Steve Hartman and Kelvin Washington talk Aaron Rodgers and MLB pitch clock!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio. Yeah, I love of
the dree. Once again here on a fabulous sports Saturday.
This is Fox Sports Saturday, and once again we are
broadcasting live from the Tirac dot Com studios. Tirac dot com.
We're gonna help get you there and I'm at selection
fat free shipping, free road hats are protection over ten

(00:21):
thousand recommended installers tirac dot com. Full way tire buying
should be Kadub's going to be here in a second,
I would imagine delayed slightly by something that is, oh,
here he comes, here, he comes. He just walked in
the door. As you know, we live broadcast from southern California,

(00:42):
here in the Sherman Oaks area. And whether it is
the biggest thing I've always talked about, being someone who
has lived my entire life, my entire life in Southern California,
is that unlike anywhere else pretty much on the planet,
where every day begins with the thought of weather, how

(01:04):
hot is it, how cold is it? What do I
have to do to prepare for the day. This is
something that so rarely affects my day as a lifelong
resident of Southern California, but I will say this, yesterday
we had rain. I live up in the Ventura County area,
pretty much unlike I've seen in let's say, I've been

(01:24):
in that house seventeen years. I haven't seen this in
a long long time. So kid, I'm good to see it. Kelvin,
how are you man? Good to see you. My daughters
enjoyed the hail that happened about thirty forty five, maybe
an hour ago. That's exactly what happened to us. So
it cleared up a little. We had all day rain yesterday,
had a blackout for a couple of hours. Last night,

(01:46):
power came back on. It started to clear up a
little bit this morning, and then just as I was
about ready to leave here, all of us sudden, its
what the hail is going on? And my kids, because
they know nothing but southern California, are like, oh my gosh,
it's the greatest thing for me. Growing up in Michigan,

(02:06):
you know, for thirty years, if you will, it was
like that's what the norm was. You were used to rain, sleet,
like that phrase, rain sleet, heller snow. It was a
real thing. So it was kind of cool to see
them enjoy it and go out there and play in it,
because for them, seventy to eighty five degrees is pretty
much their their in life, their existence most days. So

(02:27):
for them to get to enjoy it was grace. But
I mean, listen, it was Noah's ark on my way in.
It was absolutely I say this about whether like this.
The rain is not the problem. It's how people react
to the rain that is the problem. And here in
southern California, people do not understand one simple premise. If

(02:48):
you're on a freeway, if you're on a highway and
it is pouring rain, you need to slow down. You
need to have some distance between cars. You can't drive
the way you normally do when it's sunshine. It's always
blows my mind. Right, You're you're driving on a perfectly
sunny day and you see an accident on the freewore, like,
what the hell happened there? Well, we know what happened.

(03:10):
You know you're not paying attention out there. But in
this kind of weather, he slow down just but I
will add to this. I will add to this. The
slowing down is also partly the problem because people overreacting
how they slow down. So if I'm going sixty, you
know whatever you are, because you're going a little slower
fifty five whatever it may be. And someone's going like today,

(03:33):
they're going like thirty five and now leave that allows
that might have gotta be fire. And I was about
to say, but they they're going very slow. They're you know,
like to the point where you're like, wait, am I something?
How am I approaching them? So because they're going thirty
two miles an hour. So also overreacting and going too
slow causes harm because people who are slowing down but

(03:54):
maybe aren't going again thirty you run into them. However,
we're living in first world problems right now, because if
someone in Wisconsin or Iowa, Sam, who are listening to
this Michigan my people, and they're like, shut up, yeah,
a little two weeks shut up exactly. My sister and

(04:15):
Iowa Sam knows this has lived in Iowa for forty years.
The valley girl who went to Iowa and never came back.
She just recently became a grandma. I can't believe my
younger grandma. Can I ask what the heck broader in Iowa? Well,
she met a guy in southern California. He got injured
in a motorcycle accident, went home to rehab. He literally
his family lived on a farm in the middle of Cocona.

(04:38):
You hear Cocona in Iowa. I actually was on a
cross country trip with a buddy of mine, I mean,
in my early twenty was she stopped to see it.
I mean it was a farm in Iowa. Right, tell
us about the fly Steve. It was unbelievable. So we
had this was great. So this guy's dad, he was
just a farmer, right, and he wanted to show us

(04:58):
this uh photo. Wow. Well, you know the old folded
albums we stick them in the pages and everything else.
And it was page after page of carcasses of animals
that they had either killed or skinned, and every mean
florid page after page of this. Right, So they decided
we're going to barbecue a turkey. Now this is in

(05:19):
the middle of the summer. Had nothing to do with thanks,
it was, it was. But they also had what they
called the near beer. So near beer is beer with
a higher alcohol content the normal beer. Any No, no, no no,
these near beers were higher. That's a different near beer.
Death beer. Yeah. I thought near beer meant it was

(05:41):
like this was higher. Want not lowered made it home.
I remember very specifically. So anyway, we were outside alanie
a bench, you know, and we have the barbecue going on,
and they bring out the beers, earn cans and open
the can. And it's as I open my can, literally

(06:03):
I could count twenty flies that landed on top of
my beer can, like all at once, like yeah, try
to sort of shoot them off. I think I actually
drank one fly that actually got into the beer. That's
protein right there, Yeah, a little extra protein. Mexico eating
cricket is down there. There's some good stuff down there. Yeah.

(06:24):
But I remember my sister that got divorced after three years.
She was married to this guy I got married for
three years, got divorced, no kids, so we thought, okay,
she's not gonna stay in Iowa. Oh no, No, she stayed.
Then a new guy that'd been married over thirty years,
have two daughters, and now she's got twin grandsons that
were just born on Valentine's Day. Oh wow. Yeah, and
they couldn't get any cuter. Well, congratulations to her, By

(06:47):
the way, have you had any more kids. Here's the
thing about k Duff. We were the show that almost
was here. On Fox Sports Radio until you know, he
started cranking out more and more kids and he you know,
he's very busy with your schedule. So are you done
or what's going? No, I'm done, Steve, Um can do it.
Every time I see you, my beard get it gets
grayer and grayer. Uh. These kids are stressing me out.

(07:10):
Do you see the grocery bags under my eyes? U No,
can't do it. Um, I'm done retirement. You've retirement and
the problem. The problem is i' you're gonna have sixteen
and a half and that's that's that's their lies of trouble.
My wife is not getting any non hotter, like she's
still hot. So okay, now here, let me tell you

(07:32):
how this goes. Thank God for I have a time,
because I would want to jump for bones more. But
I got you know, anybody, as an old woman, black
woman said, anybody got time of that? Okay. So after
my third child was born and we got the girl,
after the two boys, we got the girl, and I'm like,
I'm out of the baby making business, all right, I'm done,
all right, So I go in for the b and
I remember I'm laying there and the guy is, you know,

(07:54):
working his thing down there, and the thing the whole
time he's talking me like he's talking about you know,
you're a sports guy, so everyone knows that. So he's
rattling off about being a coach of a little league
team the whole time, and all I'm thinking is can
we focus? Right? I still needed to operate. So then
he says, all right, we're done, and I thought, Hey,

(08:15):
that wasn't so bad. Now we need to do the
other side. Oh, the other side. I didn't feel anything
the first side. The other side gets started feeling, and
then you got to get the frozen peace because there's
something there's it's like a few days, okay, but it works.
It works. Okay. So but you don't want to stay
with me forever. She better stay with me forever. I'm

(08:36):
doing all this. Grow you with me for life. Well,
I got news for you, because she is getting to
that point where she's going to be more seeking activity.
She's a woman, woman, get a little more more reverse. Yeah,
when we were nineteen, we were a little horny frogs y.
I gotta get that. The thing with that though, again,

(08:56):
I have a year and a half year old. Yeah,
she's in law school as well as world's working full
time a year and a half rolds in law school. Ready,
you know not I don't you know, du git a houser, No,
du git a houser in the house. But the wife's
in law school, works full time six year of four
year old, one and a half year old. You know,
you know, hubbahabba. You know we gotta hold up, hold

(09:18):
up a little bit. You know she's gonna get the itch,
all right, so you need to you need to take
care of business, all right. We got a lot of
grounding the cover. This is always a good time, right.
Everyone always talks about in our industry that February is
such a dead month. First of all, we're already taking
up half the month with the Super Bowl now, and
by the way, when we go to an eighteen game
schedule over twenty weeks, February is going to be taking

(09:40):
up the whole month by the NFL. You know, the
NFL is gonna end literally the last weekend of February eventually.
You know what they'll be doing, taking Black History Month
from black people? Is that what they're gonna do. Nobody's
gonna be thinking about no Black History mount Why the
NFL is still going on. They already got the game
U twenty eight days. Sam not I gonna take the
whole mother of football. No, nobody can. People don't even

(10:01):
care about God anymore. Right now. They took over Sunday,
Now to take it over February. I'm done with this
and they're good. They're gonna take over the entire month
of fall. At least they can do. If they do that,
Steve Is, give us a few more black coaches. At
least give us that. All right, Well, we got a
lot of ground to cover. We're gonna cover everything going
on around the National Football League. Obviously, we have a
plenty of talk about when it comes to the NBA.

(10:22):
March madness is right around the corner. And we got
a few other stories we gotta get to on a
very very busy Saturday. This is Fox Sports Radio. Fox
Sports Radio has the best sports talk lineup in the nation.
Catch all of our shows at Fox Sports Radio dot
com and within the iHeartRadio app search f SR to

(10:42):
listen live. Polly Fusco here with Tony Fusco Yo. As
you all know, we're the host of the number one
rated show in all of sports talk, The Folly and
Tony Fusco Show Numero U No, Yeah, And we know
why millions of people tune in every week. They want
to hear us talk sports, not idiot who think they
know more about sports than we go. He ain't listened

(11:03):
to these dummies. You don't know crap about the book.
This is the worst thing. He's still on the way
off the shop that you don't know bad ball. If
you want to hear how sports talk should be done,
listen to the Folly and Tony Fusco Show on the
I Hot Radio app, Apple podcast orherever you get your podcasts.

(11:23):
Steve Harvin kelvin washington't hear. This is Fox Sports Saturday
and we are live from the ti iraq dot com studios.
We are watching the final seconds tick away on an
Alabama victory. It looks like over Arkansas, Alabama LINI Arkansas
eighty one seventy five. Of course, Crimson Tide rank number
two in the country and they are led by the

(11:46):
best freshman and I've seen out there, Brandon Miller, who
will be a one and done. He's projected to be
a top three pick in the NBA draft coming up here.
But this a lot of controversy surrounding Brandon Miller as
he is on the court for Alabama. Of course, Alabama
has never won a national championship in basketball, but with

(12:06):
his presence they certainly have a shot with the upcoming tournament.
If you don't know the story, it's very simple. He
ended for folks. So basically what happened was a teammate
of his senior teammate, was it Miles, Yes, Darius Miles,
but Darius Miles, you know, right, the Darius Miles. And
he calls Brandon Miller and said, can you give me

(12:26):
my gun? Now? This is a senior telling a freshman,
can you get me the gun? Now? Brandon Miller is
the start of the scene, but he's still a nineteen
year old freshman. He didn't think anything of it. He
gave him the gun, and then Myles used that gun
in an alleged murder. Well, okay, hold on, you gotta
you gotta throw some more little tidbits facts notes in there,

(12:47):
all right, so give me, give me more laws because
there's a give me the gun kind of sounds like
like you if you and I are walking, then the
seven to eleven, You're like give me the gun, Like, yeah, here,
you go go you know. Yeah, that sounds like give
me the gun. You not, it's about to happen. Apparently
h Ryan somebody helped me out with this. Wasn't it
in the Seniors car Um so yes, So Brandon Miller

(13:14):
didn't know. So this all started because the bench player
I forgot his name, Darius Miles, Darius Miles, and then
he was with a guy who's not on the team. Right.
They were in downtown Tuscaloosa, and the guy who was
not an associate with the team, it was friends with
Miles and Miller. He was hitting on a woman and
she rebuffed him and he got angry and then basically

(13:34):
Miles retrieved the gun from Miller, and Miles gave the
gun to this man. Okay, so didn't Brandon Miller was
He told, look, I need the gun because I know
they look at the text message and always in the car.
But all he saw in because they reviewed the texts
or whatever. Like he only knew, hey, bring me my gun.
It wasn't hey bringing my gun. I'm about to go
do something. He didn't know anything about anything about the

(13:56):
sunflict with this. Well just know hey, man, hey, I'll
bring my gun now, will continue that I want to start,
and you and I were talking off fair. I think
for some folks they're gonna hear that and say, if
someone told you, bring bring my gun, that's alarming. Call
the police. What are you doing? But I think folks
have the thing a couple of things. One you just
mentioned they're in Alabama, and culturally this ain't a black

(14:18):
thing or a white things, just culturally in the South.
If somebody called, let's say you're in rural Alabama and
somebody said, bob it, bring a rifle, that's literally normal,
Like I don't know if he's about to go hunting,
if you're going on you know, if all he just
left it at my house one night, bring me my
rifle isn't like bring me my gun. Isn't like as
alarming as it may seem for those folks in different

(14:40):
regions of the country. Let's call it what it is.
Some places in the hood. You can pick whatever big
city you want, La New York and that Detroit. If
somebody said, hey, man, you know, bring my gun, that
doesn't necessarily mean bring me my gun. I'm about to
go to a crime just like I might have left
my gun. Because young folks hate to ruin some people's
Saturday afternoon. Some folks carry around guns just because they

(15:04):
in their minds, they feel the need to be safe.
So I think that's what makes it confusing. If you're
or where, if you're Alabama, you're like, ah, you know,
he didn't say bringing my gun because I'm about to
smoke somebody where you clear his day. You're complicit and
you know you're a part of this. Hey, man, bring
my gun. You bring the gun. Darius Miles gets out

(15:24):
of the car, goes, does something you don't know, comes
back in the car. You know, you take off. You're like, dude,
what the heck just happened? It wasn't like Steve, let's
go do this thing where you're gonna take me there,
bring my gun, You're gonna drop me off. I'm gonna
shoot this guy, and then Wenna get back in the
car and then we're gonna you know what I mean,
where you knew. Now I'm not justifying, I'm saying I
think this is how Alabama is able in their minds

(15:46):
to sleep at night. Is saying this kid, he's telling
us he didn't know the police let him go. It's
still under investigation. What are we supposed to do. I
think that's how they feel, all right. But at the
same time, any Miller is going to be a first
team All American. He's in the running for a National
Player of the Year about twenty five points tonight. Alabama
is in a position they've never been before. They've never

(16:09):
even been until a final four in basketball. Ever, they've
never been to a final four, and they have the
kind of player that can get them there. So this
is rarefied air for Alabama. One of the first stories
that came to mind when I started to read about
this story, it was the Ray Lewis story. Yeah, you know,
the guilt by association situation. I was in Atlanta for
that Super Bowl, and of course the following year when

(16:31):
you know, the Ravens were in the Super Bowl, and
then Shannon Sharp was standing behind him because he wouldn't
talk to the media, and Shannon was, you know, standing
behind him. It was It was crazy, though, right, and
I met Ray a few times after that. I mean,
I look at when we get back to the idea
of being a freshman, especially when you're the guy and

(16:52):
you still want to sort of be the freshman and
an upperclassman, even if he's a guy riding the badges
asking you to do something for him, you really don't hesitate, right,
you know. And that's the great point too, You know
that this is what they would call the big homie
hold on. By the way, Oh, the game got really
close off the blue, but is now over. Alabama wins
at eighty six eighty three, So Alabama is right there

(17:15):
or top two in the country right now. So you're
absolutely right, Hey, bring me my gun. I'm the big senior,
you're the freshman. Areas right there? Brendan Miller, which you
gotta if he genuinely truly had no idea what the
heck was going on. I'm just doing what my guy
asked me to do, and I don't know what he's
freaking gonna do with this. You gotta feel bad for
him that now he's in a situation where could jeopardize

(17:36):
his future. But another way, Alabama absolutely is protecting Alabama.
Where they went wrong in my opinion is listen, all
that matters is you getting in the tournament, right, So
if you lose a few games, because maybe you gotta
sit them down for a week or two while the
investigation continues to unfold, while you continue to make sense
of this thing. So what what does it matter? You

(17:58):
know what I mean? Long as you get in and
then if he if he's able to play, you'll be fine.
So maybe you're not a one seed, but you're a
fifth sixth seed, like you'll be fine if you're as
talented as you believe you are. To me, they set
themselves up for failure by now playing him and not
really I don't even want to call it a suspension,
just saying we're doing what's best for this young man.

(18:19):
Oh wow, what happened there? Arizona State is just defeated Arizona.
Oh that's old. As about ten minutes ago, we haven't
talked about it. Arizona State beat Arizona on a three
pointer from beyond half court. At the buzzes switched to
oh wow, well that has a major effect on possible

(18:41):
seedings down the road. So big win there, all right,
So we got all right, So bottom I was acting
like it's Marsha matneness right now. All this I want
to say this Alabama where they mixed up was not
taking time they should have. They should have taken some
more time, not suspending him. So that that's you know,
maybe on his record, if you will, that this colleague,
this kid was suspended simply saying, hey, we're doing this

(19:01):
for you, for us, for the victims of this crime.
We're gonna have you hold on for a minute. Not
you're not in trouble. Obviously you're not charged right now,
but we just want to wake sure. We're ditting our
eyes and crossing our teath for you as well as
us protecting all of us, like legally and the liability factor.
Let's see what's going on. Hold on for a second. Okay.

(19:24):
They would have done that if it was November or December,
not as we're reproaching March. See, and that's where they
went wrong. If this thing turned sideways, meaning if all
of a sudden, some more text messages pop up or
a phone call, you know, something where it's like, oh,
he knew or he to me. Had they taken another week,
one week, which is probably what two to three games,

(19:45):
give it another week maybe too, see what's going on,
find out, let the investigation unfold just a few more days.
By the way, it happened in Alabama, where Alabama wants
also what's best for Alabama, meaning this would be a
hasty investigation in the sense of normally we're gonna take
our time, we're gonna, you know, slowly do this thing.
They'd speed it up forward to hey, look we hurry

(20:05):
him doing this for us. Polease we've got a tournament
coming up. Hurry, hurry up, and then at least they
could say, hey, he's exonerated. We've looked, he's completely had
nothing to do with this. He's completely innocent, and everybody
will be okay. The kid will be okay, the school
will be okay, police department will be okay, the victims,
the victims family would be okay because says, hey, this
kid is playing, he's ok he's okay to play because
he didn't do it. So I think them moving so

(20:26):
hastily could potentially hurt everyone involved when all they had
to do is wait another week or two until more
information is out, find out he had nothing to do
with it. Good to go by the way, you could
do a whole series on athletes at the collegiate level
that have been protected from potential laws. Member Jamis Winston

(20:46):
the Eerie won the Heisman Trophy. That investigation them was
going on about a robbery that just sort of disappeared.
Oh yeah, just in time for the championship. Yeah, that's
gonna happen. That would happened when for a while, at
least till they came out the Hio State Guide than
the tattoo. Yes, Terrell Prior and on it. Yeah. Yeah.
By the way, we're brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

(21:07):
Progress makes bundling easy and affordable. Get a multi policy
discount by combining a motorcycle, RV, boat, ATV and more,
all your protection in one place. Bundle and say at
progressive dot com, all right, let's find out what is
trending right now. And so kay Dub I had a
chance to talk to Brian Finley, who he has done

(21:28):
more one on one interviews than like Larry King back
in the day. That's saying a whole lot. I mean,
he is tireless. And when I saw the roster of
those that he has interviewed, I realized that there was
one missing person that I would like to hear an
interview from, and that's me. I was gonna say, we're

(21:49):
talking about you, right, you know, we are talking about me.
And so Brian Finley said, well, you've always been busy,
Kay Dubs another perfect interview for you. Yeah, are we podcasting?
What's going on here is the interviews? It is a
video podcast. I bring on talent, I bring on executive producers,
I bring on executives in sports media, where we don't

(22:09):
just talk about your chronological xs and o's of your career,
but we look into like you being a dad and
talking about the human side of what you're all about.
I don't know how he's gotten these guests. If you
look at his well, stop talking about it and and tell
me so writtle them off. Who we got? Yeah, so far? Well,
I mean in what we've got people from every different sport,

(22:30):
from every different network. So if you wanted to say
something from a talent perspective, I mean, the list goes
on here. I'm gonna I'm just I'm just pulling this
up as we speak. Here, we've got people that are
executives from ESPN A lot of the things, guys, it's
not all on air people, so you know so, but
there are they are big time decision makers in the
business that don't get a whole lot of love. So

(22:52):
you're seeing, like at a programming at ESPN, you're seeing
those who are in charge of different like coordinating producers
at different sports with you know, fox kW be perfect
because you wear many hats. I do, I do, but
I would listen. I'm a man of understanding due process,
and I will take my time and let you you

(23:12):
go first. You are, you are the veteran. You've had
many hats as well. You're well known in fact that
every time I hear Michael Thompson talking about stuff, you
come up. Yeah. Yeah, so and somebody who else I
was talking to somebody else? You come up? So yeah,
you must go first. Here's a good one, guys. Here's
one of my guests, Max McGee, the ESPN Sports Center anchor,

(23:33):
his crazy story where he was working in a restaurant
a few years ago and now is on the desk
and he just yeah, he just emerged. And you know,
as a brother, I'm counting, all right, how many brothers?
We got one too? There he is? How he how
do he just pup about the blue? Listen, listen. We
kind of all know each other, all right, And and

(23:54):
you whether you want the ones coming up, the ones
are who you're senior, the vets who you respect and
look up to, or the guys who maybe like your peers,
on your saying level. Max just came up about the
blue You know how he came up. He sent a
DM on LinkedIn and it just got in the right
hands showing his interest. He had worked in the Baltimore
television market and it got in the right hands. At ESPN,

(24:16):
he went in for a tryout and then the rest
is history. He said something really interesting guys in the
conversation with me. He said that one of the things
that helps him and being all the desk is is
Kelvin U and Steve would know is the idea of
being good at ad libbing and off the script. So
what he will do when he is driving, like on
the freeway or commuting to work at ESPN, he is

(24:38):
doing the play by play of the traffic in front
of him. As he is driving, here comes the green light.
Over on the right side, there's a corvette. It makes
the stop of the stop side, and then behind me
there are two cars and escalat, you know, like he
just continues to exercise his brain. I thought that was
a really fascinating look into his sight. You know what's funny,
I literally did that am I Music Radio Dare Wow,

(25:01):
And I was, you know, I was youngish, and we
will be going out to these events because I was
like a glorified street teamer. That's how you kind of
got to get your foot in. Many of us know
about that, and I would do that. We'd be driving
and I said, hey, this song is on. You went
through this song to the other you know, my folks
who wanted to be on the air as well. And
what I learned is a lot of people talk about it,
they ain't really about it. I'm learning that. And like

(25:23):
I would say, all right, hey, this song is playing,
and let's say it was a Drake song, just for
you know, Pete's sake. And then I was like go intro, well,
uh And in my mind, oh, clearly you've been practicing, right,
you should know this like we should. This is what
we do. And I would just oh, this is Drake
right now. I don't forget he's coming up on tour. Hey,
we got to take it to that concert coming up
in five minutes, you know. I be in my bag
and they and I said, oh, a lot of people

(25:44):
aren't really practicing as hard as they say they want.
The thing and the thing is could be anything. So
how we got on that that must be what's training apparently. Yeah.
And lastly, guys, i'll say you know him, Kelvin Brandon
More with the Lakers, the TV producer for the Lakers.
He's another guest to that's my guy's been with me
as well. So we'll have to get you on at
some point. That'd be that'd be a I'm busting his

(26:04):
head on Monday. I'm gonna all right, I'll send you
the link to the interview. You'll you'll have all I
mean like thousands, yea thousands, So we'll get you guys on. Meanwhile,
in college basketball right now, you know, going into today,
Arizona States chances of making NCUBAI tournaments were on a
lifeline or excuse me, life supports and those hopes might

(26:27):
have gotten a boost today with what they did at
the end on the road against number seven Arizona. So
the final two point nine seconds, the bounded to desk
Cambridge launches from back port made it. He made it
not staying a three from backport and the sub Devils
have Devils have one on a decaration three pointer from

(26:52):
desk cap Bridge. Incredible, let's go nothing but that. I'm
about sixty feet away for desk Bridge. Oh, my godness,
there's the call Arizona Radio Network KAHO about that final
and as you guys were mentioning just happening moments ago

(27:14):
in Tucson, of all places, Oklahoma would win against number
twenty three Iowa State sixty one to fifty. Villanova with
an upset victory at home against number nineteen Kraighten seventy
nine to sixty seven. Eric Dixon with those thirty one points,
Number twenty four TCU made two free throws with four
seconds to go to stave off Texas Tech eighty three
to eighty two. Number two Alabama holding on with fifty

(27:36):
eight points scored by them in the second half eighty
six to eighty three. They defeat Arkansas and Brandon Miller
had twenty four points in six rebounds. Number nine Baylor
gets it done against number eight Texas eighty one to
seventy two, and fourteenth or eight Kansas State spares themselves
embarrassments by winning on the road against Oklahoma State seventy

(27:57):
three to sixty eight. With that, let's going to back
to Kelvin and Steve. I know, Steve, we're keeping an
eye on UCLA basketball. They will be playing tomorrow on
national television. But still when you see teams like Arizona lose,
that's only going to help the Bruins chances. Well, I
don't know they've been penalizing UCLA. They came out with
the seedings, I guess the actual seedings where they stand,

(28:17):
and they had where they're number eight on the list.
Mccronin there, he said, it's a joke. It's a joke. Really,
you're gonna you're gonna demote us. And honestly, his theory
on why and thanks so much Befen on why they
demoted him was UCLA moving to the Big Ten. Somehow
they're penalizing UCLA for their decision to join USC for

(28:40):
the huge money of the Big Ten and that's why
at least now they're penalizing him in turn. So they're
seeding for the upcoming n say basketball TWL. Couldn't you
make an argument? And I like me, but couldn't you
make an argument? They didn't really do that to USC
on the football side, No, you know what I mean?
And that and not to mention, they also had a

(29:02):
Heisman Trophy winner and I voted for him, so even
after the blowout lost to Utah, Right, So I mean,
I don't know. Let's set it down a little bit, right,
they're punishing you, but not usc football that that ranked
very well. I had a really good season. Obviously lost
a big one that could have helped them. But and
then they have a Heisman Trophy winner and Caleb Williams.
So all right, baseball first second here? Uh you know

(29:26):
spring training is just beginning. And if you haven't heard,
they are now experimenting with a new batter clock, yes
they are. And pitcher. So I'm gonna I'm I don't
know if you saw this. I'm gonna show this to UK.
So here it is. So the score, the Red Sox
are playing the Braise. It's tied six six. You know
you don't have extrainings. Obviously in a spring training game,

(29:48):
basses are loaded three two pitch, two outs, right, this
is it right? So tie scored two out, bottom of
the ninth, three two pitch, basses loaded, the pitchers about
to throw the pitch, and all of a sudden, the
batter starts running the first base thinking there was a buck.
It wasn't a buck. The clock ran out, game over.

(30:10):
That's how the game ends. Yeah, because he was like
the umpire season running in the first he thought maybe
the pitcher balked in the run, but he goes, no,
no, no no clock ran out. Game over, You are out. Now.
They'll exaggerate everything in spring training to try to bring
in a point. They did the same thing in the
NFL when they have a new rule and they overcall

(30:33):
in the preseason to emphasize, we're watching you with this
new rule. But this this could be a real game
changer in terms of you know, you know, delaying and
everything else. They're trying to move these games along. But
that was unbelievable what happened today. You touched on a
couple of things there. One. They got to do this
to say, hey, everybody get used this, including the umps, right,
including the umpires there. I gotta get used to calling this.

(30:55):
They gotta used to watching it, folks who were calling
the games, everybody. But also what they're doing or why
it will be challenging, is because baseball, probably more than
any other sport, or at least major sport, is so
rhythm based, you know what I mean, like and so superstitious,
so like I gotta dig my feet in the sand
three times, and I gotta twist my hands on the

(31:17):
bat six times, and I gotta pat my elbow, pat
my elbow pad And it's such a rhythm based, superstitious.
This is exactly how I do to get in my element,
in my zone, whether you're a pitcher or a hitter,
that it's so subc like these guys have been literally
doing their routines and they're like ten. So now it's
gonna be harder for them to say, Hey, look, I
know you spitch your gum, switch this, do that, touch

(31:38):
your ear, touch you, but throw up a gang sign,
do all that. Hey, you gotta speed that up, brother,
due to Macarena, a little faster than you normally do it.
And that's what they're gonna be dealing with. So you
expect to see a lot of that in the beginning
of the season for sure. One star, I'll never forget
I'm dating myself. Let you, I always do let the
late grade Hall of Famer Don Drysdale once told me

(31:58):
a story about a batter named West Cummington he was
playing for the Philadelphia Philly said he was one of
those batters stepping the box, step out of the box,
time out with the umpire and and Drysdale, who was
notorious at throwing it hitters anyway. So he's standing there
watching him back and him back and out. So he's
finally ready for the first pitch, and dry Zelle just
drills him right in the middle of the back, I

(32:20):
mean purposely drills and he folds over and he goes
and heally yells, I'm tired of looking at you. Just
go away. Um. That's how old school used to do
it back in the well. The thing is the same
thing is gonna be happening the pitchers too, they have
because now it's uh, it's like, if it's a ball,
it's this. If it's a strike, it's this. If there's

(32:41):
someone on base, you can you can you know, you
can check the runner, but you can only do it
two times. The rules are gonna, you know, have players
in every sport think even Pat Mahomes does it. They
check their little note card on their risk. Baseball players
are gonna check the note card on the wrist. But wait,
how long do I happen toween? Okay? Wait, wait better, okay, wait,
it's third inning, three batters. The sun is at an
eighty degree angle. Like there's a lot of little tiki

(33:03):
tacky rules that definitely could trip some folks up. It's
been a while since I've been at Arizona just to
hang out for spring training. I plan on doing it
in a couple of weeks. I love going to spring
training and enjoy it. My homegirl, Kristen Kirsten Watson over
there was you know sport. I just was texting her
and said, it's on now because I'm seeing you on
my TV. That means the season's back. Getting ready because
it's a long season for your girl, A long season. Yeah,

(33:26):
he go go out there and enjoy it. But here's
the result of it. Was that same game we're Manny
Machadod he'll be in history books as the first person
that called who at the first out because of that
her first strike a strike, first strike, he um. That
game ended up only being about two hours and twenty minutes. Okay,
So I mean, you know, if the if the goal

(33:46):
is simply to speed up the game, then there you
have it. Let me ask you this you maybe you
can answer on the other side or now, is that
really the problem for baseball? Yes, we all agree to
just be sped up. Now I will answer that question
on the other side, because it's a fine line. With
all these rules changes that Baseball's trying to make to
speed up the game, who's it helping who's it hurting?

(34:10):
We'll tell you. This is Fox Sports Saturday, Steve Harbing,
Kevin Washington, and this is Fox Sports Saturday, and we're
live from the ti iraq dot Com studios, by the way,
watching Little Dodger Spring training. Yeah, before we get to
the answer to the question about who's it affecting time wise,

(34:33):
I gotta share the story. So I was out at
a appearance for petroso Money or dear Friends over at
five to seventy legends out here on the LA Market,
and they had all these Dodger fans because they're the
Dodger Hub, and they were going to give away season tickets,
so not just talking about with those guys and Opening
Day tickets. And so I got on stage with him,

(34:54):
and I wanted to know from these Dodger fans you
see a Dodger fans because it had just been announced
that Manny Machado and tends to play out his contract
at the end of the year. He hasn't opt out
in his deal. And I said, any Dodger fans here
interested in the Dodgers bringing back Manny Machada. No, he sucked.
I go. Actually, he doesn't suck to the Dodgers. He's

(35:17):
a guy that actually plays one hundred and fifty plus
games every year. Look at his numbers year in year out.
He was just running rough for the MVP this last year.
You're telling me you wouldn't want him to be your
new third baseman for the next decade or so. He's
thirty years old, listen, and he tore the Dodgers up
lass and now the team. You know, Dodgers had their

(35:38):
way with the Padres, for sure, but he got in
the playoffs. They didn't I know, I know, I know,
but don't don't get me started. You know you know
where I am. Um, But he I mean, he played
very well. But but that happens all the time, right,
I mean, they couldn't wait to kick D'Angel Russell all
out of the Lakers, and now he's the savior, like
they're gonna you know, they're gonna win the postseason. No,
because the Angel Russell is here and I'm obviously rooting

(35:59):
for But my point is, fans do that. Fans fans
will just be fanning by the way, were you for
that event. Yes, I remember no, no no, no, and I
know that the petrol No, this was out in Thousand Oaks. Okay,
but I wasn't el segundo. I was at a golf thing,
actually my daughter. Anyway, all right, let's get back to

(36:20):
the clock situation, because you were asking me about this
whole idea of shortening the games. And here here's the
problem right here, kateeb the people that complain about the
length of baseball games are not diehard baseball fans. True.
I have never heard a diehard baseball fan, and when
I'm saying die hard, I mean where baseball is their

(36:41):
favorite sport. Ever complain about how long a game is,
how many innings a game goes, more is better, not worse.
So the problem is with all these gimmicks about, you know,
the runner on second base and extra innings to short
the games. You're trying to, I guess, appease those that

(37:02):
aren't really all in on baseball. But what's wrong with
that possibly alienating your core base I don't think it's
a okay. I don't think you're gonna pick up any
new baseball fans based on these rules. That's the point
I would agree with the most. Um, I think I
wouldn't push back on the I do think there are
die hard baseball fans that are like, all right, these

(37:24):
games are too long. You know. I doing some pre
and posts with the Dodgers. I sit on the you know,
the the panel if you will, with some former players,
and there are these games too long, like we gotta
come on, and their lives have been baseball. Um, I
get what you mean. The guy who goes to the
game and puts his headphones on, he's got a stereo
radio there, and he's like, yeah, that guy for sure.

(37:45):
But pretty big fans still would love it to shave
off thirty forty five minutes so they could leave Chavez
Ravine and not get home at midnight and they gotta
go turn around and take this kids to school or
go to work. Um. There in lines the challenge of
a business, right, how do we get new customers? And
you can make that applicable to any business. Right. They say, hey,

(38:06):
new customers get fifty percent off, and they're saying they're like,
I've been a customer for twenty five years, why don't
I get fifty percent off? Well, because I'm trying to
get new customers, Well, how do you finesse me? How
do you massage me and keep me the remaining customer?
And that's what baseball is trying to do, all right.
We're trying to give you this beautiful sport. We love
here it is, but we're also trying to speed it up.
Get new folks, get new younger people, because baseball's average

(38:27):
ages in the fifties in comparison to the other sports,
and it can't just keep being fifty something year olds.
Who are you because they're not also the ones, you know,
if you're getting deals with Snapchat or TikTok and all
these big deals, they're not on that. So if you're
trying to grow the grand and grow the you gotta
get some young folks in there. If young folks are

(38:48):
screaming speed it up, I would argue, young folks are
also saying, who the heck are your stars? But here's
any could walk around Los Angeles outside of Anaheim, in
some parts of Orange County, he could walk in the
Starbucks right now? Will we agree that Johio Tani's the
best player in baseball, or at least the bright star.
He's unlike any player in the history of baseball and

(39:10):
guests literally guess what he could walk around of southern
California and no one would know who he is. But
here's the whole. Here's here's what is still crazy to
me about baseball because all we hear is a diminished
fan base and you see the percentages. Obviously the NFL
rules and everything else. Baseball is in decline. Money's not

(39:31):
in decline. Manny Machado is opting out of his deal
was a three hundred million dollars deal. Why because everyone's
making more money than him. He wants a ten year,
four hundred million dollar deal. And you're like, where is
all this money coming from if the interest in baseball
is in decline? Well, so you obviously know you were

(39:54):
very much in you know, this is your bag of stuff.
TV deals are huge. And also the Dodgers every year,
it seems, set records for attendance four million people at
the gate, four million and a half. So people are
going to the games. And I'll give you an example. Yeah,
but this is the Dodgers. Take San Diego for instance,
where nobody went to the games, and so they started

(40:16):
pouring money to buy the players. Now they're going to
the games and Everyone's like, how do the pod Rays
afford to be on the same level payroll wise as
the Yankees and the Dodgers? How is that even conceivable?
They have fans, that is true, and they will forever
have fans. It's America sport, even though it's really football. However,

(40:37):
they could definitely get a little bit more youthful. All right,
More on that, plus big news concerning Aaron Rodgers here
on Fox Sports Radio, rulling along here on a beautiful Saturday. Yeah,
we got a little rain here in southern California. We
need it desperately. Enjoining the show hopefully wherever you are
listening right now, We're broadcasting live from the ti irac

(40:57):
dot com studios ti irac dot com. We're gonna help
get you there, and I'm at selection, fast free shipping,
free road hats and protection over ten thousand recommended installers
tireact dot com the way tire buying should be. Um
kay dubbed who is everywhere? Um but not doing as
much radio recent No, I miss it, I miss it,
I miss it. I was at a Laker game not

(41:20):
too long ago. And anytime, like a school function, you know,
there's that dad that kind of gives you, you you know,
the look like, oh yeah, that is that the guy look,
and shout out to the ladies. Sue, shout to the ladies.
Got a few, lady. I'm at the YFCA couple. I
love you. I know you're on spectrum now, but I
love you on radio, so I love it. Man. I'll
never I'll never not do radio. I missed doing it.

(41:40):
It's it's great spending time with you, knuckleheads. That's Charlotte
Marking will say, you knuckle ahead. Let me tell you
something so blast. Since we got a lot of catching
up to do in a very short amount of time
to do, I want to get to let's talk about
the Aaron Rodgers situation. I saw where two former Jets,
both elected to the Pro Football Hall of Fame in

(42:01):
twenty twenty three, had very different views on whether Aaron
Rodgers should be the next quarterback of the New York Jets.
Roll Reeves was for it, although he cautiously said that
he's going to have to humble himself if he's going
to come to New York from a little bit of
the ATUO, but he believes he can do so. And

(42:21):
then Joe Kleco, who courses, an old time jet back
from the eighties and nineties. He said, No, this is
a guy who will come into a young locker room
with his set ideas, and that is not going to
work in that locker room. You are potentially unraveling. There's
a lot of good going on that locker room, a

(42:42):
lot of great young talent. Look at they've had the
offensive rookie of the year and the offensive defensive rookie
of the year. And remember Breeze Hall got here, he
could have been offensive rookie of the year. That dynamic
front wall they've got, They got a lot of young pieces.
They desperately obviously need a quarterback right now. So I
want to get to you on this end of this

(43:03):
whole thing about him hiding in his little room and
you know and all this, I mean, this is the
kind of circus that he loves and the attention he
loves to bring upon himself. But the bigger question to
me when it comes to Aaron Rodgers is leadership. We
know his talent, we know he's a first ballot Hall
of Famer, but is he a guy that can step

(43:25):
into a situation. I mentioned this thinking about how Russell
Wilson maybe was miscast a year ago in Denver of
the idea that even with a rookie head coach, he
could come in and sort of take control of that
locker room, and unfortunately he was not able to do that.
Is Aaron Rodgers the kind of quarterback Forget the resume.

(43:46):
I'm just talking about the person that can command that
immediate respect from a young locker room. Well, I think
the resume actually matters. The resume matters in the sense
of when you look at a guy that talent, who
I for years, even on these airwaves, said he may
be maybe the most talented player in the NFL. Or

(44:07):
if you want to say, it's Lawrence Taylor, Deon Sanders,
Jerry Rice, you know he but he was in that
Barry Sanders obviously my favorite athlete of all time, but
he's in that realm. I'm surprised. Well mentioned Kelvin Johns.
You want to go, he was absurd. I'm glad that
people are starting to look back at those highlights he was.
He's ridiculous. But the reason I bring up the rather
resume matters is that for him to be so talented,

(44:28):
part of leadership is getting the job done when it
isn't always easy, when it wasn't easy when it mattered most.
He didn't get it done in playoff games to a
surprising tune. No no, No No, an alarming tune because it
does not match the talent. For instance, people were right
Lebron because they'll say he's four and six and a
finals blah blah, Okay, fine, he's four and six. He

(44:48):
got there, Aaron Rodgers to be that talented. He ain't
got there. We ain't been there and what fifteen till
twelve years or something, and so it actually doesn't the
resume doesn't match the talent. Part of that as leadership
because sometimes you have to say, look, I ain't playing
my best fellas, but I need you to pick me up.
Or hey, you guys are down, trust me, I'll believe

(45:09):
in you. You see, guys, Pat Mahomes his run to
his first Super Bowl, down ten in every single game,
and no one thought it was over. Everyone knew he
could come back. You see, Jimmy G. Jimmy g ain't
the greatest. Organizations keep trying to leave him, players love him.
Jimmy G keeps finding ways to wins. And I'm not
saying Jimmy g is on Aaron Rodgers talent level. But
what I mean is he's the type of guy that

(45:31):
could go to the Jets and all of a sudden,
they're like, they're rallied around them. They believe in it.
They see the work ethic there, and you got something there,
Aaron Rodgers is Listen, I'll never jump into people's personal
lives like that. Ain't a lot of leading going on
in the family for that talent. I'm starting to see
a lot of guys leave and have something to say

(45:51):
about him, and it's like something the matth ain't math
and Steve and so, Yes, you get him if you can,
because he's that talented, But you're a point was leadership.
It's surprising how much of a leader he hasn't been,
uh and and and you can argue is unraveling right
the perception we had of him the last few years
with the COVID stuff. Yea, I what did he say

(46:14):
for the way of or getting around being vexed? And
he's just starting to become that. The last ten year
of his career is unraveling where we're all kind of going, Yeah, See,
leader has been a long overused cliche in sports, leaders
are very few and far between. By definition, a leader

(46:35):
is someone that inspires others to follow. Yeah, you and
on the idea that you can. I've heard people say, well,
you can make him a leader. I don't believe that.
I think it's it's something about ray Lewis was a leader.
I remember ray Lewis was a leader, and and and
being in the room with ray Lewis a couple of times,

(46:56):
and just the way he had a certain command, I
got it. I can see why it is that this
guy inspires others to follow. Problem with Aaron Rodgers right
now is it's not just the lack of natural leadership qualities. Again,
he's an individual in a team sport is basically what

(47:17):
he is. And when he cites his resume to nauseum
about four MVP awards, this, that and everything else, it
only brings that to the forefront. But what I saw,
let's go back to eyeball test Aaron Rodgers in twenty
twenty two. He's not making the same throws you can
talk about, you know, the lack of experience a wide receiver,

(47:38):
and he didn't have you know, Davante Adams to throw
the ball too. He was late on throws. He didn't
have the arm strength. He's thirty nine years old, already
turned thirty nine in December. Man oh Man, when you
look at the price tag it will take for you
to take him away from the packers, packers have turned
they're they're ready with Jordan. They feel good enough that

(48:01):
we're ready to turn the page on in Aaron Rodgers.
Give it to Jordan loves see what the kid can do.
I would be very cautious if I were the Jets
investing too much and hoping that, because if you bring
in Aaron Rodgers, there's only one possible ending that will
satisfy the fans in New York, and that's winning a

(48:21):
Super Bowl. And I don't think he's only been to
one super Bowl ever, and that was a long time ago.
And I'm glad you said that. I was going to
jump in on that point that if he's had everything
Taylor made for him, I don't have a crazy owner.
In fact, they don't have an owner, right. So I've
had good coaches, maybe not great, but really good. I've

(48:41):
had good teammates, sometimes great teammates, good teams, great teams.
I've been in a mostly poor division where I could
feast on that. For the last fifteen years plus, he's
been in such favorable situations that the math doesn't make
sense that he's not had more success. So, now, if
you're the Jets or maybe another organization, but especially the Jets,
because of what we're saying, they're young, they're building a culture,

(49:03):
you can win, you got a fan base. It's like,
all right, finally we got something brewing here. You don't
want to come in with a guy who SAPs all
the energy out the room. It's the great example of
that would be Kyrie Irving. They're very similar in that
is Kyrie I've argued the most talented guard I've ever
seen because just ability not career, this challenge. I'm with

(49:23):
you on this, the reason why he goes places. And
I don't actually think Kyrie Irving's a bad guy at all.
But when you're in such an explorative state in your
life and I'm always changing and now I'm evolving, I'm
doing this way, I believe this. Now, that's hard when
that person is supposed to be your leader. Right if
you're Aaron Rodding. Now I'm on psychedelic shrooms and like WHOA,
and I'm doing this. Then I realized my body and

(49:44):
I went, well, brother, I'm not mad at you the
human you, but you the leader of this team, this franchise,
this organization. You I need consistency. And that's what I
would worry about bringing into my franchise because what we're
seeing is whether it's Herbert who still got some ways
to grow, but you see what you got with that
young guy. You see what you got and Joe Money Burrow.

(50:07):
I mean you're talking about ray Lewis type of guy
at Joe Burrow. I'm forty years old. If Joe Burrow
walked in the room, I would follow him like he's
got that thing. Lamar Jackson has it. Let people love
him now, the whole contractual thing. But teammates love him.
Everybody's in. These young guys are coming, Pat Mahomes, you
see now the blueprint is find that young guy that

(50:28):
you can ride with or middling young guy. I don't
want to do that at the guy end of his career,
who might go You know, hood, I don't even like
football anyway. I want to go and track the hills
of this place and hike. And then I'm like, dude,
I did all this blue all this up for one year.
It's like getting Brett Farve, ironically enough, at the end
of his career. So yeah, unless you are looking to

(50:50):
be with the Buccaneers war with Tom Brady, Let's do
this one year. Let's try to hit the lick and
we're good to go. We got a Super Bowl out
of it. I don't think this is the move for
a team that's trying to build a culture. Well, the
one thing I still don't believe is is that Aaron
Rodgers is going to walk away from fifty one million dollars.
See this, This is what we were talking about a
couple of years ago when he was making all this

(51:11):
noise and everybody around me is insisting, Oh, Aaron Rodgers
has played his last game with the Packers. I go.
I guarantee he's not going anywhere because he's under contracts
of the Packers and they're not going to deal him
for below market value. He's not going anywhere unless he
decides to sit out to season and forfeit his entire salary,
which he's never going to do because any deal that

(51:34):
is made with the Jets or any other team is
going to have to most likely call for him to
agree to less do with Tom Brady. Tom Brady was
never the highest paid quarterback in the NFL. Ever, just
like Lebron never the highest paid player in the NBA.
Tim Duncan gave up money. A lot of the greats

(51:55):
who were mean. Lebron went to Miami and took the
exact same salary. Is d Way and Chris Bosh, they
all made the exact same salary. So I've never seen
Aaron Rodgers. And by the way, I know this really
irks a lot of Laker fans when I bring up Kobe,
but Kobe was that way as well. Kobe was an

(52:17):
individual in a team sport. And I remember when Kobe
got that last contract for twenty five million, a year
after he blew as Achilles and obviously was a shell
of his former self. And I asked him right on
the radio. I said, Kobe, would you ever consider taking
less money to maybe open up some cap space to
bring in other players? And he was very clear on
his stance. It's not my problem. That's why we had

(52:40):
management people to figure it out. So until Aaron Rodgers
actually says publicly, yes, I will take considerably less money
to go elsewhere, to give myself a better opportunity to
win another Super Bowl. I haven't heard any of that
out of Aaron Rodgers. You know what I want to
touch on. At some point you brought him up, Russell Wilson.
Hang on, we'll get to it, all right, Russell Wilson

(53:02):
and the Denver Broncos. We got a lot of NFL
quarterback talk. We gotta get to. This is Fox Sports Saturday,
Steve Harbin and Kelvin Washington Here. We are back with
Fox Sports Saturday and live from the ti iraq dot
com studios with k dub Here. We got a lot
of things to catch up on, including a little NFL talk.
So right before we went into a short time out,

(53:25):
brought up the name of Russell Wilson. Now a year ago, well,
let's go back two years ago. Russell Wilson started making
noise that he wasn't happy with the situation in Seattle.
We'd heard all kinds of rumors of deals getting done.
None got done. And then so we wait a hear
and then a certain coach is hired by the Denver

(53:47):
Broncos who has a direct link to Aaron Rodgers. So
everyone's thinking, Ah, Aaron Rodgers gonna be with the Broncos,
but that never happened, and so they took Russell Wilson instead,
with the idea again that this was a ready made
Denver team with an above average defense. Yeah, still, guys, weapons,
And now you bring in a super Bowl winning quarterback,

(54:09):
ten time Pro bowler, nine time Pro bowler, great success
in Seattle, and it's a disaster, like epic proportions, Like
everyone's saying, is a Nathaniel Hackett, is a Russell Wilson
a combination of both? Well, ultimately, I think it's sitting
on the shoulders of Russell Wilson because you had a

(54:32):
rookie coach. But you're like, we don't worry about him,
don't worry he'll he'll ease into the job. We have
an established veteran quarterback that will take hold of that
locker room in time, and then again Hacker will eventually
become that leader of the team. None of that happened
in Denver. Well, look, if you've been around professional athletes,

(54:53):
this just call it most of your life at this point.
And I've spent you know, the last fifteen twenty years
of my life around a lot of them. And what
you learn is there's like a hair difference between a
lot of teams, like for instance, I allegedly I am
a Detroit Lions fan, and yes, they lose a lot
of games over the last thirty five years, but if

(55:14):
you really watch the game, they're right there. They just
can't finish. They can't close they you know what I mean,
or they maybe they're up until the fourth quarter. You're
close now, Yeah, well, don't make me have to do
this to you Tuesday. Pump a matter of fact, don't
even pump the break anti live, break that mother love. Okay,
pull the pull the lever up, because everybody keeps doing
that to me when I walk into Wark. Savior is
Jared Goff, who, by the way, should have been Comeback

(55:36):
Player of the Year. Because comeback Player of the Year
to me, with all due respect to Gino Smith, is
you actually have to come back from something like Jared
Goff went from Super Bowl quarterback to being dumped two
back to an elite quarterback. Gino Smith came back. You
could argue you should have when just most improved or whatever, like, yeah,
that's that's where Gina Smith belong ahead. So the reason

(55:56):
the reason I bring that up is, you know, the Lions.
Are they're right there all of times? Right, they're right there?
Or you can't take a winning team in Minnesota Vikings
they won eleven games within a single score, and yet
that could be next year, it could be there go
three and eight in those games. My point is a
lot of times it's just getting that extra don't know,
the extra belief, that extra effort, that extra I gotta

(56:18):
make this happen out of people. And you see that
from quarterbacks that have been leaders historically. Pat mahomes is gifted,
might be the most talented ever, but it's also that
his teammates believe it. I mean Travis Kelsey, and not
just because singularly because I win with this guy, it's
because I genuinely see him work. I genuinely see him
the man, the person, and see how he is with us,

(56:38):
the crew, the guys he is with, the trainer, the
equipment manager, and guys believe in that. And you mentioned
ray Lewis, They'll run through ray Lewis wasn't taking short
because ray Lewis wasn't. Hey man, this is me hanging
out with who was another E League player on that
team and read ed read Sarah Goosa whoever, you can't
hang with us. No, it's building up every man. And
the reason I bring this up is what we were

(57:01):
sold watching Russell Wilson all those years, in all those
cliches and ge golly shucks in us was that he
was this mister teen guy Rod Rod. Now, quietly we
had heard little rumblings that he ain't that, but we're like, Noah,
maybe Richard Sherman's just a hater. I'm telling y'all, he
ain't that. No. Beast moods, just a little crazy marches
to his own beat, of his own drum. Beast moos

(57:23):
telling you guys, start telling you now again, that doesn't
mean he doesn't have friends on the team and people
who believe with him in some coaches on the team.
But it starts to make sense. Last year, almost a
date the Super Bowls in Los Angeles, I'm there, I think,
I think I saw you there. I saw you there
a couple of times. And because of COVID, it wasn't

(57:46):
as crazy as radio row can normally be, but it
got crazy towards the end of the week. So the
beginning of the week it is slow, but you see
you see Joe Montana walk bio. Shoot, there's I finally
got to meet my hero, Barry Sanders. We spent a
lot of time together. It was really nice. It's really cool.
We got some great pictures. I'm honor. I'm gonna blow
them up. Put him in the man cave one day.
One thing I noticed, of all the people I met,
Ocho Sinko walks by. The hottest guy at that time,

(58:10):
Debo walks by the other sports for other just Anthony Anderson,
like celebrities walked by. You know what, the biggest entourage
the entire week of me being there, Russell Wilson. And
it's not even close how many people around him. And
I mean this sincerely. If the average I'd say Emmitt
Smith had a big one too. But let's say the
averages three to four. You know, you got an agent,

(58:35):
you gotta publicist, maybe just one of your homies or
a bodyguard or whatever that person might be. And then
maybe one of the wife or a girl or whatever.
And then so let's say three to four, and I
might even be pushing in, but he had to have
ten to twelve. You see it an amiba moving through,
Like what the heck is that? Moving through? Like? Whoa
I'm what I mean this When I say this, I

(58:56):
genuinely thought it was like who was the hottest like Beyonce?
So he was like a huge because no one else
is moving like that. I'm like, man, jay z up here.
And it was Russell Wilson. And because he's not like
six four like other quarterbacks, he kind of blended in.
And then once I realized it was him, it's actually
not I find it to be not that surprising that

(59:18):
now he's running with zero. Sierra's his wife, and I
again I don't dive into personal things, but bye, by
the way, just to sort of set the scene again,
you're talking about there are no really outside people at
this event, right, No, this is all but this is
a radio rope. It's not like you're running through crowds

(59:38):
of fans and everything. There are no fans in this room.
It's just radio people, few TV people, podcasts people. That's it.
And he's got this huge entourage of people, you know,
movers and shakers and everyone around him. And then he's
of course married. This year. He's had a makeover. Right,
he used to look at certain way. Now he's got

(59:58):
a cool haircut. He dresses certain ways, he's got fur coats,
are like, look, and I'm wondering, and I don't know
him personally, and I'm wondering if he's starting to get
too big for his bridges. You hear the reports that
all of a sudden he has two guys have to
check in with other people that come talk to him.
You never heard of that. Tom Brady is mother loving
Tom Brady. And you can be like yo, te man, Hey,
I was wondering who we could do a couple out
rounds after practice. Yeah? Cool, Pat Mahomes, I'm making a

(01:00:21):
half of Billy. Come see me, man, Let's hang out,
let's go, let's go do this. What's up? You know?
Lebron James, literally the biggest American sports athlete, maybe top
four in the world, has a hand personalized handshake with
guys who only wear street clothes because they'll never play,
but he handshake with him. And if you're Russell Wilson's
supposed to be the leader, supposed to be this guy

(01:00:42):
starting to think he's believing his stuff doesn't stink, starting
to buy into himself, and that little bit of extra
effort from those receivers or from your old line or
from that running back or for that. You know, I'm
starting to think that hurt him, that he just wasn't
really the guy they all thought and bought into. And
I think as a certain point where he might have
to go back, check the mirror and go back to
the college days of like being all a part of

(01:01:04):
it and you know, and making himself a leader again.
All right. On the other side, I'm going to tell
you how Sean Payton's gonna approach this. Okay, now that
doesn't mean Russell Wilson's buying into it. Well, I'll give
you a little idea of how Sean Payton's gonna approach
trying to get the Broncos back on track. All right,
Let's find out what is trending right now. And here's

(01:01:25):
a guy that needs no entourage because he walks with confidence.
Oh is that right? And you don't need that reinforcement
around you. I've never seen you walking with a bodyguard
here the Fox Sports Radio studios, not once. That's surprising,
by the way. I actually have seen that. I'm not

(01:01:46):
going to mention names, but I've seen that from prominent
names in our side of the business that have literally
walked into press boxes with one or more bodyguards in
a press box. You didn't have to call me out, Steve.

(01:02:08):
Do you have to call me out? Predc what's happening
out there, Befen? Yeah, So you guys were talking about
the Alabama Arkansas college basketball game, but there are some
other news involving the game that is causing quite the
stir so. Video on social media has shown that Alabama
basketball player Brandon Miller before today's game against Arkansas received

(01:02:29):
a pat down from a walk on as Miller was
hearing his name announced in the pregame introductions in front
of the crowd. Significant considering that there is a report
of connection with Miller and a crime that happened that
killed a woman last month that did involve one of
his teammates. Now, Alabama has said. Basketball coach Nate Oates

(01:02:49):
was asked about the Miller pregame pat down today and said, quote,
it's not appropriate. It's been addressed, and I can assure
you it won't happen. The brakes. Yeah, remember when Gilbert
rain has got in trouble with the gun in the
locker room? Two? Does the bang bang thing? Yeah? Is
that what you're saying? So like him and some guy

(01:03:11):
you know, and starting at the two guard is Brandon
Mill and he comes out and against patted down. Yeah.
So he walks through the tunnel that's on the court
formed by the rest of the reserves, and there's his
name blared from the public address announcer and at the
end of the quote ute, yeah, yeah, you gotta see
this quote unquote tunnel, there's a walk on and he

(01:03:33):
literally does the tsa pat down of him, which you
could say is not a good taste considering what this is.
What I told you guys earlier, this is exactly why
I said what I said. When I said what I said,
he needed to be sat down. Remember I said that
for a week or two. He could literally have nothing

(01:03:55):
to do with it. He could be clear. But just
simply so everyone can pump the brakes, take a moment, assess,
have conversations, talk to therapist. Dude, you brought somebody who
killed a woman somewhere, even if you didn't know, you
might need to take a break into this. But how
long does that go on? Kub money, you talked about
this before. My immediate thought was, all right, so let's
just sit him until sort of the dust settles. Put

(01:04:17):
the dust settles in July. Well, I'm looking at it now.
Hold on, I mean there's investigation of what's going up.
You look at this. I'm looking at this video. Now,
you tell me was it? Well, that's not good and
the optics aren't good on that. But I mean he's
having some fun, is what he's trying to do. You
can't have fun with someone today. I don't care if
you had nothing to do as a woman lost her life,

(01:04:37):
her family lost a yeah, lost a loved one. Well,
that's just a goofy college. And I'm trying to see
before I jumped to conclusion. To be finis is the
last thing I will say. Sure, let me make sure
this kid doesn't do that to everyone else who walks,
you know, through the little players lineup thing, because if
he does it with everybody, and but we're only see
because social media, as we all know, we'll lead you

(01:04:58):
down to pall. You know, I know I know this
social media. Pardon my lack of proper english. Be lyon, Yeah,
social media, be lyon. Okay, So I want to make
sure because they'll take the eleven seconds of him being
pat down and the kid might have done another I'm
not saying it. Let me just make sure so I'm
a little bit more informed. If he does this what
everyone then then it's just what they do, all right,

(01:05:19):
And you guys have to imagine, and you guys know
that this is a pretty normal sort of pregame introduction routine.
I think we've seen teams all over the place, from
high schools to colleges do something of a pat down.
But the timing, as you guys said, isn't great. The
game itself, Number two LMMA one, eighty six to eighty
three against Arkansas. Arizona State went into Tucson and Desmond

(01:05:44):
Cambridge made a sixty footer to beat the horn at
the end of the second half to take down the
number seven Wild Kats eighty nine to eighty eight. Arizona
State takes down their nemesis, Arizona and that is now
five losses in conference. So I should say for Tommy
Lloyd's Wildcats. Number nine Baylor with a victory against number

(01:06:05):
eight Texas eighty one to seventy two. Fourteenth rank Kansas
State pulls ahead of Oklahoma State seventy three to sixty eight.
We did see some more upsets. Villanova with thirty one
points Fromeric Dixon as they maneuver Number nineteen create in
seventy nine to sixty seven. Oklahoma navigates past number twenty
three Iowa State sixty one to fifty Number eighteen Yukon

(01:06:29):
wins as well. In a game that is going on
of significance as we speak. Number three Kansas up by
just five at home fifty eight to fifty three against
West Virginia about halfway through the second half of that one.
And I wanted to leave you with this. Guys, you
probably saw this from Byron Jones, the veteran NFL cornerback.

(01:06:50):
He put out a series of tweets earlier today hinting
that he's going to retire, and then had some very
degrading things to say about the NFL in a series
of tweets, as I mentioned, one of which talking about
how he's telling people not to take the shots, not
to take the pills that the NFL is doing into

(01:07:12):
paraphrase here Kelvin and see, essentially saying that his body
is wrecked, he can't walk, he can't run, and he
did not understand the threat of going into the NFL
then what it would do to him. He did not
foresee that and now he seemingly he is taking it
out on the league. I don't think we're going to
see him again playing NFL football. Kelvin Ins. Yeah, yeah,

(01:07:34):
it's a rap at that point. Yeah, yeah, you know,
I don't know. Maybe he has other plans, but I
know this. You know, he was standing make about thirteen
and a half million dollars this year, and then you know,
he's a cost cutting situation. That's what happens when they
don't have all those guaranteed dollars in the NFL. They
have another sports. But yeah, he don't want to burn bridges.

(01:07:56):
They don't want to do that, all right, BFEN, Thanks
so much. Sean Payton. I'll preface this by saying that
I'm a Sean Payton fan. I actually got to know
him the year he was suspended. I was down in
New Orleans. We were covering the Azerich Golf Classic. He
came over, very engaging, very personable. It was great, good

(01:08:19):
guy to hang out with. Definitely guy he'd like to
have a couple of beers with, you know, and everything else.
And by the way, if you're actually to look at
his resume, the one coach that almost mirrors his resume
is Mike McCarthy. They're almost identical and wins winning percentage,
Both went to one Super Bowl, both won that one
Super Bowl. But here's the thing about Sean Payton and

(01:08:42):
trying to handle this situation in Denver. First of all,
from a leadership standpoint, we mentioned that Nathaniel Hack was
hired by the Broncos and they were less worried about
that because they thought they had acquired a leader for
that locker room. In Russell Wilson. Anything was anything, But
that will not be the case of Sean Payton. He's
very demanding coach. He's going to make it very clear

(01:09:02):
from day one when he gets everyone into that locker room,
I'm in charge, okay, and that's going to command respect
from the players as far as Russell Wilson's concerned. When
you think about the last three to four years of
Drew Brees under Sean Payton, when it was obvious breeze
arm strength had been zapped, what did they do? They

(01:09:23):
kept modifying the offense. The passes got shorter and shorter.
Drew Brees's completion percentage continued to skyrocket. I mean he
was he was like seventy five percent. Was Crazyville and
this is what Sean Payton's going to do with Russell Wilson. Immediately,
he's going to identify what it is he can't do anymore,
and he's gonna make it clear you are never going

(01:09:46):
to do that again. I'm going to tell you what
you can do and will do if you want to
be the quarterback of this team. And this is, by
the way, to the benefit of Russell Wilson. Right, find
what it is he can still do well, and let's
put him in a position. This is a novelty in
the NFL to actually succeed, and he was able to

(01:10:08):
milk extra years out of Drew Brees by identifying Drew Brees,
and Drew Brees followed him because they had that kind
of relationship. I'm not sure that Russell Wilson's ready for this,
but I promise you that will be the game plan
moving forward for Sean Payton to resurrect, cause there's no
way out of this deal. They're stuck with Russell Wilson
for a couple more years. Sean Payton's not going to lose.

(01:10:29):
He's gonna say, this is the only way we can
win with you. You need to do what I tell
you to do well. The luxury of having in life,
whether it's dating, if you're a big man on campus,
if it's you got some good money, and it's the
housing market is having options, and Sean Payton had options

(01:10:51):
could pretty much pick up the litter. And so for
him to choose there with that quarterback Denver, it leads
me to believe he knows exactly what he can do.
Oh you know what all it is? They had offenses
that wasn't built around Okay, oh great, you know what?
They were having him throw more outside, needs to throw
more slants, whatever it is, he'll figure that out to
your point, mastermind. That put an offense around in a

(01:11:13):
system around Russell Wilson's strengths. And I think that's gonna
be a good thing because one of the things I
talked about earlier with Russell Wilson, maybe he was smelling
himself a little bit too much. And maybe this will
be a humbling experience to hear guys talk bad about you,
to hear guys and now, because sometimes in life you
got to realize there are haters sometimes in folks, truth tellers.

(01:11:34):
You it's up to you determine what it is. So
one and I know he could say all those that
guys hate him, they're just haters. Then it's like, na brother,
the old adage of if everybody's saying you're crazy, everybody
can't be wrong. And so I think having the humbling experience,
coupled with now having a Hall of Fame ish, if
not Hall of Fame type coach, it's gonna be it's

(01:11:55):
gonna be beneficial for Russell Wilson. Now, again, the thing
about they're in a tough division, very tough division. The
body starts to break down after a while, so you know,
so there's there's a few other things that can happen
for them not to have some success. But I just
don't buy that Sean Payton would go there, not only
go there, but take the helm knowing that's his quarterback

(01:12:18):
moving forward. If he doesn't feel like, oh, we can
have a great success. Think about that division. If Aaron
Rodgers says no to the Jets and yes to the Raiders,
it only makes it worse. Right, you have the best
in the game right now. Mahomes, By the way, I
had to eat some humble pie on Patrick Mahomes. Do
you owe me wings too? Because vj ows me, no, no, no,

(01:12:40):
that's j j Owsu. But I was one of those
that screamed at the top of my lungs when Tyree
Kill defected and when they dumped Tyree Kill off to
the dolphins, that suddenly Tyreek Kill out of the mix
changes everything because now we can focus on Kelsey. We
do have to where you got pedestrian wide receivers the

(01:13:02):
rest of the way, and we're gonna see diminished returns
from Patrick Mahomes. I will say this as impressive as
his Super Bowl run was the first time when he
won it, Yeah, double digit defensits, this to me was
far more impressive because he was still bouncing on one
leg even in that Super Bowl. You obviously knew he
wasn't one hundred percent, and he showed a level of

(01:13:24):
maturity because a couple of years ago, when he started
struggle a little bit, four seen things making some errand
throws off the back leg and everything else. He did
not do that this time, and Jalen Hurts could not
have played any better outside of one fatal mistake. I mean,
he was off the chart, second most ever Fantasy points

(01:13:45):
by a quarterback in a Super Bowl gall the only
way the Chiefs win that game. Is mahomes playing like
he did the way he did in a game where
he threw for less than two hundred yards by the way, Yeah,
he's amazing. I told everybody the player in this game
the overrun, it was like two ninety and a half.
The Eagles are giving up one hundred eighty yards passing
per game for the entire season. Play the under he

(01:14:07):
threw front and eighty four yards. He still won the game.
Very impressive, one eighty whatever it was, it's very impressive
because it's it's what Russell Wilson used to be. It
was making a play third and five using my legs,
you know, third and three, finding that I just dumped
it down and he put the running back pick. They
just knowing how to manage and get the best out
of your team and make a special play when needed.

(01:14:28):
And and Pat Mahomey was able to ball out and
do that. All right, we'll wrap up this conversation about
the quarterbacks around the NFL, because if you look at
how many teams either need flat out a quarterback or
need a major upgraded quarterback, that number is far greater
than quarterbacks actually available. So how do we fill all

(01:14:50):
the slots. We'll tell you. This is Fox Sports Saturday.
Then bounded to desk. Cambridge launches from Backcourt, Fucktown, A
three from Backport, and the Sun Devil Tap Tap one
that is the Sun Devil's radio network. A sixty footer

(01:15:13):
at the Buzzer the Beach or arch Rival Arizona. Hello,
and by the way, that's our Progressive play of the day,
brought you by Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes bundling easy and affordable.
Get a multi policy discount by combining your motorcycle, RV, boat,
ATV and more all your protection one place, bundle and
save apt Progressive dot Com Steve Hartman kelvin Washington with you.

(01:15:35):
This is Fox Sports Saturday and we are in the
tire Rack dot com studios. All right, couple of minutes here.
I want to get to some more NFL news. So
I was looking at an interesting article about teams in
need of quarterbacks. There were six teams and you know
the list, like the Jets and the Panthers, teams that
just that they need a quarterback, literally just need a quarterback.

(01:15:58):
And then you look at teams like the Titans, the Falcons,
Saints looking for upgrades at quarterbacks, and you start going
down the list of how many teams are actually set
at quarterback. Not many. At least half of the teams
in this league. Half are in desperate need of a quarterback,
I mean a real quarterback. I mean a Seattle set

(01:16:21):
with Gino Smith? Was that a one shot deal with
Gino Smith? Going to build a future around Gino Smith?
So you look at the draft coming up, and you
have Bryce Young, you have CJ. Stroud, got the kid
out of Kentucky. Maybe I'm a little leary. I mean
the guy has mayonnaise in his coffee. I don't know
what's going on there that you don't want me to

(01:16:43):
throw up in the air, right know exactly? And then
you look at that, do you realize all these quarterbacks
were talking about whether we're talking about Lamar Jackson on
the open market. He's not on the open market. They
still have to establish what label they're gonna to franchise tag.
Is he gonna be franchise tag where he campy let go,

(01:17:04):
or franchise tag where you could get a couple of
number one. Same thing with Aaron Rodgers, that's a trade deal.
Your top free agent is Jimmy Garoppolo. So when you
look at the list of quarterbacks that are available as
opposed to the number of teams that need a quarterback
or a quarterback upgrade, it doesn't add up. It's like

(01:17:25):
musical chairs. I mean, there's only so many chairs out there,
and a lot of people are going to be left
empty handed. And this is the stay of the NFL
right now, Well, this is why you're gonna get You
mentioned somebody like Geno Smith, I think was a perfect
example of we could win with him. And is it
worth salvaging the future like you said, it didn't do

(01:17:46):
some trading to do something to get a better quarterback?
Or do we continue to build around them and have
a system. And also, if you're Pee Carol or a
coach in that situation, and even a general manager, you
can kind of say this might buy me sometime where
if they go from being you know, whatever they were
nine and eight or whatever to all of a sudden
he or you know, five and twelve, you can always say, well, dude,

(01:18:07):
I had Geno Smith quarterback, and I can buy you
some time. Like all right, well you're right, let me
give you another year or two while we get you
the guy. But there's a lot. I mean, you can
even argue, let's go back. We talked to him in
a moment ago the Lions, like, it's Jared Goff, the
guy he's been playing very well for you had a
heck of an offensive year. We both agreed could have
been most improved player or maybe even a comeback player.

(01:18:29):
But is that your guy? You know, it's interesting, there's
a lot of those middling type players. Jimmy g is
one of those guys who when he retires, he'll probably
have a record of winning like sixty sixty five percent
of his games. He's been a Super Bowl, a couple
of NFC Championship games, and we're gonna be all confused,
like why did everybody hate that guy? Let me ask

(01:18:53):
you this. I mentioned Jimmy Garoppolo. I was remiss and
mentioning Derek Carr. We haven't mentioned Derek Carr once in
this show today. I mean a lot of people are
talking about if you're the Jets right now, you don't
need the headache of Aaron Rodgers, a thirty nine year
old Aaron Rodgers go after Derek Carr. I'm a Derek

(01:19:13):
Carr fan, Okay, I think he's a leader. I think
Derek Carr has the qualities to be a leader. I'm
a little swayed because I interviewed him when he was
at Fresno State. I was immediately blown away, like married
with a kid already, like one of those type of guys,
so a certain maturity level. And he got a raw
deal from the Raiders, and he paid him back by saying, no,

(01:19:34):
I'm not gonna let you decide which team I'm gonna
play for. I'll make that decision on my own. I
owe you nothing. And I was fully behind that. I
don't know if he's a difference maker. I just don't
know if he goes to the Jets or if he
were to go to another team that is in desperate
need of a quarterback. If he's a difference maker, I

(01:19:55):
think he is, and I think it has to be
the right team, obviously, right situation. But he can be
that guy who can come in steer the ship. And
you mentioned Okay, let's say the Titans. You got a
good defense, you got a great running back, you got
a good coach. By the way, I don't talk about
rail enough, and all of a sudden you get a
guy like Derek Carr. Would he have been the difference
of the last few years of you being a number
one two seed and actually winning the Super Bowl, or

(01:20:17):
at least getting there. He's an update from Ryan Tannehill.
No doubt, we got a lot of NBA news. We
gotta get to. We'll talk about the association here on
Fox Sports Radio. Now. They're busy Saturday in the sports world.
This is Fox Sports Saturday, and once again we're broadcasting
live from the tirerack dot Com studios tirac dot com.

(01:20:39):
We're gonna help get you there unmatched selection, fast, free shipping,
free road hats or protection. Over ten thousand recommended installers,
tirerac dot com, the way tire buying should be all right.
We mentioned obviously the NFL season now a couple of years,
a couple of weeks in our rear view mirror. Have
you been watching any of the XL No, I haven't.

(01:21:02):
I can't lie. I was good. I'll maybe take a
peek today. I know there's some games happening, but I
haven't yet. I'm not that desperate for football that once
real football ends that I'm seeking it out. You know,
NBA would be mine number one back, So you know
i'd watch some summer league if you will or this
or that. I don't. I don't know if any XFL,

(01:21:22):
but again I know that I will catch it eventually,
but I'm not going out of my way. By the way,
you can transition smoothly from XFL into the USFL, which
will be back for a second season. All the games
are played in the same city of Birmingham, and they
had all the team names stolen from the original USFL,

(01:21:43):
but they all actually stayed together in one city. That
I do. And that's so many fls from the NFL
usfl FL. I'm with you, yeahs um, speaking of the
association the NBA. All right, So post All Star Game,
one of the teams obviously in the spotlight because of
the presence of one Lebron James, are the Los Angeles Lakers.

(01:22:06):
I've been a lifelong Laker fan. I'll disclose that. Have
you ever been? I mean, are you a Pistons guy
or are you a Lakers guy? Or what I'll tell
people all the time. Number one team is the Detroit Pistons.
Thank you. Every time they come here to LA I
go to the game, maybe two, meaning sometimes I've gone
to see them play the Lakers, and then the next
night they'll play the Clippers. That's right. My second team

(01:22:26):
is Lebron, okay, stating wherever Lebron goos, I go. All right, well,
I'm with you. I'm a big Lebron guy. So the
Lakers made all these deals and all on the surface,
it looks like an upgrade. They needed some additions and
if D'Angel Russell can play like he has, they got
some players, no question. But the idea that suddenly they're

(01:22:48):
in the conversation to win a championship. Let's let's get
real here. They haven't had a three game losing a
winning streak since early January, two months, right, and they
had to Dallas tomorrow. They have the three game road trip,
including in back to back, So they're at Dallas tomorrow, Tuesday, Wednesday,

(01:23:09):
back to back road games against Memphis in Oklahoma City.
All these teams right now need to win. Yeah, okay,
it's a scramble in that Western Conference. So the idea
is every one of these games like a two game swing.
Because you're you're playing a team that's above you in
the standings, you gotta beat them. And I just don't know,

(01:23:31):
I mean the reality of the Lakers is this, Since
Doctor Bus passed away, since Genie Buss took over as
the owner of this team, They've had seven losing seasons
in nine years. One of those years that they didn't
have a losing season, they were out in the first
round of the playoffs. And then they had their Bubble championship.
It's a championship, but it was in a bubble. I

(01:23:52):
gotta stop doing the bubble championship. But it was. Here's
the thing about it, and you know as well as
I do about that bubble championship. There were teams and
players who arrived down in Florida that said, I gotta
get out of here like now. That is the point
of why it needs to be accredited that they stuck together.
They stayed together. They followed a way to play. Dude,
I'm going through the bubble. You going through the bubble.

(01:24:13):
He going through the bubble. It wasn't like they selectively
put teams. If you want to win an NBA championship,
all of us are competing in the bubble. Ready, set go.
The Spurs won a championship only playing thirty three games
in a regular season actually is fifty. But to go ahead, Well,
who won the one playing thirty three games? That wasn't
the Spurs, No, it was fifty games. Somebody won with
that thirty There were thirty two games not played that yet,

(01:24:34):
so we can cherry pick things. And again I get
the bubble. I'm not mad at like it's not it's
a very way. I'm still waiting for the parade here
in LA for they. I don't know what they They
missed an opportunity tour county where they were letting stuff
happen there Orange County. You understand, the Lakers were the
only team truly motivated that year to win. They had
the cod and they had Lebron after his first year

(01:24:56):
with the Lakers obviously wanted to get back to the finals,
and they had a fully rested and healthy Anthony Davis.
Everything worked perfectly. But the point is we're all here,
but if they have a losing season this year, so
let's get back to the original point. Yeah, you mentioned
the D'Angel Russell, some moves they made in this final
stretch now of twenty two games, the big conversation, what

(01:25:19):
you're hearing folks get excited about is because it's come
down to hey man, I'm gonna tell you what. Who
in the West is a clear cut There's no Kevin
Durant Warrior team in there, right, There's no Lakers Shack
and Kobe in there. And the point people have been
saying is if the Lakers mess around and sneak in,

(01:25:39):
whether it's the sixth seeds so they're in automatically, or
the ten seven through ten, and they play in, who
wants to see a healthy that's the key part more
than anything. If they're healthy, Lebron is playing eighties playing,
they're playing at the level they're capable of. Then you
got an all star like guy in D'Angel La Russell.
And then you got another very telling the guy and

(01:26:00):
Dannis Schroeder League beat. I was at the game the
other night. Leak Beasley is the leading scorer, going nuts.
And you got u Ruey Hutchamura. You get all these
guys Mobama first of all. Obama, by the way, well
Bill Russell roll around is grey, will chamber the road around.
They're gray. If you don't stop shooting on these threes, Mobauma,
take your big button down there. Anyway, That's the story
for another day. Every big man is forced to take threes. Yeah,

(01:26:21):
they getting carried away though they Bold did actually knew
that at the late in his career he was able
to knock down a couple one hundred percent, but he
only played a few minutes. You got to settle down
with that. But my point is the reason you're hearing
excitement is and even by analysts, is because people are
saying they mess around and get in who wants to
play them? A look at who naming a team right

(01:26:43):
now in the Western Conferences. Do you feel like as
now if you said the Bucks Phoenix Suns. I mean,
I mean, if you want to take a little detour
time here, let's do it next time. Last time, I
check Kevin Durant down on the Phoenix Suns. Who is
Kevin Durant? Who is Kevin Kevin Durant a playing? And
Kevin Durant he has gotten hurt a whole lot the
last five years of his career. Well, Chris Paul stays

(01:27:04):
hurt when it matters most or not showing up or
something weird happens like Luca in his mask blowing the
Suns out by eighty eight points or whatever it was.
They got rid of one of their best players in
Michael Bridges who plays both sides of the ball, and
a guy type of guy you need to win a
championship better than Demon Booker. No, but what I'm saying
is they're good on paper, but I don't I wouldn't

(01:27:27):
look at that series, okay, both and let's say they're
all healthy, including Kevin Durant. I don't look at that
as like a sweetboard of you know, one series. Okay.
I think he would agree with this. In terms of
where the Lakers proceed from here, it's all on one guy.
His name is Anthony Davis, and his inability to stay

(01:27:49):
in a court his entire NBA career is their competition,
except of course, when he was able to sit out
three months and be fully fresh and make the ride
all the way to a chance championship in the bubble. Listen,
I don't argue with you. I only argue with you
with you when you're wrong. Brother, you ain't wrong with
that Anthony Davis and his health is key because if

(01:28:11):
he's healthy and he's twenty eight and twelve eighty twenty,
you know that type of guy. He's healthy. He and
Lebron are still the most dangerous duo in this League,
a healthy Anthony Davis and a healthy Lebron James playing
still at the top. Because we saw Anthony Davis before
he got hurt again earlier this year. He have MVP

(01:28:31):
number BA. The only hesitation you hermy pause, I was,
I agree with you, but I was trying to think
if I'm Jalen Brown and Jason Tatum, do I feel
a particular way about that? No, no, no, I'll take
Lebron and a d at the top of their game,
with all due respect to Tatum Abrown. Oh yeah, what
about I mean, when Anthony Davis is playing his game
top three, nobody can stop him. He's unbelievable. Agreed, nobody.

(01:28:55):
And Lebron when he's in just his IQ, what he
does and how he listen. That's why I'm telling you.
Gotta convince me, brother, Yeah, but tell again, next three
games at Dallas, at Memphis, at OKC, only one of
those two meet win all these games they do they have.
I mean, I'm just gonna do simple math. People like
I having this delusion, they're gonna go from thirteen to six.

(01:29:17):
In order to do that realistically, over the next twenty
two games, they're gonna have to go sixteen and six.
That's not crazy, though it is for a team that
has only had one winning streak over three games all year.
But now I have Anthony Davis back, I have Lebron,
I have D'Angelo Russell, I have Mo League Besa, I
have Vanderbilt. I have a bunch of guys and I
can now look at Lebron and say, hey, bra, I

(01:29:40):
can't have you sit out now. Oh all right, I'm
gonna stop right there. I'm thank you very much because
on the other side, we'll talk about these You know,
Lebron James went on record at the All Star break, right,
these are the most important twenty three games of my career. Well,
how many of those game you're actually gonna play? We'll see.

(01:30:02):
Because there's something that load management that Adam Silver, the commissioner, says,
is not a problem for the NBA, could be a
problem for some teams down the stretches. Its Fox Sports Saturday,
Steve Harman and Kelvin Washington. This is Fox Sports Saturday,
and we are live from the ti IRAQ dot Com Studios, Kansas,

(01:30:23):
as just escape of a two point victory at home
against West Virginia. All Right, a little bit later, on
We're going to catch up on the NBA and everything else.
We're joining us right now to give us the latest
insight on everything around the National Football League. Is our
NFL inside here at Fox Sports Radio. The one and

(01:30:44):
only Adam Kaplan is joining us. Adam, how are you today, guys?
I'm We'll hope you're doing well and getting ready to
leave for the NFL combine my twenty second leave on Tuesday.
Always looking forward to that, and that's really what gets
my offseason started, absolutely all right. One of the big
things or the NFL right now. We talked about this
last week at him. It's a game of musical chairs.

(01:31:04):
There are a lot of teams in this league that
flat out need a quarterback or desperately need an upgraded quarterback,
and they're just not that many quarterbacks to go around.
I see a report where Derek Carr once thirty five
million a year. You know, Kelvin and I were just
talking about this about Derek Carr. Is he really a
difference maker? Is he going to give certain teams a

(01:31:27):
major upgrade when they're looking for an upgraded quarterback? What's
your evaluation of Derek Carr's value in terms of a
difference maker at quarterback. Yeah, and in fact, I have
no idea thirty five million, it's true, couldn't confirm that,
but I could tell you that, and Steve, you and
I talked about this last week. This is just a
very strange year where demand is outliving supply. They're just

(01:31:49):
not enough quarterbacks to go around, and you're going to
see some guys compete or start that. You would say, wow,
is this really going to happen where it guys get
on the street and there are jobs open and they'll
compete for jobs. So the way that I understand it
with the Jets is what I reported the Super Bowl
that the Jets are going to get involved with Derek Carr.
They see him as one a to Aaron Rodgers is one,

(01:32:10):
and they believe and they have some familiarity with him.
There's some coaches on the staff with work with him before.
They want someone to come in and to be a starter.
They're not looking for Zach Wilson to compete with against anyone.
That's not gonna happen. They're gonna They're gonna go forward
a veteran quarterback and they believe they could win with
that guy. And dark Carr is one of those guys.
The belief around the league is that it was just

(01:32:31):
not a good fit with Josh McDaniels from almost the
very start, and they were not comfortable working together. Dark
was not comfortable in that offense. It's not see it's
not really a West Coast offense. It's sort of a hybrid,
and he's not comfortable in it. Where the Jets are
on a true West Coast it's really an old school
West Coast offense, which he's worked in before. So he's
still got plenty left. He's just got to be in

(01:32:51):
a situation, as I'm told by multiple people, where he's
very comfortable with the people there because he cleared his
relationship with with Josh McDaniels. It clearly wasn't great. They
just didn't connect very well and it showed on the field. Well,
let me ask you this. To stay with the quarterbacks,
you mentioned Aaron Rodgers being the one which would on
paper seem obvious, right, he's had the better career. You know,

(01:33:12):
we've all said how talented he is. But Steve and
I were talking about this earlier where something isn't adding
up with Aaron Rodgers. If you look at the amount
of or lack there of of wins when it comes
to postseason, when it comes to maybe lack of leadership,
where folks, you know, he's not necessarily heralded as his
big time leader within the organization with his teammates. So

(01:33:34):
Tom Brady maybe has set this new market where being
forty forty one, two three four five is normal. Aaron
Rodgers just thirty nine. He's out here doing shrooms and
wanting to go in dark places zero dark thirty. Is
he the guy that when you have a great culture set,
or at least it perceived to be a good culture,
good young talent with the Jets, is that the guy

(01:33:55):
you want to move forward with. A guy who's kind
of in his own place, doesn't want to work with
young receivers, kind of doesn't want to come in to
training camp OTAs and all that is. Yeah, I mean,
here's a real story. He actually is very hard in
wide receivers, particularly younger ones, because he expects them, because
of the offense they have, which is strictly a timing based,
old school West Coast offense, for the receivers to be
in their spot. No, it's like, by and large to

(01:34:15):
be honest with it. It's a little differ from what
you're talking about. Teammates generally like Aaron Rodgers. I didn't
say all of them do over the years, but generally
they like him because they like to win, and he has.
He connects very well with his offensive lineman. He's very
close to them. But yeah, as everyone liked Darren Rodgers
over the years. No, and by the way, talked to
some of Peyton Manning's former teammates, not everyone loved Peyton Manning,

(01:34:36):
to be sure, it's fair. So the bottom line is
can they win with him? Yeah, he could win, And
you bring up a fair point for some reason other
than the Super Bowl, the one would that he won.
He hasn't quite gotten back. Fact two years ago when
they lost to the Niners at home in a bad
weather game and most people thought they'd blow out the
Niners and they didn't. That was surprising. So it's fair
to criticize him. And at forty years old, which he

(01:34:58):
turns the summer, you have to ask yourself whether he
got beat up injury wise? Who was heard he had
multiple injuries pretty significant too, broken thumb one of them,
in ribs and and so forth. Have we seen the
bests of Mayor Rodgers, the Jets of and it won't
be just the Jets if if, if he asks out,
it won't just be the Jets are involved, but the
Jets are going to be probably the number one team
for both both parties because of connection he has with

(01:35:21):
the OC there. All right, I want to get to
the combine you're going to be going into at him.
So back in twenty sixteen, seven years ago, this was
the Jared Goff, Carson Wentz, Paxton Lynch where the three
big quarterbacks going into that and a mutual buddy of ours,
Alex Marvez. So Alex was there and we'd had him

(01:35:43):
on a couple of times during the combines, and I said,
so let me ask you this. You've seen Golf, You've
seen Wentz, he's seen Lynch. Do any of those guys
really have the it factor? And he goes that, Really,
I go was is there any quarterback you seen that does?
And he goes, yeah, I'll tay. The quarterback that I

(01:36:03):
think may have it is Dak Prescott, who obviously went
in what the fourth round to the Dallas Cowboys. So
when we when we look at when you go to
the combine because everybody can sit there with a stop
watch and do all the measurables. I mean a big
part of it are the interviews and just the you know,
physical examination see these guys all the medical stuff. But

(01:36:27):
when you're watching guys after all these years, can you
sort of detect and not just quarterbacks, anybody that there's
that it factor, like that guy belongs and can make
his presence felt at the NFL level. Can you see that? No,
not there, No, what it is is it's the total package.

(01:36:48):
The factor is. You have to define what that means
because it's sort of nebulous. It's the ability to make throws.
Carson Wentz have that physical presence, he had that winning
he had at one one double a school in North
Dakota State. But what happened with Carson Wentz was after
he had success, they became struggles. The major injury history

(01:37:09):
which you can't really predict. Although, by the way, he
did break his ribs in his first ever game in
the preseason against the Bucks in twenty sixteen. But there
was a reason why if you that he was the
second pick overall because he was supremely gifted. And now
as you fast forward, how in the world. Is he
going to be in with his fourth team in four years.
He's a journeyman now, that's what he is. And there's
some things, Steve. When you talk about the so called

(01:37:31):
in factor, you have to get to how will this
player handle success and how coachable is he? That is
super important and you really have to do psychological testing.
It's not just how you handle money, it's how you
handle your teammates. How do you connect with your teammates.
There was major criticism locally on Wentz his inability to
connect with his teammates. And the crazy thing is Jared

(01:37:51):
Goff of people just throw to the Wolves after he failed,
although they got to the Super Bowl, the Rams, he
really struggled and Sean mcvackin waited for him to be traded.
Jared Goff now looks like a better quarterback and he
had a great year, by the way, for with the Lions,
who saw that coming. Even he's clearly revived his career
well as they resident alleged Lions fan over here, I'll
speak to that. He looks good in their fun and

(01:38:14):
what you led me to, Thank you, Adam leading me
to the next question I had, and the Lions being
a part of that, and you know we have it
happens every year. But there's those teams who maybe make
it's a difference between maybe making real strides and then
just kind of having a I don't want to call
it a flukey season, but a season that was a
one off. Who maybe between the Lions US Strow those
in that mix. You can look at the Giants as

(01:38:36):
another one. Uh, you know, the Jags if you will.
There's a handful of teams that had success that you
kind of said, oh, didn't see that coming. But then
there's something again you can say, no, no, they're there.
I'm telling you, they're in the precipice of something good
here for for a sustained amount of time. Who would
you say are the teams that maybe took real steps
versus the teams that just kind of had a one off. Yeah,
so Detroit got jobbed, as you know, they got a

(01:38:58):
completely job Chattel should not have won that game against
the Ram. There was some really awful refereeing in the
Seattle Rams game week a team. If we didn't have that,
because remember the Lions shocked the Packers to knock them out,
the Lions should have been in there. There my breakout
team for twenty twenty three out, I would say they
would be. And now if the Panthers there they they
haven't an asked to visit with Derek Carr, but I

(01:39:20):
know they have some interest. If they could just get
a veteran quarterback they can win with. I know that's
a lot to ask based on this year, because there's
not enough good quarterbacks to go around. Their defense is terrific.
They address a lot of issues on their offense last year,
but the one they could not get right was quarterback.
If they get that right, they're probably gonna be a
playoff team. And quite frankly, that division is so bad,
the Nancy South, it's totally up for grounds. But when

(01:39:41):
you really look at look at all these bottom feeder teams,
right Arizona, Carlin, Murray, torn ACL, Chicago. They're they're gonna
go with Justin Fields going forward. They said that, but
after this season, who knows. New Orleans doesn't have a
starting quarterback, Carlin doesn't have a starting quarterback. Washington says
they're gonna go with Sam how Well off to see
how that goes. I mean, if you look at all
these bottom feeder teams. There's a reason why they're not

(01:40:03):
in the playoffs issues a quarterback. It is so interesting
when I look at this draft order. I mean you mentioned,
for instance, your Lions here Kelvin and then the team
that's drafting before them, the Seahawks. So you suddenly have
you know, Geno Smith have this you know, comeback player
of the year. Actually, in my opinion, you should have

(01:40:24):
been most improved player, and then a true comeback player
in Jared Goff. They're sitting with the fifth and six picks.
You got the Raiders at seven. We don't know what
their quarterback situation is going to be. We obviously know
the Colts need a quarterback. We know the Texans need
a quarterback. Who is the most likely team if there
is going to be one that's going to try to

(01:40:47):
shoot up because this is what comes out of a combine.
All of a sudden, everybody's like, oh man, C J.
Stroud's even better than we thought, or even a Bryce
Young situation, but who's sort of lurking in the shadows
and actually would have the ability to put together a
package to move up to the top like the Rams
did to get Jared got back in the day, is

(01:41:07):
there a team like that going into this draft. Well,
here's here's this is what's going to determine it. If
you look at who needs a quarterback? Right, Saxons the
two need a quarterback. Cult at four need a quarterback.
Then after that the Raiders at seven need a quarterback.
The Falcons they have not decided what they want to
do with Desmond Ritter. They need a quarter but they
need they need to figure it out, so they have

(01:41:28):
questions at quarterback. Oh, number nine, the Panthers they need
a quarterback. The Titans they have a new general manager.
They have to make a decision what they're gonna do
with Ryan Tannehill. They could go with a quarterback. The
Jets they need a quarterback. At thirteen. It just goes
on and on and on. So we have so how
do they here let's move this forward. The way the

(01:41:48):
teams determine whether they're going to draft or trade up
for a quarterback, it's how they see everything. It's the combine, workout,
if the quarterbacks work out at all, it's the it's
the physical. It's the meetings with a player and also
whether they met with a player at the Senior Bowl.
It's the private meetings. If they bring them in for
a private visit, it's private workouts. It's not any one thing.

(01:42:11):
It's number one is the need and then the whole
total package when they go through the medical and also
psychological testing, which I could tell you super important. All right, Well,
have a good time at the combine. Is there going
to be in Indianapolis, whether again and finally move this
what's the deal it's gonna be. The fear is it's
it's in indian next couple of years. But the fears

(01:42:31):
that will move to to La. I'm certain that's going
to happen someday, unfortunately. And I love going Indie. It's
a very short flight. Yeah, I'm like, but it's great
for Indieman. It's centralized at least if you live in
the middle of the country. But the NFL teams love
it there. But you know, the other thing is they
keep opening up the fans. I mean, they're really giving

(01:42:52):
fans great accesses here. Well, I get started on Tuesday
and I take we'll talk to you from the combine
next week. I will Saturday. I will still be there. Yes,
all right, Adam out to the west coast with the Combine.
I was just there Stephen Phoenix, all right, Adam great
stuff is zoways a great Adam kaplan join us. There
are Fox Sports Radio, NFL Insider. By the way, still
overpaying for a razor in this economy, that's gross. With

(01:43:15):
dollars Shave Club, you can get a top shell shave
at a regular shelf price. Dollar Shave Club is available
at a store near you. And the men's razor. Oh,
that's it. That's the ad. Let's find out what's trending
right now? Here is a man that have you ever?
Are you a combined fan BeFAN I Iron family? I

(01:43:35):
am a combined fan. Watch it. I mean, I mean, well,
especially if you follow college teams and you have players
like you know you and I Steve like UCLA sure
and stuff like that. So it's cool to see they
get exciting watching guys in their shorts. Well there was
Why don't they run the forty in full uniform? I mean,
isn't don't you play a dynamic brother? I understand, but

(01:43:56):
I'm more curious how you run in a uniform. Man.
That's the difference between you know, when you talk about
like football speed versus just speed. Thank you. I'll never
forget guys, there was one guy running the forty and
I saw more than just the shorts. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah,
And that's etched in my mind. I don't think I
can get that out of my mind. More cracked than

(01:44:18):
LA in the nineties. By the way, both Jackson that
the nineteen eighty six NFL combine, they said ran a
four one three, but it's not officially recognized. About to say,
why does that never get recognized as the fastest? I
think four two two is the recognized fastest. Yeah, but
yeah you with more one? Were you there with bow?

(01:44:40):
Were you were in that time? Yes? I was there
the first day he arrived with the Raiders. Yeah. Wow,
was he ridiculous then? As I'm trying to like with
the not the myth, he was obviously insane, But I mean,
would that man still be insane present day? Oh yeah.
In fact, A very quick story here. So the first
day he showed this one, I was working for the

(01:45:01):
Raiders in Los Angeles. He hadn't played football in almost
two years, so the baseball season had ended. We're already
halfway through our year. Shows up. Nineteen eighty seven, first practice,
first practice, and I remember watching the practice he looked insane.
But I wanted to talk to some of the players
how he long's coming off the field? I said, what

(01:45:21):
do you think he's like? Dis guy's from another planet.
Like when you're in the presence on the field, you're
getting like real feel for a guy six two two
thirty and he's faster than any player in the league.
Yeah that's too much and strongest. Yeah yeah, yeah, I
had everything. He was ridiculous. So yeah, in any age,

(01:45:42):
bo Jackson would be just all right. I would love
to see Steve run the forty. I think you get
it in maybe seven seconds. You know, I had as
an ath, I had decent hands, I had pretty decent
hand eye coordination. But slow doesn't even begin to suck
about then. I mean, and no hops, no speed, that's

(01:46:07):
not happen. It sounds like you'd be a professional cornhole player.
It does, by the way, it really to really good. Yeah, exactly. Well,
college basketball taking center stage, as you guys know, and
Alabama had basketball coach Nate Oates has had to answer
for one of his players for one of his players
actions unrelated to a game again that happened today where

(01:46:31):
one of his guys, Brandon Miller received a pregame pat
down from a walk on as Miller was hearing his
name called and the starting line at introductions. And this
is a cause of concern a lot of people out
there saying it's distasteful considering that Miller is reportedly involved
in what they're saying. Now, he had the gun, and

(01:46:53):
he was involved and had a connection that is, in
a crime that killed a woman last month that did
involve directly one of his now ex teammates. But there
is a connection there. And Nate Oates then after the
game said, when responding to the pre pregame patdown, said, quote,
it's not appropriate. It's been addressed. I can assure you

(01:47:14):
it won't happen again. Close quote. We have seen a
bonanza of buzzer beaters on this day. Florida State was
down by twenty five points and Matt Cleveland hits a
three pointer at the buzzer to come away with an
eighty five to eighty four winn against number thirteen Miami.
Number seven Arizona goes down thanks to a sixty footer

(01:47:34):
from Desmond Cambridge of Arizona State as the sun Devil
stick it to the number seven Wildcats eighty nine to
eighty eight. Number three Kansas holds on seventy six to
seventy four. And by the way, the game that did
involve Brandon Miller in Alabama, that's the score was sort
of the secondary story here, but they did win by

(01:47:56):
three points against Arkansas and Miller did have twenty four points. Elsewhere,
in other meaningful college basketball games, a few upsets, including
Villanova taking down number nineteen Grate and seventy nine to
sixty seven, Eric Dixon showing out with thirty one points.
Tanner Groves had three blocks and thirteen rebounds for the

(01:48:16):
now fourteen and fifteen Oklahoma Sooners as they trounced number
twenty three Iowa State sixty one to fifty. I'll leave
you with this, guys. There was one game that did
not involve a ranked team but has garnered a whole
lot of attention, and that would be Iowa and Michigan State,
two teams battling to try to make the NCAA Tournament,

(01:48:36):
teamingly right on the bubble. While Iowa was down eleven
points with a minute to go, they made five threes
in the last ninety seconds, got it to overtime, and
then win. It won twelve to one oh six against
tom Izzo and Michigan State one twelve to one oh six.
Elvin and Steve, we're talking about college basketball now. It
seems like it never happens a game where scores over one.

(01:49:01):
Of course, you could have one seventy six, one seventy
five that it was at least six one seventy five.
At least it was triple overtime. I'm just saying it.
Don't leave out the context. It was a triple overtime game. Wow,
that is ridiculous though, uh, Befen, thanks so much watching that.

(01:49:22):
All right, let's by the way, after a game like
that and Kawhi I think had forty four points in
the game. Yeah, he's going to sit out a few
games here. All right, Let's let's let's get back to
something we're talking about before we checked in and talk
some NFL with Adam Capelan, and that is load management. Now,
Darvin Ham, the coach of the Lakers, is on record

(01:49:43):
saying that assuming they don't get hurt, and that's a
big assumption, but Lebron James and Anthony Davis will play
every single game the rest of the way. Twenty two
more games they both played, obviously in the victory against
the Warriors, and I would imagine there's no load management
when you get to the postseason, and so that's a
lot of games coming up. But the big thing to

(01:50:03):
me was Adam Silver's comments at the All Star break
talking about how load management is really a myth, like
it's not real. And I started, you know, really checking
up on players of the past and how many games
they are playing. And there's this guy named Michael Jordan.
I think I know, yeah, And after sitting out three years,

(01:50:26):
he came back with the Wizards as a marketing tool
and figured if I play, then people will actually watch us.
And his final season, a season in which he turned forty,
he played eighty two games. He played in every single game,
as the most players in those days unless they had

(01:50:49):
a legitimate injury. So when Adam Silver sort of went
sideways on this talking about the fact that we have
to look out for the well being of the players,
I was aghast. My first thought was, I'm sorry, as
the commissioner of the NBA, who's paying your salary? I
know it's not the players, that would be the owners.

(01:51:09):
And if anyone's losing on load management, and I will
give you a very prime key examp here Calvin speaking
of the Clippers. So I have a friend of mine
got a lot of money, pays a ton of money,
have floor seats for the Clippers. By the way, those
two seats next year when they moved to the new arena,
three hundred thousand for the season. So we're talking some

(01:51:30):
serious cash, right. So he had the Clippers had a
back to back in Kawhi in the first game at
thirty five points. He had a client, my friend, high
price client, big Kawaii fan, excited to see him score
thirty five. He brought him to the game. He's all
excited right until he saw Kawhi in his street clothes
across the way. And my friend walked straight up to

(01:51:55):
Steve Bomber and said, what the f has going on here?
And Bomber had nothing a shrug. Not my call. He's
obviously not hurt, right, He's just sitting out the game.
So the idea that load management is not a problem
for the NBA is not true. The question is is

(01:52:17):
there any way to stop it? Is there any way
to control it? Shortening a season is only gonna mean
that if they're gonna miss twenty games a year. They're
gonna miss twenty games no matter how many games you play.
That's not the answer. So how do you resolve Do
you think it's a problem. If so, how do you
resolve it? Well, sometimes things can start to naturally resolve themselves.
And I think a good sign of that is you're

(01:52:38):
starting to have players, and not only players, because it
could have been Chris Paul, it could be a Lebron
the older statesman. You're having young guys Anthony Edwards and
guys and Jaylen Browns, and these guys come out and say,
hey man, all right, it's getting it's getting carried away. Right.
You have young guys who are coming out, Jaylen brown
being another one I just mentioned with the All Star Game.
All Right, I know we're having fun. I know it's
it's a glorified exhibition game, but let's at least compete.

(01:52:59):
So you're having some young guys, which I love to see,
who are saying, all right, you know, let's start to
police this thing ourselves. Where the concept was to get
you rest every now and again, not to this is
what I do where Kawhi Leonard literally it's like if
he plays more than sixty five games, We're all blown away.
And it's like dude, the Math and even mathen and

(01:53:20):
that you keep getting hurt. So if the point is
to keep guys from getting hurt, you keep getting hurt.
So something coming up. Maybe you're playing more, keeps you
in better condition, keeps you strengthened. I don't know, but
I think what you're gonna start to have is things
are cyclical in life, right, culture, music, foods, dressing. I mean, shoot,

(01:53:40):
bell bottoms have had about three iterations in my life
and I'm only forty. So things are gonna come back
to around where guys are actually offended at the idea
of like, oh, you're just a part timer. And I
think you're gonna start having young guys who take pride
and like, now I compete, I play, you know, seventy
plus if seventy five games, and unless I'm hurt, hurt,
I'm out there. What happened? See? What we have to
take a little bit of the blame is the media

(01:54:04):
putting the entire only thing that matters the onus simply
on winning a championship. Every single thing that we're seeing
is partly from us putting all the pressure and saying
it only matters if you want a championship, that's it.
So what happens is guys start to see the Spurs
ten years ago, do this, take a break, have a said, Hey,
I'm telling y'all in advance, Tony Parker, Genoble, Tim Duncan

(01:54:27):
and Choieline and are playing to night. Hey, we're just
telling you in advance. Why what is it their rest
or their soreness, whatever it would be. But then to
their credit, then winning a championship, copycat leagues, and then
we start to put the onus on Everything that matters
is nothing but a championship. So now you got guys
like Lebron, you got other guys everybody around the league,
stars of I take. I gotta take a rest. I

(01:54:47):
gotta arrest because only then that matters the championships. And I,
god forbid, there's a chance I'm not hurt. I might
be hurt, so I need to rest. So we gotta
forget sometimes it's just simply entertainment. We forget that sometimes
it's simply entertainment. I went to the game the other day,
the Laker game, and I enjoyed myself. Lebron played and
the Davis played Steph was obviously hurt. But it's entertainment.

(01:55:09):
Once we've gotten so much on simply the end result
that we forgot. Fans come to the game. They know
you can't win a championship at this one particular game.
I want to be entertained by seeing the best of
the best of the world play, and I think once
we kind of push back on that, remembering sometimes simply
Game thirty eight does matter in the sense of, dude,
I just want to see you play. The fan wants

(01:55:32):
to see you play. The TV partner wants to definitely
see you play, because I don't pay billions of dollars
to see you played. Right, And by the way, a
little hint to TNT and some of the other networks,
if you want to get stars, do not broadcast a
game on the second night of a back to back
because most likely one or more of the stars is

(01:55:54):
gonna sit out that game. Yeah, but that's got to change.
That's the point, bro, I'm gonna need you to I'm
gonna need you to play. Okay, Well, right now I'm
looking at the Lakers schedule the rest of the way.
Since Darvin Hamm insists that Lebron and a D assuming
they can stay healthy. And that's a big assumption because
I'm looking they only have more than one day off
between games twice, and those are two days rest in

(01:56:17):
between games. Basically they're playing. They have three back to
backs still on the schedule, and including these back to
backs coming up against Memphis in Oklahoma City this week. Well,
that's why depth of matters. That's why them getting a
guy like D'Angelo Russell. So a great example will be
the game I went to the other But he's insisting
Lebron and you're gonna play all these games, not that
they're not gonna play, but that they don't have to play.

(01:56:39):
Lebron has had in order for them have a chance
this season. He's gonna play two forty four minutes. The
benefit of having guys who were versatile coming in and
guys who you're having death is that, hey, DeAngelo might
play thirty five to night, Lebron can only play in
place thirty two and we haven't still have a great
chance of winning. That's where the depth will help them.
All right, final thoughts coming out. This is Fox Sports Saturday,

(01:56:59):
Steve all right Man and Kelvin Washington Fox Sports Saturday.
We are alive from the Tiraq dot Com studios. By
the way, we've had a revolving door of people here today,
So Chris is here. He jumps in for Iowa Sam,
and then Bows here he was in for Ryan. Since
Danny g was out today, the only constant was b

(01:57:21):
Fenn Brian Finley, who has finally lowered his bar to
the point where he's going to include me as one
of his I think his four thousandth interview. Yeah, and
it'll be a good one, and I'll be four thousand
and then one. Yeah, so and then then we would
be the last two interviews out there. All right, So
we've we've covered a lot of ground today. We've talked
about a lot of subjects. So I want to wrap

(01:57:42):
up with the association right now. I want to get
your general thoughts here, Kelvin, because you and I are
both associated fans, Association fans. I have a son who's
twenty four now, who literally is addicted. When I say addicted,
I mean addicted to NBA two k. He takes rosters,
a party, builds rosters. He knows every player every school day,

(01:58:05):
won too. I mean he's constantly trying to quiz me.
I said, stop that. I don't want to be shown
up by my my own son all the time, right, Um.
And I've been an NBA fan dating back to the
year that Wilt Chamberlain joined the Lakers. So it's been
a long time. Was that like seventy That was sixty
nineteen Sixty's a long time ago. And I'm a big

(01:58:27):
fan of this league. I'm a big fan of a
lot of players in this league. I'm not particularly wild
about the current brand of basketball, but I understand it.
We're in agreement. But what is your general thought on
the state of the NBA. UM. I think we because
like most things in life, things are overly consumed now
and we have a pessimistic, antagonistic mindset now because we

(01:58:50):
have nothing but time to be on our phones and
then you know, flick and flick through through Twitter and Instagram.
So it's inherent enough to be negative now, right. We
don't like for instance, great example NBA All Star Game
a couple of years ago, the Kobe Bryant. Here we
added the new you know, twenty four points you gotta
score the for it. Everybody loved it. Oh my gosh,

(01:59:10):
the NBA. It's back, the All Star Game is back.
This is the greatest thing ever. Then we had a
rough year. This year, it was horrible. Now it's due
away with it. So you gotta remember we're fans, were
and in folks who will get you know, Twitter fingers.
We're a bit finicky, you know, we're man like those
half court shots at the trocious. But my point is,
just a year or two ago, we were loving it exactly.

(01:59:33):
So I won't overly put stock in it. But I
do miss mid range, I do miss post off. I
do miss a little bit of competitive edge. But what
makes me happy is we're short on time, is that
some of these young guys acknowledge the same thing and
also want to see change. That gives me hope. When
are we gonna see Kevin Washington again on I'm back
in the building. Maybe I'll be, I'll be. You will
see me in the next Oh, are you gonna be

(01:59:53):
back in TV? Monday? TV Monday? I thought she been here? Yeah,
I want you back here as soon as possible. Kay Devins,
great to catch up at the Hey, just keep it
right here. This is Fox Sports Radio.

All Episodes

Episode Transcript

Fox Sports Radio News

Host

Jonas Knox

Popular Podcasts

Dateline NBC

The Breakfast Club

Crime Junkie

.css-15opob5{left:0;position:absolute;top:0.8rem;} All Episodes

.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Steve Hartman and Kelvin Washington talk Aaron Rodgers and MLB pitch clock!