
like a 50 to 45 kind of score is the best way for you to win.
So you can kind of manage the clock and call your plays
(24:59):
in the best way that you see fit to make that happen.
And the vice versa of that is saying,
if you know a shootout is not the best case for us,
we want to try and keep this game at like a 13 to 16 score.
That's going to be the best way for us to win.
You're going to want to treat the clock completely different.
You want to really start to slow things down
and take your time, slow things down on the field,
(25:20):
but let that clock run.
Take your time getting up to the ball.
Run plays that, running plays, the clock
is going to continue to run.
So you're going to do a lot of running plays
and let that clock run in between the different plays
and different possessions to try and basically cut it.
In one game, you could have a five drive play,
or excuse me, a five play drive.
And that drive could go for seven minutes.
(25:41):
You also could have a different game
and you could have a five play drive.
And that drive could go for two and a half minutes.
So it really depends on how you are trying to win that game,
what fits your team, and your players best.
Yeah, and I'll probably just jump in there.
Megan, thanks so much for the voicemail and for listening.
Glad we can kind of bridge a little bit of that gap
(26:04):
in football knowledge.
And yeah, for me, like clock management,
I think that it's really under the microscope
during a two minute drill or a one minute drill,
either at the end of the half or more often than not
at the end of a game.
And it could be really difficult.
And I know it's really easy for me on my couch,
or Tyler on his couch, to be yelling at the TV,
(26:25):
like why are you not calling a timeout
if there's like 45 seconds left?
It's really situationally dependent.
But it's easy for us just looking at the game
and nothing else, just staring at that clock.
But putting yourself in the shoes of a head coach
who is probably thinking about a million different things,
potentially calling plays and personnel and the likes.
(26:45):
And so it can be really difficult.
The two minute drill, the one minute drill
can be really difficult.
And I'm looking at you, Mattie Bruffleuss,
on Thanksgiving for what not to do on that one minute drill.
But yeah, for me, I think if I was a head coach,
I would probably hire someone if this is even allowed,
just to be my clock management expert to say like,
(27:05):
hey, there is 45 seconds left.
We still have all three timeouts.
We are on our own 40 yard line.
We should clock it now because if we let it,
another play happened and there's 25 seconds left,
we're not gonna be able to use all three of those timeouts.
And one's gonna be wasted.
So it's really just, it's all about timeout management,
clock management, having plays ready so that you can,
(27:28):
it be dial up multiple plays in one huddle
and then really run that turbo offense
or that no huddle offense after that.
So again, it's extremely difficult.
I don't even pretend to really understand,
if I was a head coach, I'd probably be horrible at it.
We see a lot of head coaches that are insanely horrible
at clock management.
Tyler, I'm wondering, any coaches,
(27:49):
just to answer the last part of Megan's question,
what coaches stick out to you as, you know,
actually being good at this clock management?
Cause so many suck.
Yeah, the immediately who comes to mind is someone like,
Varebel or Bill Belichick who they know,
and it's not so much clock management, I guess it is,
but they know specific rules and know how to,
(28:11):
like the loop holes in the rule book
in which they can manipulate the clock
by running certain plays and getting penalties on purpose
in certain times to run the clock and manage the clock
in a way that benefits them.
So I don't necessarily go immediately
to who has the worst clock management,
but actually go to who has the best.
I will say, I know you mentioned that Averfluse
on Thanksgiving with the Bears,
(28:32):
hand up, I might be the actual worst at clock management,
at least in NCAA 25, the amount of times I've run out
of time at either halftime or at the game
on the two yard line, cause I mismanaged a timeout
or something is egregious.
I mean, it's just disgusting.
So hand up, I will say Varebel and Belichick,
probably the best NFL, the worst might actually be me.
(28:55):
Yeah, and I think my last point, all of these NFL coaches,
just play Madden, just play couch football 25.
Like if you keep on getting yourself into these situations
where you don't know when to call timeout,
like you're just, you're just, you know,
just play a little Madden and like then you'll just
feel it out, you know, it's like a simulation for you.
So yeah, it's not easy, but yeah, it's seemingly
from the couch, it can't be that hard.
(29:17):
Yeah, life's just a simulation, but great question, Megan.
And it really does tie back because talking about David Shaw
and Johnny Morton, as we have all this turnover
on the offensive side, there was a lot of, you know,
a point in time when we thought we were gonna have
a first time OC running our team.
And there was, and with first time OCs,
you can sometimes get into that issue of they're not,
they're not working the clock as they should be.
And they might forget about timeout.
(29:38):
You know, accidentally run things.
So it actually does tie back really well
because bringing guys like David Shaw on the staff,
who we know has been a really good head coach
in, you know, in the past at Stanford
and has been around NFL teams for a long time.
A guy like Dan Campbell, who sometimes can struggle
with the clock a little bit, having, you know,
a David Shaw on the sideline, a Johnny Morton on the sideline,
(30:00):
who we know can run a proper clock,
will be extremely beneficial.
And it'll just help our offense not skip a beat.
So really does tie back, great question,
ties back perfectly.
And that kind of wraps up our Lions talk.
But for the probably the first time
in Great Iron podcast history,
we're really balanced podcast today
because we have more stuff to talk about
(30:22):
with the Detroit Pistons.
The NBA trade deadline is this week.
So jumping into that, we've seen a number
of different trades go across the NBA.
A lot of them people thought the Detroit Pistons
would be involved into, they obviously are pretty much
the only team to have NBA cap space,
meaning they're the only team that can like,
(30:43):
basically match numbers.
So if two other teams are making deals for two,
you know, two superstars or something in the salaries,
don't match up or anything, Detroit can kind of jump in.
You can give us a second round pick for our troubles
and we can make sure the money,
the money basically checks out, essentially buying,
you know, draft assets, maybe somebody who's, you know,
(31:04):
kind of out of favor on a different team.
We can kind of buy our way there.
That's kind of the way the Detroit Pistons
were expected to operate this trade deadline.
So far we haven't seen it.
It was reported that the Pistons are seeking
a future first round draft pick as facilitator,
using their $14 million in cap space
and in a multi-team trade scenario.
(31:24):
The league source is told Hoops hype.
The two deals that have gone through the Zech Levine trade
and Deer and Fox trades,
the ones that we kind of expected to come through,
Detroit hasn't been a part of.
So that was a little bit shocking
that they weren't involved in any way,
trying to collect some, you know,
some kind of capital there.
But there are still a number of trades down the line
that we're expecting to see at some point
(31:45):
that Detroit could step in and start to collect some assets.
The Jimmy Butler trade, Brendan Ingham trade, you know,
there are still time in the next, what, 24, 36 hours
before the trade deadline comes and goes.
Yeah, for sure.
So I guess, I mean, there's a couple of different things
that the business can do, right?
You know, Stampat, not do anything.
They can, you know, try to go get someone
(32:07):
who can contribute or really, you know,
they could just, you know, try to, like you said,
take on an aging contract or maybe a, you know,
a non-team friendly contract from another team
and potentially get some picks for it too.
So I guess with all of those in mind,
what do you see the Pistons doing
before the trade deadline on Thursday?
(32:28):
So out of those three, I'm gonna say my priority.
Number one, what I want us to do the most
is standing pat.
I know that's boring and by standing pat,
I don't mean literally do nothing.
I mean, like, let's not make too much of a splash
any which way we're not gonna buy, we're not gonna sell.
We're gonna do exactly like we just said
and like Dave come out and said,
(32:49):
they're gonna facilitate bigger trades.
We're gonna use this money that we have collected
over the last five years of being absolute dog water
and taking on bad contracts
and we're gonna help facilitate the big trades
and in return, you're gonna throw us
a few second round picks.
You're gonna throw us a guy, like I said,
who has fallen out of favor of the head coach
who still has some potential.
(33:09):
You're gonna give us, I don't want any corpses or anything.
I want somebody who can actually participate
in basketball activities, but I don't want us to go
either way, too hard one way or the other.
My second sort of priority behind there would be,
if I had to choose and we can't stay pat or anything,
I would say I wanna be buyers and when I say
I wanna be buyers, I don't want us to go out
(33:31):
and get CJ McCollum, I don't think that's gonna happen.
I don't know he's been tied to Detroit.
I don't want us to go out and get Brandon Ingram,
back before Levine was traded.
I don't want us to go out and sign Zach Levine.
Stuff like that is win now, forget about the future
sort of thinking and I think in too many times,
if you're the lion, so we talk about with Miles Garrett,
you can kind of think like that.
(33:52):
Like we truly are a win right now.
We are Super Bowl window is right now.
We don't necessarily have to think about the future.
You add one of those guys to this Detroit Pistons team.
You're not winning the championship now,
so it's win now, don't think about later,
but you're not winning right now.
So adding those guys I think would be a mistake.
It kind of would be reminiscent of the Blake Griffin trade
what back in 2017, 2016, and that was so much fun
(34:15):
to watch Blake actually ball out,
but it kind of set us back a few years
and I guess it just took us on a different trajectory
that I'm not willing to go back onto.
So if we are gonna go out and buy,
I'm looking at like a Lonzo ball with the Chicago Bulls,
Lonzo's averaging 7.2 points per game,
5.4 rebounds, excuse me, 5.1 assists,
(34:36):
and shooting a three ball at 42%.
Detroit needs a secondary ball handler.
Now that J. and Ivy went down,
you have Marcus Sasser who's doing pretty well
and is a secondary backup ball handler,
but Lonzo would be perfect.
He's good defensively on the ball.
You also could look at Kobe White,
who's also on the bulls.
He's averaging 18.4 points per game,
3.4 rebounds, 4.6 assists,
(34:57):
and he's shooting 36% from three.
I don't think Kobe would actually be available,
but he's someone that kind of fits that.
Bobby Portis, another name who's been thrown around,
averaging 13.4, 7.9, two assists,
and he's shooting 36% from three.
So like if you're gonna go out and buy,
I'm not buying on the big shiny names.
I'm looking at these guys that can kind of be had
(35:18):
for a lot less.
Bobby and Kobe White both have one more year
on the contract, Lonzo is up this year.
So I think that kind of is where I fit in there.
If you're gonna buy, it's kind of,
it's not breaking the bank buy.
And then the last option would be to sell.
That's just not gonna happen.
There's no one, I think maybe coming into this year,
we maybe could have sold at the deadline.
(35:40):
You guys guys that you kind of brought in,
like Tim Hardaway Jr., Malik Beasley,
Bebop Paul, that would be prime selling candidates.
But because they've really overshot their trajectory here,
they're having more success than we thought this year,
there's no reason to sell these guys.
In fact, I would actively be pissed off
(36:00):
if we went out and sold and shipped Malik Beasley out.
Like I want Malik Beasley to stay here
for the rest of his career.
I love that man.
So selling would be actively, you know,
angering fans if you had to go that route.
Yeah, for sure.
Friesley's the man.
He's been really, really incredible
for the pistons this year.
Yeah, I just, I see the remaining free agents
(36:21):
and I don't know, no deals look good to me.
I don't really like what I'm seeing out of them.
And I don't think it would make sense to, you know,
make some huge splash right now,
given that, yeah, Jayden Ivy is most likely out
for the season and the team is probably still
a couple of years away from being an actual contender.
No one thinks they're a contender right now,
even though they are playing well.
(36:42):
And I like what I'm seeing out of the Detroit Pistons,
but they're not there yet at being a contender.
So it just, it wouldn't really make sense
to make a huge splash right now at the deadline.
So yeah, I'm with you on that.
And yeah, I mean, just the team is playing really well.
Just a couple more things on the pistons, you know, in 2025,
they are 11 and six, possibly 11 and seven now.
(37:06):
They did just lose last night,
but at any rate, they're playing extremely well.
Cade Cunningham in his last 10 games,
nearly 29 points per game,
five rebounds and nearly nine assists.
So yeah, I love what I'm seeing,
but I just don't think they are there yet to, you know,
to jump up to that next echelon of teams in the East,
(37:26):
you know, a top three, top four team in the East,
where you could make a run, they're just not there yet.
So I would love for them to stay pat here.
Yeah, and so I'm with you like that.
And like I said, stay pat to me means
you can still facilitate, you can still collect assets,
not trading anyone out.
But if you're gonna go out and you're gonna be able
to kind of work as a facilitator and get a Lonzo ball,
or, you know, maybe even like a Malcolm Brogdon
(37:47):
or someone like that, I'm okay with that.
But you mentioned the loss that we just had
and we were 11 and six and then we lost.
I have to say, Trey Young is just such a bitch.
Trey Young is a little bitch.
Watching him play, watching Cade play,
like last night against the Hawks,
or two nights ago against the Hawks was so pure.
Cade plays the game so well in such a pure basketball form.
(38:11):
He shoots, I think he shot one free throw the other night.
Like he still had 30 plus points.
He plays the game so well in such the right way.
I watched no less than three possessions in a row
where Trey Young went down there damn near at half court
and not even trying to get the ball anywhere near the basket,
just literally going up for a shot at half court,
trying to get the foul.
That is not how basketball is made to be played.
(38:33):
I just don't understand how anyone could be
a Trey Young fan and watch that and be like,
that's our guy, that's the guy we wanna get behind and play.
I just had to say that.
He didn't always piss out of me.
Yeah, a little bitch ball and I mean,
I think the Hawks are never gonna win with him.
It's not to say that he couldn't win on another team,
but yeah, yeah, and that's more just a testament
to Cade as a player too.
(38:54):
I mean, he just, he grinds, he hustles and yeah,
I just, I love how he plays.
Yeah, I mean, but it is, I think now we have to say
like the Hawks won the Trey Young
for Luca Donczyk trade, right?
Cause Luca is now on the Lakers.
Dude, I don't know if we wanna like jump into that.
We probably don't have time, but I just wanna say
like the Mavs owner, I feel like you should be like
(39:17):
thrown in prison or something, not legitimately prison,
but I mean, what you did to the Mavs franchise there,
probably set him back, you know, years.
And when, you know, you could have gotten a haul of,
I don't know, five, six, seven, eight first round picks
for Luca, I mean, the number might not even exist.
And to just get one and Anthony Davis
(39:38):
who is literally made of glass, it's insane.
So I don't, Lakers GM, Rob Blinka,
I don't know how you did it, man.
You must be Houdini.
Yeah, and Mark Cuban, a known listener of the podcast.
Shout out Mark Cuban.
Thanks for listening, guy.
I'm sorry.
And all the Mavericks fans out there,
I'm sorry you guys had to put up with that.
If you guys wanna join us on the Pistons bandwagon,
(39:59):
we'll make room for you.
We're not denying anyone from the Pistons bandwagon.
Come watch us.
You can come watch your boy, Tim Hardaway Jr.
ball out for us, I got some love for the Dallas Mavericks.
So yeah, we don't have much time to go into that,
but anything else on the Pistons trade deadline?
I'm just, I'm looking forward to seeing,
(40:20):
trade deadline is Thursday, so hopefully we'll be talking
to some good things that Tray John Langdon
has done on next Tuesday's episode
or when we release it next Wednesday.
I have all the faith in the world in him,
so yeah, I know he's gonna do the right thing.
Yeah, I do too.
I'm confident we're gonna come on next week
and talk about how they either were able to use that money
to get some more draft picks and draft assets
(40:41):
or actually get somebody that can step in
and play for the season.
So excited for that.
Let's move on to the Detroit Tigers
because it's official, Love is Dead.
Chris Illich and his wife filed for divorce today.
So it's only natural that we're gonna see some sort of
repercussion with the Detroit Tigers
(41:01):
and the Detroit Red Wings, right?
Yeah, and I've seen this on social media a lot.
They could go both ways, right?
Like Chris Illich could just go in his spending phase
and just go crazy or he could not spend another dime
on the Red Wings or the Tigers again.
So I'm hoping it's the former, but Chris,
(41:21):
you gotta do what all divorced dads do.
You gotta go wild, you gotta throw on some Creed,
go buy a Corvette and that Corvette
better be named Alex Bregman.
At this point, it's absolutely insane.
We can jump into the Bregman
because they've actually had some good signings
this past week, but let's jump into Bregman here first
because it is insane that Saga is still continuing.
I agree with you now that a few different dominoes
(41:44):
have fallen, we have single Illich going on,
it's single Illich summer.
I've just coined that, it's what it's gonna be.
I think the Bregman domino will fall here shortly,
but it does sound, the Tigers are, quote unquote,
still very much in the Bregman Saga and the Bregman race.
They did come out today that the Astros had said
they are, quote unquote, I think Dana, their GM,
(42:07):
said they're out on Bregman or it said that they feel
they lost on Bregman, meaning the Astros
are essentially out on Alex Bregman.
And just to kind of go through his numbers
and what he brings for Detroit last year,
Alex Bregman hit 260 on the batting average,
had an OPS of 768, 26 home runs and 75 RBIs.
(42:27):
He's obviously a righty bat in a lineup of Detroit Tigers
that are primarily only lefties, which is not,
it's pretty unique in the MLB, but it actually was
too unique and we were too lefty centric,
so having a righty bat in there,
his OPS of seven, what do I say, 768 would be
(42:49):
the third best OPS compared to last year's season
for the Tigers, only Riley Green and Kerry Carpenter
had a better OPS and he would have led the team
on home runs and RBIs.
I mean, adding him is a true middle of the order bat
that can take this team.
Like I said, it's a righty when we need it, righties.
He can hit for power, he can hit for,
his slugging is great, his defense is great.
(43:10):
Like he is truly, it lines up perfectly
to be added to this Detroit team.
Yeah, and Bregman also, he's slumped for like
a decent portion of last year.
I think that, and I'm totally speculating here,
I think that maybe the pressure was on him
to perform in a contract year and he did struggle.
(43:30):
Now it might have been a little injury as well
that maybe I'm just not a,
he was hitters from last year
and he still would have hit the most homers in RBIs.
So yeah, I mean, I think it's a no brainer.
I think you know what you're getting out of Alex Bregman.
I think his numbers are, you know,
if assuming he's healthy this year,
(43:51):
they're gonna be better than last year.
He's a hell of a player and he's a hell of a third baseman
as well, so would love to see it happen.
I live in Houston and I've watched a ton of
Alex Bregman over the years and I'm a huge fan of him,
objectively, I guess subjectively,
but would love to see him on the Tigers.
Yeah, and he's 30 years old.
He's been to what, multiple world series.
(44:12):
He would bring a veteran presence into this locker room
that is still a young lineup.
So we'd bring that in there.
I mean, it just makes so much, it makes too much sense.
Shout out Ben Verlander, obviously Justin Verlander's
younger brother, also drafted into the Tigers organization.
He's still a huge Tigers fan, does a lot for Tigers media
and stuff like that.
I think he's tweeted every single day,
(44:33):
as far as I've seen, tweeted every single day.
Today would be a great day for the Tigers
to sign Alex Bregman.
I have a feeling he's going to every single day
until Bregman signs somewhere.
So, but like we said, the Tigers actually have signed
a number of different guys this past week
and have done a pretty good job.
So first they signed the reliever Tommy Kano.
(44:53):
Apologize if that's not how you say his last name.
To a one year deal, this bullpen is absolutely
going to be insane.
Now last year we did the sort of ride the hot hand
bullpen by committee, really pitch,
starting pitch by committee.
And it really worked out.
It obviously came back to sort of bite us in the ass
towards the end with our starting pitcher,
but starting pitching, but the bullpins numbers
(45:14):
were fantastic.
And this Tommy signing was absolutely great.
So last year he had a two 11 ERA, 1.148 whip,
46 strikeouts and 42.2 innings pitched.
It isn't, to me, it just bolsters,
it further bolsters what was already a strength
of this team and that was the bullpen.
Yeah, and I think to your point on,
(45:35):
you know, the starting pitcher by committee
working in the playoffs, kind of that chaos of the mound.
Yeah, it did work at times for the Tigers,
but I do think that that's a recipe that you could
and should use occasionally in the playoffs.
I don't think it's a recipe that you should use
whenever your starter Tariq Schuylville isn't playing,
which is basically how the Tigers deployed it
(45:56):
in last year's playoffs.
And yeah, the luck did run out there kind of.
So yeah, I like where they're going.
I think this bullpen, just kind of solidifying it
from last year, which was, it was very good last year.
Love the signing there.
I hope that he doesn't pronounce his name, Tommy,
like you said he does, but you know,
who knows more power to him if he does pronounce it, Cannell.
(46:18):
But yeah, I think that the bigger signing
that I think we should probably talk about,
Jack Flaherty, welcome back to Detroit, buddy.
Two year deal, $35 million with an opt out after year one.
So, you know, a relatively friendly, you know,
team friendly deal there.
Flaherty just by the numbers last year.
(46:41):
With the dot.
It's,
Moore Homer's given up 38 walks,
nearly 200 strikeouts at 194 and then an ERA of 3.17.
Pretty low whip, actually very low whip.
1.08 the average is closer to 1.3.
So, love this trade.
I think this is a Scott Harris masterclass.
(47:02):
I mean, you trade Flaherty at the deadline last year.
You get Trace Weenie who contributed towards the end
of the regular season and also in the playoffs.
You get a top 100 prospect,
I believe he's Kutcher in first base there in Lorenzo.
And then you get Jack back for, yeah, like I said,
a relatively team friendly deal with some flexibility.
(47:22):
You can trade him at next year's deadline.
If things don't go well, you know,
we're hoping they go well, I think they will,
but you still have that flexibility there.
So, yeah, hats off to Scott Harris, man.
I love this because Jack so clearly wanted to be in Detroit.
He was, when he was traded, he said like,
I'm pretty sure before the deadline even came,
like he said he wants to be in Detroit.
(47:43):
His family was here.
He enjoyed his short time in Detroit.
He wanted to be here.
He understood that it was a business.
They had to make the deal and that's how that works.
But he obviously then did one of the only,
I don't, we talk about this a lot,
like, oh, if he loves Detroit so much
and he doesn't want to leave,
we can trade him, collect some chips for him
and then he can sign here in the off season.
How often does that actually happen?
(48:04):
That literally never happens.
And Jack Flaherty wanted to be here so badly.
He literally did that.
I just love it.
He's a dog.
He can be our number two guy behind Scooby.
And he loves, he generally loves Detroit.
I just absolutely love that.
I know, I think you mentioned it
and a few other people have mentioned it online.
Like, he would have given this team,
(48:25):
that extra boost in the playoffs.
Maybe we would have beaten the Guardians if we had him.
That probably would be true if we did.
But I think the piece is,
we were playing with House Money.
We were running on fumes
towards the end of the last playoff series.
The pieces that we got in him and Trace Weenie.
Maybe if we had him and didn't trade,
like you said, Trace Weenie actually contributed
last year in the playoffs.
(48:46):
So maybe if we didn't trade for Trace Weenie,
we wouldn't even gotten there in the first place.
So I absolutely love that we were able to bring him back
like we did, but then he wants to be here so much.
It just, like this rotation and this bullpen
with Tommy Cannell, maybe?
Maybe Cannell, maybe Cannell.
I don't know, well, Tommy, listener of the pod,
call in, let me know how you say your last name.
It's gonna be such a strength that like,
(49:09):
if single Chris Illich goes out and does the thing
that we want him to do,
and that's just sign Alex Bregman,
this might be like one of the best off seasons
I've had the Tigers have in so long
in getting signing Tommy, Jack Flaherty,
Glaibre Torres, Alex Bregman.
I mean, I'm sure I'm missing one or two years
with other guys.
I mean, that would just be the perfect
(49:30):
off season for the Tigers.
Yeah, it's huge, man.
And just a couple more things for me
from the gritty tags.
You mentioned Jack Flaherty on Twitter.
I'm pretty sure he tweeted out after the deal
got announced the picture of Tupac in the Red Wings jersey
after I think it was a court case that he had in the 90s.
(49:50):
And then, yeah, I think the other picture he tweeted out
was probably Isaiah Thomas
celebrating a championship with Dennis Rodman.
So, yeah, I mean, the guy, he's pumped up to be back.
He deserves to be here.
And we're pumped up to have him.
He absolutely deserves to be here.
And you look at the Tigers' potential starting rotation.
And this might not be a day one rotation.
(50:11):
It depends on Jackson Job.
And if he's gonna be a day one starter.
But regardless, I mean, you got, you know,
Tariq Skouble speaks for himself.
I mean, Triple Crown, Cy Young,
he's, in my opinion, the best pitcher in baseball.
Then you got Jack Flaherty.
You have Reese Olson, Jackson Job, and Alex Cobb.
And you even have Casey Meyes,
(50:32):
who may or may not be anything.
I don't know, he's probably still a bust.
But at the very least, you have him as a piece
in the rotation as well.
I mean, I think it's easily a top 10 rotation in baseball
and in a fringe top five, in my opinion.
I mean, there are teams that are clearly better.
Looking at the Dodgers, the Braves,
probably the Yankees as well.
But, I mean, the Tigers are up there.
(50:54):
Yeah, I'm actually surprised, speaking of the Dodgers,
I'm actually surprised it was the L.A. Lakers
that traded for Luca Doncik.
And it wasn't the Dodgers who just put him
on a deferred contract because they've been doing that
with everyone and they're insane.
But yeah, this team, I mean, we struggle with offense.
So if we get a Bregman, that kind of makes us so much
level, even if we don't get Bregman,
because of this rotation that you just mentioned,
(51:15):
we have to be at least second best favorites
in the L.A. Central.
And like you said, probably a top five to 10 rotation
in the MLB in general.
So absolutely love it.
Just finish the job.
Do what you need to do, Chris.
Go out, have a few beers tonight.
Get wasted, call Alex Bregman and get the deal done.
(51:35):
Yeah, hit on some milfs.
You know, whatever you gotta do, man.
Yeah, and just, I guess, one more thing.
We talk about Chris Illidge and, you know,
way wanting him to spend more money.
Don't look now, the highest payroll in the L.A. Central
now belongs to the Detroit Tigers.
So, you know, we are slowly increasing that payroll
and spending smartly, in my opinion,
and that's a testament to Scott Harris.
(51:57):
And yet, Tigers 17th highest payroll in the MLB right now.
So we are, we're creeping up there.
It might even creep up a little higher
after we signed Bregman.
Yeah, I think I saw just base numbers
as to what Bregman is rumored to be asking for.
If we sign him for what he's asking for,
and maybe even a little more to get him to come to Detroit,
I think that would move us to the 14th highest payroll
in baseball, which is still, you know,
(52:17):
a far cry from what, you know,
all Mike Illidge would have done.
But to see that from Chris is at least a sign
of things going in the right direction.
So let's get it done.
Let's move right along though.
Shout out to the Tigers.
We actually had decent stuff to talk about with them.
So hopefully we can come back next week,
talk about the Pistons making a good move at the deadline
and the Tigers signing Bregman.
Hopefully that's what our whole episode is next week.
(52:39):
But the Red Wings deserves some credit this week too.
They've been fantastic.
Dude, Wings, I mean, hottest team in the NHL.
The Winstryk now hits six games.
And don't look now, but the Red Wings
are in a playoff spot now.
They own the number one wild card spot.
At least as of right now, 6-11 on Tuesday recording this.
(53:00):
But yeah, I mean, can't say enough good things
about Todd McClellan and the Todd McClellan bump
that the Red Wings are receiving right now.
They are 14, four and one under Todd.
And, you know, that's the,
they own the best record in the NHL since December 28th.
And this is not the first six game Winstryk,
(53:22):
but it's actually the second that they've had.
They had a seven game Winstryk
and now are currently on a six game streak.
And, you know, when McClellan took over,
the Wings were 15th in the East and quite literally dead.
They were the dead Wings.
And now, you know, they sit, like I said,
at the top wild card spot.
They're only one point off the third, you know,
(53:43):
the third playoff spot in the Atlantic as well.
So, I mean, they're playing so hot.
I will say that some of their play style,
at least in this current Winstryk,
it's probably not sustainable in my opinion.
You know, their first Winstryk under McClellan,
they were scoring goals at will,
four and a half goal score per game.
And the power play was scoring at about a 52% clip.
(54:06):
In the current Winstryk, they're scoring 3.3 goals per game
and power play is only at 14%.
So, they're scoring less goals.
You know, some of it could be said about, you know,
a West Coast trip, a Canadian trip that, you know,
maybe a couple back to backs.
It's hard on the boys skating.
I think that's definitely part of it.
But a big part, and this is a good thing, the defense,
and more importantly, I would say that the goalie,
(54:29):
the goal tender work, 1.5 goals allowed per game.
The goalies have been just so incredible
over this Winstryk and really laying it all on the line.
I do think the offense probably should pick it up
and can pick it up.
But yeah, I mean, overall,
love what I'm seeing out of the boys.
Dude, what the fuck was Derrick LeLan
doing to those guys in the locker room
that had them playing so terribly
(54:50):
and just the firing of him?
Turn this team around.
We talked about it in previous weeks
about how in the NHL, there is a real thing you can track.
That's the head coaching firing,
you know, interim head coach, new head coach bump.
You know, you see a team that has success
with a new head coach mid-season.
It's a real thing that happens year to year.
But Derrick LeLan must have had these poor guys
(55:12):
just absolutely hating their lives,
going to play this game every single night.
Cause just the energy is so awesome.
He was, it must have been like limiting all the young guys
potential too, because all the young guys
we talked about in previous weeks, they're showing out
and the young red wings are the ones
that are really driving all this.
Yeah, I think Derrick LeLan, like, I mean, you should be,
(55:34):
if fired again, I don't know, fired again.
Like the one firing wasn't enough in my opinion.
I mean, it's insane that, yeah, I just, I don't,
and I don't pretend to know, you know,
hockey schemes too particularly or well,
but you know, whatever LeLan was doing,
do the exact opposite if you're, if you're a head coach
in the NHL, because yeah, I mean, he should be, you know,
tried for like domestic terrorism or something.
(55:54):
But yeah, it was insane, you know,
the underperformance of the team
and now they're finally skating well,
the young guys are skating well,
and just love what I'm seeing.
And I think probably one last shout out,
I mentioned the goalie play, Alex Lyon,
he's been incredible.
His last three starts, 100 shot attempts on him.
(56:16):
He has 94 saves, which is just really insane
and the two-on-one record to boot there.
So huge shout out to Alex Lyon in that.
And you know, he's a big reason
why the wings are so hot right now.
Yeah, we'll get to see coming up here
in the next few weeks, if they're able to continue it.
They obviously have some games coming up against the Lightning.
They play the Blue Jackets, the Ottawa Senators coming up.
(56:39):
So we have some important games coming up
that will really decide, because as Detroit is having,
you know, this sort of fantastic last month,
there's a number of different teams who are also,
just this year in general, not performing
as they should have, similar to Detroit to start the year.
So there's a lot of different teams
that are right in that middle sort of pack of teams.
(57:01):
So we'll know hopefully in a few weeks
whether as April and the D kind of come storming up,
if we can have some playoff Red Wings hockey
in the next few weeks.
So yeah, shout out to Red Wings,
shout out to McClendon, shout out to Larkin,
who's been there for all the disgusting, different lineups
that they've had and coaching and stuff like that.
(57:21):
So just shout out all the Red Wings boys.
Yeah, and I know it's only February right now,
but I need that April and the D music on my Twitter timeline,
like I need to breathe right now.
So I mean, it can't come soon enough.
We might even have to change our theme song
for when it comes to April and just of that song,
(57:42):
just for the month of April.
If we do get playoff, if we get playoffs for multiple teams
and during April, we'll change our theme song to April and D
if we're allowed to because of copyright
and all that bullshit and stuff.
If we can, we will change it
if we get multiple teams in the playoffs,
that's our promise.
All right, we gotta get out of here.
That's our show.
Thank you guys for tuning into this week's episode.
(58:02):
You can find us on Twitter at dotten underscore Tyler
and Kyle underscore Marino.
Join the conversation next week
by calling into the grit iron report voicemail
for us to play and discuss on the podcast.
That number is 313 306 7 9 39.
And if you like this episode, please take a moment
to rate it five stars and leave us a review.
(58:24):
Thanks guys, restore the roar.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Every hotline to journey roads paved with fire,
sweat tears and hustle that never expired
from the rookies on the rise to the old hands retire.
Grit iron is the place for fans to conspire.
Hustle on blast be starting them loud champion
from crust or the crowd with a story to blog
(58:46):
soon and when the heat may.
They just end them about
ticketing them about
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