Brian Noe, Rich Ohrnberger, and Jared Smith talk Nuggets and Dalvin Cook!

Brian Noe, Rich Ohrnberger, and Jared Smith talk Nikola Jokic’s historic playoff run as the Nuggets take a 3-1 series lead, the guys try and solve the NFL’s apparent gambling issue, Messi’s move to MLS, the PGA – LIV merger, the free agencies of WR DeAndre Hopkins and RB Dalvin Cook, and more!  

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Oh, what's going on?

Speaker 3 (00:04):
Everybody? Welcome in here. We got a lot going on.
A three to one lead in the NBA Finals. That's
a ball ball, of course, meaning football, the Big Ten
revealing schedules years from now you get into that. Hey,
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Tirec dot com. We'll help get you there.

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Speaker 1 (00:33):
Good morning to you all.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Was your Game four experience a happy one with the
Nuggets going up three to one in the series against Miami.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
You know, after the Heat answered on you know, the
road win against Denver, leveling the series heading back to Miami,
I proclaimed emphatically, the Heat are gonna win this series.

Speaker 5 (00:56):
Wow.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
Wow.

Speaker 2 (00:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (00:58):
It took me a second, you know.

Speaker 4 (00:59):
And we had about two and a half weeks to
think about it before game Game three. So yeah, By
the way, that's the part of this finals that is
driving me the craziest is the fact that we have
to wait a fortnite to see each of these games.
But you know, I said it after Game two because

(01:21):
I thought that was a huge win. Going back to
South Beach, you figured you would see this rejuvenated Miami squad.
And before we even get to Game four, I was
so disappointed with how the Heat played in Game three.
It's just that's it. That's the golden opportunity. That's when
you strike, you know what I mean, That's when your
your prey is the weakest. And then Yo, Kitcha Murray

(01:43):
go out there and they both have a triple double.
It was just like a thirty point triple double. So,
I mean, they they're just dominant. Denver's finding a way
to sort of trounce through this series. It's yeah, it's
going differently than I thought it would.

Speaker 6 (01:58):
Yeah, I think, as much as I want to, you know,
give Miami their due for what's been an incredible run,
I think there's two takeaways for me in this series
so far. First of all, Denver is a worthy champion.
Maybe we haven't paid attention to them all season. We
have the last month or so, but they are a
worthy champion. The other takeaway for me is not a

(02:21):
knock on Miami. I think Miami is who we right
the Dennis Green. They are who we thought they were.
They're an eight seed that almost got bounced in the
playing round. I think the bigger takeaway for me is
how in the heck did the Boston Celtics lose three.

Speaker 5 (02:33):
Or four at home to this Miami Heat team? Right like?

Speaker 6 (02:35):
And maybe it doesn't matter, Maybe Boston advances anyways, maybe
they win Game seven and Denver still does what they're
doing now, which.

Speaker 5 (02:42):
Is flex their muscle and show everyone that the.

Speaker 6 (02:46):
Best team in the NBA this year, and I think
they certainly are, but the Boston like, to me, that's
the bigger indictment in this series. It's not a knock
on Miami. It's the Boston Celtics are broken three or
four at home to this Miami team. They had a
lot of things go wrong, and I think the internal
fortitude of that Boston team with each passing game that Denver,

(03:10):
which shows when you play at a high level, that's
how you should look against the Miami defensively, offensively, special teams,
right the whole nine yards.

Speaker 5 (03:19):
But Boston didn't look that way.

Speaker 6 (03:22):
They needed just a miraculous comeback to even be in
the series, and then they fall flat on their face.
In Game seven, So Denver gets all the credit. They're
a fantastic team. Jokicch and Murray are stars. They're gonna
win the NBA Finals and they deserve to. But man,
the Boston Celtics need help because they should be in
this series right now.

Speaker 5 (03:43):
And I think this series would be a little bit.

Speaker 6 (03:45):
More intriguing perhaps with the Boston Celtics, but I still
think Denver.

Speaker 5 (03:50):
Is the best team.

Speaker 3 (03:50):
Yeah, I think Denver would have beaten Boston as well,
but I agree with you. I think it would have
had more juice. We'll put it that way, with Tatum
and Brown and the Celtics brand, and yeah, there would
be more juice in the finals right now, even if
it was three to one. But we don't have that.
We've got Miami here. I think it's one of these
deals where styles make fights. And if you look at

(04:12):
Miami what they were able to do against Boston, they're
not going up against the dominant big men like Yokic.
They're not going up against a two time MVP who
is just doing work. Bam Autebayo has played very well
in this series. There's just nothing he has for Yokic.
There's nothing that most big men in the league have
for Yokic at the level he's playing at right now,

(04:32):
but certainly not Miami. And so when you're going up
against Boston, they don't have a big man even close
to Yokic that's going to exploit them the same way.
So I think that's how Miami was able to get
through Boston.

Speaker 1 (04:48):
But I hear you, I hear you.

Speaker 3 (04:50):
You reevaluate where Boston is in the pecking order. Yeah,
when they lost a game seven by nineteen at home,
Miami team they're getting NBA right now in the finals,
So yeah, it makes you look twice at Boston.

Speaker 5 (05:03):
Here.

Speaker 2 (05:03):
I will say this.

Speaker 4 (05:04):
I mean, you saw that moment where jokicch appeared to
tweak his ankle when he was coming down.

Speaker 2 (05:12):
I think it was off of Strus's foot.

Speaker 1 (05:15):
You had that.

Speaker 4 (05:16):
I mean, now, it's early in the game and he
didn't appear to be bothered by it much later. But
you got to remember adrenaline as a hell of a thing,
and you can get through a game even if it's
something that felt relatively small. Sometimes when you get off
the court, all of a sudden, it blows up on you.
There's a little swelling, you know, you're flying anyways, so

(05:39):
there could be a slowdown in it, possibly in game five.
Let's put it this way. After watching the Nuggets on
the road games three and four in this series, I
don't think this is going to be the same story
we saw with Boston where they forced a Game seven
after getting down bad in a series. I don't see
Miami having that kind of firepower to stick around in

(06:02):
this series and I getting beat the way they did
on their home floor twice.

Speaker 5 (06:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (06:09):
I mean that Game three and Game four weren't even
particularly close, gentlemen. We had we had a good, solid,
competitive first quarter in Game four, and that's about all
you could say, because the separation started midway through the
second and really it never stopped. It was it was
just every time you looked up, the margin was getting

(06:30):
a little bit wider, a little bit wider every time
you looked at this game.

Speaker 6 (06:34):
Yeah, and if you were going to tell me before
the series started that So all the Heat role players, right,
we know Bam and Jimmy Butler are good players, but
really the reason that the Heat are in the finals
is because they just got unbelievable play from some of
these role players that were very much unheralded during the
regular season, but then Caleb Martin almost wins the Eastern
Conference Finals, MVP Max Strus going off for all these threes, right,

(06:56):
Kevin Love is playing, but it's Kyle Lowry has been
the best role player in the series for the Heat.
And if you were gonna tell me that heading into
the series, I mean, that's just you cannot put Kyle
Lowry in the same breath as what the top of
the Nuggets lineup looks like. Aaron Gordon played like an
MVP last night. I mean, Aaron Gordon could be the

(07:17):
best player on the team on certain spots, you know,
in terms of his pedigree, but he only needs to
be the third or fourth best player on the team.
But he played forty two minutes, twenty seven, seven and
six last night.

Speaker 5 (07:30):
He played like the best player on the floor.

Speaker 6 (07:32):
So when the Nuggets are getting those types of performances
from Aaron Gordon and Bruce Brown twenty one points off
the bench, and it's Kyle Lowry that's kind of the
bread winner for the Heat role players, Right, we know
Bam and Jimmy, but it's if it's not the other
guys that are all collectively putting those those performances together,

(07:54):
and it's Kyle Lowry that you're relying on for seven
assists off the bench. Miami does have a chance in
this series, and they had a historically good performance in
Game two in the fourth quarter, and that is a
very difficult thing to repeat.

Speaker 5 (08:09):
Now.

Speaker 6 (08:10):
Can they steal one maybe in Denver again, perhaps, but
this series is effectively over and I am excited to
I guess where with the Where with the the parade
in Denver?

Speaker 5 (08:23):
B Did they go through the mountains? What do they
do there?

Speaker 3 (08:26):
I would open, Yeah, I don't know if the turnout
would be as great, and the mountains is down below.
But the thing is, this is going to sound very
anti three point shot, and it's not.

Speaker 1 (08:36):
I embraced the three point shot. But here's the deal.

Speaker 3 (08:39):
If you look at Denver, what they're doing with Jokicchen particular,
and what they're doing in the paint. You go back
to Game three, they outscored Miami sixty to thirty four
in the paint, just dominant.

Speaker 1 (08:51):
Mumbling them. It's like football.

Speaker 3 (08:53):
It's like Denver has a reliable running game and it
complements their passing game because they shot it great from
three yesterday they were fourteen for twenty eight. They're fifty
percent from three point range. But if you look at Miami,
they don't have a running game. They do not have
the ability to just dump it down to a big

(09:14):
guy like jokicch and it's just bucket, bucket, bucket, it's
buckets in the paint. They're not doing that. And they
shot the three horribly last night. They were eight for
twenty five. They're thirty two percent from distance, and they
don't have a running game on top of it. That's
why they're getting dusted. So that's the thing. I'm not
anti three. But the only game that Miami won is

(09:37):
the game that they were lights out shooting the three
in Denver. All these other games they haven't been able
to shoot it well, and they don't have anything that
resembles a football running game or it's your bread and butter,
you can just go to it.

Speaker 1 (09:51):
It's points here, it's points there.

Speaker 3 (09:52):
That accumulates, that adds up, and at the end of
the game you look up and Miami's in the nineties.
You're not winning games against Ver when you're scoring in
the nineties.

Speaker 4 (10:01):
Yeah, yeah, you know. And Jimmy Butler to his credit.
It felt like he's finally showed up for this Finals
in a big way. That was a pretty masterful performance.
But it needs to almost be herculean at this point,
like something, something's gotta go and it's gotta be him,

(10:22):
you know, So maybe twenty five isn't enough. Maybe you
gotta have a thirty point game, a thirty five point game.
You have to do something that's not just great but
outstanding to encourage this team on your home floor. I
don't know why you'd necessarily need that encouragement outside of
they're just that much better than you, Like you were saying, Jared,

(10:44):
like this just this is just a more dominant team,
and you know this is either going to go the
way it looks like it's going to go, or someone's
gonna have to do something big and breathtaking and take
over this finals. You know, there were there were certain characters,
and I understand their role players had a lot to
do with their ascension to greatness, you know, like Michael

(11:05):
Jordan or Kobe in the past of basketball watching where
you were like, my goodness, these are guys who you
talk about like their heroes, right, like they're conquering heroes.
After their retirement and unfortunate passing in terms of Kobe Bryant,
because they would just take series over, not just games,

(11:26):
not just Knights during the playoffs, during the finals, they
take whole games over. Where you go, Oh, the reason
why the Lakers won was because Kobe went Kobe in
the fourth quarter in Games three, in Game seven, and
that's the reason why it occurred, you know, Michael Jordan.
I mean, obviously it's almost become folklore at this point,

(11:48):
but you get my point. Like Jimmy Butler, if he's him,
if it's himmy buckets trademark pending, he's gotta go and
be himmy buckets.

Speaker 6 (11:58):
Forget about thirty. How about the fifty six in Game
four against the Bucks.

Speaker 2 (12:02):
Yeah, there you go.

Speaker 6 (12:03):
I mean that I think that put there, you know, Yeah,
you're you're right, and I think that's it reminds me
of when I was a kid. So I used to
play basketball at this local uh you know, hoop in
my neighborhood and there was a kid that was older
than me in high school. I was in middle school
and even you know, fifth sixth grade at the time,
and we would I would always play against him and
horse and one on one and he.

Speaker 5 (12:24):
Would always beat me.

Speaker 6 (12:25):
I mean just always beat me, and I needed I
remember the first time I beat him.

Speaker 5 (12:31):
I was hitting shots that was they were insane. It
was like from behind the.

Speaker 6 (12:35):
Back and listen, uh, that is the only And that's
kind of what the Heat did in game too. It
was a historically good fourth quarter for the Heat, one
of the best most efficient fourth quarters in the history
of the Finals.

Speaker 5 (12:47):
And that's why they won Game two.

Speaker 6 (12:49):
That it has to be herculean and maybe it's not Jimmy,
maybe it's a Caleb Martin or Strus or someone hitting.
I think he hit four or five threes in that game.
That's what needs to happen in order for you to
beat Goliath. You have to have that extraordinary performance. It's
only happened once in four games for the Heat in
this series. It's hard to do that multiple times in

(13:10):
a seven game series against the well coached, well official,
you know, well defended team that dominates the paint. They
forced fourteen turnovers last night. So Miami efficiency wise, is
not playing well. They're not shooting it well, they're not
playing as well as Denver. Denver's playing better. That's why
they're going to be the champs.

Speaker 3 (13:27):
Yeah, there's no doubt about that. Hey, we're brought to
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freaking running over here. We've got Rich Orenberger Penn stayed
all American. I'm sure he'll have some thoughts on the

(13:49):
Big ten schedule like years from now. Oh yeah, definitely.

Speaker 6 (13:53):
Get pretty booked the Rose Bowl right in a couple
of years, Rich, when pun State comes into town for
USC Oh damn right, heah, you bet your bottom dollar.

Speaker 3 (14:03):
Jared Smith, the's FSR betting analyst, also a Penn State
grand I'm just surrounded by Penn stated sucker to ridiculous.
I'm Brian Note coming up next, I'm from South Bend.
Didn't go to Notre Dame, went to Ball State. We
will not be discussing Ball State at all today. Nothing
nothing to do with them. Maybe the Irish though, you

(14:23):
have a new athletic director. Oh yeah, we'll get into
that all right. Coming up next, there's another big name
that's a free agent, Where will he land and which
free agent will make the bigger impact. We'll dive into that.
It is Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio.

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Smells like ball.

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Hey, it's me Rock Parker.

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Check out my weekly MLB podcast, Inside the Parker for
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(15:17):
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Speaker 1 (15:22):
Welcome back in.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
It's Fox Sports Saturday Live from the tiraq dot com studios.
We're brought to you by Progressive Insurance. Progressive makes bundling
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in one place. Bundlin save at Progressive dot Com. It's
official running back Dalvincook is officially a free agent. He

(15:48):
was released by the Minnesota Vikings on Friday, so he's
able to sign anywhere, maybe the Dolphins. Dolphins are definitely
in the running here where they tried to raid for
Dalvin Cook back in March. So now you don't have
to give up anything, you don't have to pay him
the same amount of money. You can negotiate different terms.

(16:09):
So Miami is certainly in the mix. The Broncos are
another team rumored for him to land there. I just
think this, if you look at Miami, couple of nasty
droughts over here, and I'll speak freely as a diehard
Dolphins fan, fifty years since they've won a Super Bowl,
and they haven't won a playoff game since two thousand.

(16:30):
This is twenty twenty three over here. They haven't won
a playoff game since two thousand, So this is the
time to go for it. And I think Dalvin Cook,
being a Miami native and going to Florida State, if
he went back to Miami with his blend of running
the rock, and he's a dangerous pass catcher. Also, he

(16:52):
does everything where your other backs Moster Jeff Wilson Junior,
they don't do all of what Dalvin Cook does. If
you get him at the right price, This is go
for it mode for me because he take a little
bit of pressure off of Tua and he mixes well
with other playmakers like Tyreek Hill and Jalen Waddle.

Speaker 1 (17:10):
Now you're cooking with grease. So I would love to
see Dalvin Cook and Dub in Miami. There, I'm with you.

Speaker 4 (17:17):
I think that Dalvin being added to this Miami team
really does shore up what they're looking for, which is
having a dynamic option in the run game. You know,
no offense to Mostert or Wilson Junior, but the two
of them, they're I think they're great or I shouldn't

(17:39):
even say great, but very good, you know, one two backs.
But like Dalvin Cook is a star. This is a
thousand yard rusher. If he has a healthy season, he's
gonna get you a thousand yards on the ground, one
thousand plus. He's got pretty soft hands too. He can
add in the passing game like he's He's a super

(17:59):
talented Pro Bowl level running back and he's being paid
like one. And that's the unfortunate reality for Dalvin Cook.
There's a little bit of DeAndre Hopkins here now for
different reasons. I think they're facing the same problem. But
DeAndre Hopkins, it feels the reason he's still unsigned is
because he wants every dollar of that contract. He's not

(18:20):
at that point in the offseason where he's willing to
take the price cut, the restructuring to be paid less
so that he can make sense on somebody's roster and
their salary on their payroll. And I kind of feel
like it may go the same way for Dalvin Cook
unless he has more realistic ideations of where the running back.

Speaker 1 (18:43):
Market is these days.

Speaker 4 (18:45):
Like there's a lot of teams in my Minnesota is
one that's included that, by the way, was a playoff
team last year. Disappointing finished to their season against the Giants,
but a playoff team last year, and we're willing to
move off of him because running backs, unfortunately have been
devalued in this league. So many young running backs come

(19:06):
onto teams and immediately have impact.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
It's not quarterback.

Speaker 4 (19:10):
It's not like you're taking a guy and you're grooming
him for years, or you're hoping to cat's lightning in
the bottle. Like a Justin Herbert as a draft pick,
where you know it's just very obvious immediately that this
is the guy to lead our franchise for the rest of,
you know, the next decade. Like with running backs, I'm
not going to say they're a dime a dozen, but

(19:31):
you can replace that production a lot easier than some
of the other key positions around the football field like
left tackle, pass rusher, corner, wide receiver. You know you
need those, you need a quarterback. Obviously, running back fall
somewhere after those top five, top six positions, and unfortunately,

(19:51):
his contract is going to get in the way of
him signing.

Speaker 6 (19:55):
Yeah, I think, And don't get me wrong, I'm fascinated
to see where Dalvin ends because I think that team
will get a really good player. But this story, to me,
is more about the current state of the NFL. Dalvin
Cook is twenty seven years old. He has rushed for
one thousand yards really eleven hundred plus yards in four

(20:15):
straight seasons. He had a fifteen hundred yard season in
twenty twenty sixteen touchdowns. He's played at least thirteen games,
which means he's durable in all four of those thousand
yard seasons. Yet he is being cut, not traded, cut released,
see you later at twenty seven years old, in the
prime of his career because of a ten eleven million

(20:39):
dollar price deck. By the way, he's made thirty two
million dollars in his six year career for what's been
arguably one of the most productive stretches.

Speaker 5 (20:48):
For a running back in recent history.

Speaker 6 (20:51):
That to me is wild the state of the NFL
and that's where we are, right that's the reality. If
that was a receiver in the prime, and DeAndre Hopkins
is a little past that prime right but still very productive.
I just I can't fathom that that's the state of
the NFL right now. I mean, he's arguably one of
the best current running backs in the league and they

(21:13):
just cut him outright release he can sign anywhere he wants.
To me, that's wild that they didn't get anything back
for him. But Miami makes a lot of sense. I
think there's a lot of other teams that probably make
sense that we can dive into. But that was the
part about this story that really kind of got me.
I was like, Wow, this is really the way that
the NFL is being run, and these franchises just they

(21:34):
have completely rich you said, it devalued the running back
position to the point where arguably one of the most
productive players in the league in his prime gets outright released.

Speaker 5 (21:45):
Crazy.

Speaker 1 (21:46):
I've already bet the Dolphins to land down.

Speaker 6 (21:49):
I mean it makes sense that the hometown angle. Of course,
your personal bias, it all makes sense.

Speaker 3 (21:55):
Yeah, well that's what I bet on. I bet I
make only bets based on personal bias. Over here, I
am not personally biased when it comes to this fine man,
mister Isaac Lowenkron, upstanding citizen, and he's got a bevy
of information for you right here.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
I do.

Speaker 9 (22:11):
Good morning fellas and his stars. Of course, With Game
four of the NBA Finals on Friday night that saw
Denver win again at Miami, this time one to eight
to ninety five, Denver one went away from letting us
find out just how long John Moran is going to
be suspended for uh sorry, sorry I misspoke there. One

(22:32):
went away from their first title in franchise history. Yay anyway,
Denver up three games to one. Aaron Gordon led him
with twenty seven points on eleven to fifteen shooting from
the field. Niko le Jokic twenty three points and twelve rebounds.
Bruce Brown came off the bench to score twenty one
on eight of eleven shooting and Major League Baseball on
Friday Night Show, Hey O'tani had a home run and

(22:54):
three hits at the plate, struck out six and five
innings on the mound as the Angels defeated the Seattle
Earners five to fourth. Cobbs Brook a four game losing
streak with a three to two win at San Francisco.
The Padres hit five home runs and a nine to
six foot of Colorado Cardinals hit three home runs and
a seven to four victory over Cincinnati, and the Oakland
A's one at Milwaukee five to two. It's the A's

(23:17):
first three game winning streak of the season, and they've
outscored their opponents during that streak twenty five to nine.
Who knew, Fellas back to you.

Speaker 6 (23:26):
Break up the A's they are they are best team
in baseball, killing.

Speaker 1 (23:31):
It right now. Thank you, I Low.

Speaker 3 (23:33):
It's Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (23:36):
Hey.

Speaker 3 (23:36):
At the end of your first year, discover credit cards
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out for yourself at discover dot com slash match. Okay,
what's interesting to me about the Dalvincook situation. And you
hear this a lot about the running back position being devalued.

(23:57):
In one aspect, it is in terms of the market
and the money that these guys will command, it's not
even close to comparable to other big time positions quarterback,
wide receiver, left tackle, Like, you're just not going to
command the type of dollars. But the other standpoint that
I think gets overlooked is the workload. If you look

(24:18):
at the workload of some of these guys, Derick Henry
carried the ball three hundred and forty nine times last year,
right like Nick Chubb, Josh Jacobs, they're carrying it over
three hundred times last season. And then you look in
other instances where it's an outlier, like a team like
the forty nine ers they trade for Christian McCaffrey, who

(24:40):
made a big impact when he was there in San Francisco.
So I look at Dalvin Cook and I say, Okay,
he's not going to command the money on the open
market that another position would. If you've got a running
back like Dalvin Cook, versus a wide receiver that's putting
up comparable numbers, Right, the wide receiver's gonna get paid

(25:02):
a lot more. That doesn't mean that Dalvin Cook isn't
gonna make a big impact. And I know you guys
aren't saying that. I'm just saying it goes a step further.
If I saw all of a sudden the carries just
dwindle and these guys are getting maybe one hundred and
fifty carries per season, like, then it would fully make sense.
But what's really happening is the market is down, right,

(25:26):
the stock is down in terms of what running backs earn,
but in terms of the workload that is not like
completely different than where it used to be. Yeah, you
get two more two headed monster approaches, and you don't
get the bell cow quote unquote running back as much anymore.
But if you look at certain instances, Dalvin Cook two

(25:47):
hundred and sixty four carries last season, that's a lot.
That's a big workload. If he has something comparable going forward,
he's still making a big impact.

Speaker 2 (25:56):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (25:56):
But back in you know, say two decades ago, maybe
even longer than that, maybe we're going back say twenty
five years ish, you had to have a feature running back.
You had to have that workhorse to have a shot
in the NFL. It wasn't as important to have the
quarterback like there was another to win. A great quarterback

(26:19):
would would do a lot for you and obviously could
compete with other teams and win you championships. But the
reality was, you know, and the reality then, I should say,
was you could have a great defense, you could have
a great running game, you could win championships.

Speaker 2 (26:36):
That's no longer the case.

Speaker 4 (26:37):
I mean, if you look at the top ten offenses
in the NFL from twenty twenty two, Casey, Buffalo, Philly, Detroit,
San Francisco, Miami, Minnesota, Cincinnati, LA Chargers in Jacksonville, the
one thing that the majority of these teams have in
common is we talk about their quarterback. We don't talk

(26:58):
about their run game. Even in some of these cases,
we talk about their running backs, but more so their
involvement in the passing game. So the running back position,
I agree with you, Brian. In certain cases it still
can be featured in this NFL, like the Tennessee Titans
have done for a while. But even the San Francisco

(27:19):
forty nine ers, Christian McCaffrey got a lot of credit
for that late season push after the trade deadline, but
the reality was we were talking about Brock Purdy and
how if they didn't have somebody to replace Garoppolo the
way that he was able to when he went down,
this season would have been off the rails. And it's
true because Christian McCaffrey can't do it on his own.
We saw what that looks like in Carolina. It looks awful.

(27:42):
So the league's just changed.

Speaker 2 (27:46):
This is now.

Speaker 4 (27:47):
It's still a line of scrimmage game. Like you still
need to have good line play, good defensive line play.
You do need a good running game to supplant your
passing game, but it is a passing league these days.

Speaker 5 (28:01):
Yeah, I'm going back now.

Speaker 6 (28:01):
I'm looking at some of the Super Bowl champions in
history and I'm trying to find the last great running
back that helped lead his team to a Super Bowl win.

Speaker 5 (28:12):
I can't find one.

Speaker 6 (28:14):
I mean it's been a while, right Chiefs obviously, no
Bucks Brady, the Patriots, Brady Eagles. That Eagles Patriots one
was super weird, right forty one thirty three the Patriots
against the Falcons.

Speaker 5 (28:28):
That was a lot of Brady a lot of bad Falcons.

Speaker 6 (28:31):
You can make a case that the Denver Carolina one
was kind of an offbeat super Bowl. More defense, a
little less Peyton Manning, a little more ground and pound Seattle, Denver,
that one was a weird one too. But there's not
a lot of Super Bowls in history where I can say, yep,
the running back is the reason why that team won
the Super b.

Speaker 3 (28:49):
But the thing is, I'll give you a counter argument
real fast. Yeah, no, no, I'll never forget Brown's GM
ray Farmer. But former Browns GM ray Farmer, he made
the same case about not having a star wide receiver
on a Super Bowl team. That's fair, and we all
know that you need top receivers.

Speaker 1 (29:08):
Yeah that helps, that's very beneficial.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
But for a good stretch, for a good fifteen to
twenty year stretch, you could make an argument the same
way and no one would say that wide receivers who cares.
You don't need star receivers like, that's very beneficial if
you have one of those guys.

Speaker 6 (29:23):
Yeah, I think I'm kind of in the middle of
the running back argument. Frankly, I think we've and this
is what markets do, this is what betting markets. Financial
markets do all the time. They're cyclical, they swing violently
back and forth. We are now in an era of
the no running back league, like it's not as important.

(29:44):
Maybe we drift back to center down the road, but
right now, in the current state of the NFL, guys
like Dalvin Cook, who are arguably the most productive and
talented running backs in the league, are being treated like
they are.

Speaker 5 (30:00):
Second or third stringers.

Speaker 6 (30:01):
And it's not that teams don't need running backs, it's
just right now the allocation and a lot of the
NFL right now is driven by analytics. I watched a
lot of these behind the scenes draft war room videos,
specifically the Arizona Cardinals one where they were trying to
make the trade to move up to go get Paris Johnson,
and they they showed him and they titled him Draft Analytics.

(30:27):
You know, statistics manager blah blah blah for the Arizona
Cardinals and he's sitting there right next to the GM
calculating the numbers for Okay, if we trade this pick,
what does it mean and how much value are we
getting back in equity?

Speaker 5 (30:38):
Blah blah blah. That is a lot of the decision
making in the NFL.

Speaker 6 (30:42):
Now it is done on computers with nerds with glasses
like me, the nerd. It's it's the era of the
nerd in the NFL right now, and right now, the
nerds don't feel very strongly about paying running backs.

Speaker 5 (30:56):
They just don't value the position. I hear you.

Speaker 3 (30:58):
I hear all of that because I think it's just
gone too far. There are, granted, much more important positions
right if you, if you're building your team, I'm not
starting with running back. I'm starting with quarterback. I'm looking
at wide receiver. I'm looking at corner, I'm looking at
edge rusher.

Speaker 5 (31:15):
Like.

Speaker 3 (31:15):
There are positions, many of them that are more important
than running back. That doesn't mean that running back doesn't
matter anymore. And that's just where I push back. I'm
not saying it's quarterback then running back. That's how you
build your team. I'm not saying that. I'm just saying
it's more valuable than the punter, you know what I mean.
Like it's just gotten so out of whack. But you
could just get you know, get Rich Orenberger to run

(31:37):
the ball back there, it doesn't matter, you know.

Speaker 5 (31:38):
That would be entertaining right there.

Speaker 4 (31:40):
That would be entertaining. I mean, that's a dream that
I wish for years. I remember there were a couple
of goal line packages I was a part of, and
we had to have a passing game off of it,
and so I would run like to the.

Speaker 6 (31:55):
Flat or Orenberger catching a pass would have been the highlight.

Speaker 4 (31:59):
An extra tight end like I'd be doing like a
corner route to the end line and just like come on,
come on, come on, Rady lining up as a fullback.
If I could just carry the ball once, that would
have made my whole life. But yeah, I mean, you
can't just put anyone out there. Yeah, I mean, of course,
unless it was me, you can't do it because it's

(32:21):
just one of those things that I mean, there's it's
still a competitive position on a football field. It still
really benefits you when you have a great one. It's
still one of those positions that you can highlight and
feature in an offense like I think the San Francisco
forty nine ers really cleverly did with McCaffrey and Deebo
and Kittle and all the weapons they have around that offense.

Speaker 2 (32:44):
But if that's if that's what you're.

Speaker 4 (32:47):
Hanging your hat on, you know, if you're gonna pay
a large chunk of your salary toward that position. Over
the course of a deal, You're you're probably limiting yourself
from a salary standpoint to invest more heavily into positions
that have more dire consequences in terms of your production. Offensively,

(33:08):
the game the game has given you based on the
rule changes so much more availability to advance to football
In the passing game, It's almost like it's almost like,
you know, if you have a gift card to the
one restaurant and you have to pay some exarpidant amount
of money to the other restaurant, why just why not

(33:29):
just go the easier route, like they're giving you yards
in the passing game. If you just have a talented
enough quarterback and receivers worth their salt, so why don't
you go do that? That's what a lot of teams
are opting to do, and that's where the analytics really
do suppress the running back market.

Speaker 3 (33:44):
Okay, a little bit later in the show, we'll get
to a tale of the tape. Who do you think
makes the bigger impact? Will it be free agent Dalvin
Cook or will it be free agent DeAndre.

Speaker 6 (33:54):
Really good question, actually, right, because it kind of bakes
in the narrative that we're talking about now with who
matters more in which position.

Speaker 1 (34:00):
That's right.

Speaker 3 (34:01):
We'll get to that next hour coming up next though,
a good excuse needs to make sense.

Speaker 1 (34:08):
As a free requisite. I'm Brian No.

Speaker 3 (34:11):
We've got Jared Smith FSR, betting analyst, We've got Rich Orenberger,
Penn State, All American.

Speaker 1 (34:17):
We will get to an.

Speaker 3 (34:17):
Excuse that doesn't quite add up, entertaining a little bit
depending on your perspective.

Speaker 1 (34:23):
That's on the way.

Speaker 3 (34:24):
It's Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (34:28):
Welcome back in.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
It's Fox Sports Saturday Live from the Tireraq dot Com studios. So,
NBA Commissioner Adam Silver, he was on the Dan Patrick
Show and he was talking about the John Morant situation.
So John Morant stud point guard with the Memphis Grizzlies.
There was a second gun video on ig live on

(34:50):
social media. So jaw was suspended for eight games for
the first gun video. Now we get the second gun video.
There is someone from John Morant's camp that says it
is a toy gun, not a real gun.

Speaker 1 (35:02):
It's a toy gun.

Speaker 3 (35:03):
So this is what NBA Commissioner Adam Silver had to
say on that subject.

Speaker 10 (35:08):
Check it out where of course reports on social media
about you know, whether the gun was in fact a gun,
and so we haven't completely wrapped it up.

Speaker 1 (35:16):
Does that matter as commissioner, if that's a toy gun?
You know, it's interesting.

Speaker 10 (35:21):
It's the very issue is for job certainly in the
first incident, was treating a gun as a toy. That's
what we're talking about, and that's what I think the
danger is to society taking a gun live streaming it,
you know, without getting into gun issues in terms of

(35:41):
the propriety of owning guns and the use of guns.
I think everyone agrees that gun safety is critically important
and that guns aren't toys. So it's something that I'm
thinking a lot about because again I'm not going to
get into the specifics of the investigation. But in fact,
if you are live streaming something that to the world
looks exactly like a gun and in a frankly reckless manner,

(36:07):
should it matter whether or not it's a real gun?

Speaker 1 (36:09):
Okay?

Speaker 3 (36:10):
Interesting stuff, right, So the first part of this is
the excuse has to make sense, and this excuse makes
no sense whatsoever, because let's play a little game of
In order for this to be true, there's the way
you always have to do. So a member from Ja
Morant's camp says, it's a toy gun. Then why was
John Morant apologizing for the toy gun? Why would you

(36:32):
react like that when you're facing a significant suspension. The
steps immediately afterward would have been completely different. So I
don't buy this for a second, and the league isn't
buying it for a second. What's interesting is how the
NBA is positioning itself here. That matters, And what Adam
Silver is saying is should it matter if it's a

(36:52):
toy gun or not? Context matters.

Speaker 1 (36:55):
This is the second gun video with John.

Speaker 3 (36:57):
Morant, this isn't the first one, and this isn't like
an obvious like super Soaker or something like that. Context matters,
and so the NBA isn't buying it. And what they're
doing is they're positioning themselves smartly where they're not down
the road a similar situation. Someone flashes a gun and
then says it's a toy gun, and you have no

(37:17):
proof whether it is or not. You've got to send
a message. And I think it's still going to be
a lengthy suspension.

Speaker 2 (37:25):
Oh, I completely agree. I completely agree.

Speaker 4 (37:28):
I think that they're gonna you know, at a certain point,
you have to make an example of a guy if
he's begging you to. And Ja Morant is just simply
begging the NBA to make an example of him. I mean,
this is one of those things where you know, he
trots out in front of the camera with Jalen Rose

(37:48):
and it's a heartfelt apology to those affected by the
initial video, and that doesn't represent who I am. And
I'm making changes in my personal life and I'm seeking,
you know, mental help. This is going to be one
of those circumstances where you're gonna see a change, the
reformed man in front of you, playing the great game

(38:11):
that I love, and within weeks he does it again.
Now yeah again, I agree with Adam Silver. I think
a lot of people would at this point. It doesn't
matter if the gun was real or not. Like if
you got caught ones cheating on your wife and then
you got caught in the background of a video at
the club with your boys and one of your friends,

(38:34):
you know, caught you dancing on the dance floor with
someone who's not your wife. You think she's gonna accept
the excuse, Well, she's just a work friend, babe, right,
she's a coworker. That's not a real relationship. She's gonna say, well,
we have real problems. So I'm sorry. Whether or not

(38:55):
you tell me that she's just a friend, you've already
cheated on me one. So the trust is gone, all right.
That's where Jean Moran is at with the NBA. The
trust is gone.

Speaker 2 (39:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 6 (39:08):
And again, I don't want to compare the situations because
they're vastly different in terms of the severity. But this
reminds me of when I was in high school and
I got a speeding ticket and I got my license
taken away for a month, and I remember my mom said,
if you get a speeding ticket again, you're done, Like
that's it, you know. And I know, again, not the
same scenario, But when you get caught in the same

(39:31):
situation again, you basically make the same mistake twice. It
doesn't matter how severe the second mistake is, just the
fact that you were in the realm, the stratosphere of
that same mistake again and you were kind of looking
over the line and towing the line and kind of
pushing that boundary. It shows a lack of awareness. It

(39:54):
shows a lack of depth and a lack of Hey,
I didn't learn anything from this mistake, So the situationuition
and the punishment now needs to be more severe. Gunfake
gun reel doesn't matter. Why would you even enter that
sphere again knowing what you just did?

Speaker 1 (40:09):
Yeah, it's I mean, context matters.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
It would be similar to on the court, Draymond Green, Right,
Draymond Green has a past, so he might get a
technical quicker than another player without a pass. Jah has
a pasted all right, coming up next? Why are we
making excuses for people who don't deserve it?

Speaker 7 (40:29):
Oh?

Speaker 3 (40:29):
What's going on? Everybody? We got gambling talk. We're going
to look critically at gambling over here, and this is
a pro gambling show, but I think it'll make sense
in a second. We are broadcasting live from the tirack
dot com studios. Tirac dot com will help get you there,
an unmatched selection, fast free shipping, free road hazard protection,

(40:51):
and over ten thousand recommended installers. Tirack dot com the
way tire buying should be. Okay, we prefaced this with
we are pro gambling. I've got two thumbs up in
the air, right, Now we're not anti gambling, but the
story with Colts cornerback Isaiah Rogers Senior. So he's being
investigated for bets, possibly betting on his own team, the Colts,

(41:18):
and so he's facing what would be at least a
year long suspension.

Speaker 1 (41:23):
Not smart.

Speaker 3 (41:24):
Now the details are really interesting. It wasn't his own account.
He had a friend enter his bets for him, and
we're talking mostly between fifty and one hundred dollars bets.
Now he's on the he's on the hook to possibly
miss the entire season, and his contract is about two
point seven million dollars.

Speaker 1 (41:46):
So, now here's the thing.

Speaker 3 (41:48):
When when we're talking about these stories, a lot of
it is, oh, the NFL, they're hypocritical, they're taking money
from these sportsbooks and they're punishing players. First off, that
whole time thing is stupid. The NFL has relationships with
beer companies. It doesn't mean that players are okay to
drive back, you know what I mean, Like, come on,
it's not hypocritical. You can have a sponsor and still say, hey,

(42:13):
our players gambling. It hurts the integrity of the game.
So you're going to get punished for gambling.

Speaker 2 (42:21):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (42:21):
Why that's so difficult.

Speaker 3 (42:23):
The next part is you hear all this stuff about well,
I mean, the rules are really hard.

Speaker 1 (42:28):
To understand it.

Speaker 3 (42:29):
No they aren't, No, they aren't it. Don't gamble on
the NFL, that's pretty easy. And then don't gamble when
you're at work, when you're on company ground. That's it,
and it don't do it. That's it. It's really easy.
And the thing, I'm so tired of the excuses. I
look at this like peds. We say this all the time.
It's your job to know what you're putting in your body,

(42:52):
But somehow that's completely changed when it comes to gambling,
and it's just, oh, what's the NFL doing And they're
hypocritical and how are these players supposed to know? So
we're sticklers when it comes to beds, you guys better
know what you put in your body. But it's just
like you don't really have to know what the gambling
policy is. You can call up the NFLPA, you can

(43:14):
double check, you can say hey, can I do this?

Speaker 1 (43:16):
Can I enter this golf parlay today?

Speaker 2 (43:18):
Or no?

Speaker 3 (43:19):
And they'll tell you. So I have no sympathy. It's
know the rules and if you get popped. You should
have been smarter. That's just where I stand on this
whole thing.

Speaker 4 (43:29):
I think you're I think you're pretty close, or I
should say that's your opinion, and my opinion is pretty
close to yours. I would only add this as a caveat.
You know, just because you know beer is sponsored by
or I should say the NFL is sponsored by beer companies,

(43:50):
doesn't mean that the ultimate worst case scenario is what
we fear. You know what I mean, like the ultimate
worst case scenario of gambling is it destroys your life, right,
you know, the idea that somehow you get indebted to
people that you shouldn't be indebted to, or you have
a problem with it where you're addicted to it. You know,

(44:11):
same thing with beer. Are we under this weird suspicion
that NFL players don't enjoy a nice cold Budwiser.

Speaker 2 (44:21):
Every once in a while, or a cores.

Speaker 4 (44:23):
Light or an ipa from some local craft brewery. I mean,
like it's happening. I can promise you it's happening, even
though even though players aren't allowed to do independent business
with these beer companies and it's in their contract. Yeah,
it's happening. So like when we look at gambling, it's

(44:44):
to me a little bit of a hypocrisy because the
NFL is benefiting so much off of sports betting that
the players can't be involved on their own terms. However,
I will say this, there have been rules for years
about gambling at work, you know, in the NFL, in

(45:05):
the NBA, because there have been certain occurrences that have occurred,
like players have brought guns to locker rooms over gambling debts,
and we're talking about card games, you know. So if
we're going to get down the rabbit hole of sports
betting at work, it may be all some guys want
to do. It may be a huge distraction to what
they're doing in the workplace. Like you could see that

(45:27):
rule happening in a different office, It could happen in
an accounting offense.

Speaker 1 (45:32):
So I look at it this way.

Speaker 4 (45:34):
Yes, are some of your freedoms limited when you sign
up with an employer while you're on the clock with
that employer or while you're.

Speaker 1 (45:42):
Under contract with that employer.

Speaker 4 (45:44):
Yeah, but where you're trading in is a certain ability
to do what you may want to for those eight hours,
twelve hours, you know, period of your life for money
you know that we all make those trade offs. Life's
bout trade off. So the sooner these players start understanding
that they can't do this, the better off everyone's gonna

(46:06):
be in. Unfortunately for Isaiah Rogers, they'll make an example
out of them. I'm pretty sure whatever the maximum punishment
he's capable of getting is what the NFL is gonna
levy here.

Speaker 6 (46:17):
Yeah, I want to echo what Rich said for a
minute and then I'll get into Rogers take. But for me,
the sacrifices that I've made in my life to do
the job that I do. I haven't had Thanksgiving at
home in like five years. Why because who plays on
Thanksgiving in the day after Thanksgiving? The NFL gotta cover
the Lions, gotta cover the Lions in the Cowboys game, right,

(46:40):
But I don't have the opportunity for me to go
home Thanksgiving week and spend the entire week with my
family because the last five years I've done shows the
day after day of Black Friday, the Saturday, the sun
like and that's just And I don't complain about it.

Speaker 2 (46:58):
I don't.

Speaker 5 (46:58):
You know, my mom's.

Speaker 6 (46:59):
Upset, But that's life. That's the path that I've chosen.
I get to go home all start break in July
in a couple weeks and spend some time with them. Right,
that's the time that I can spend with my family
because unfortunately, there's not a studio in my childhood.

Speaker 5 (47:15):
House in South Florida that I can do a show from.

Speaker 6 (47:17):
So that's just part of it, right, Rich, I'm sure
you've missed birthdays, holidays, parties, weddings, Brian, same thing.

Speaker 2 (47:25):
Right.

Speaker 6 (47:26):
We chose to work in sports. Sports plays weekends, holidays,
year round. That's just what we chose. For Isaiah Rodgers.
There's two things here. One, that's the path he chose, right.
He wants to play in the NFL, He's done it
for years. Talented player, blah blah blah. He has to
make certain sacrifices to do that. The second thing is

(47:48):
how much did you say the bets were? Four fifteen
hundred bucks?

Speaker 2 (47:50):
Brian?

Speaker 5 (47:50):
Yeah, he's making two point seven million this year.

Speaker 6 (47:53):
Like, there has to be a level of accountability when
you know this is you're not betting foul, you're not
a professional gambler, you're not deriving your income from this.
This is a entertainment vehicle for you to blow off
some steam. On a Friday night because you're bored and
you want to watch a baseball game and throw a
hundred bucks on it. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that,

(48:15):
but you have to do it inside the sphere that
you're allowed to do it in, which is not I
think he got caught on right. It was on the
actual campus of the Colts. Is that why this is
becoming such a big store or because he bet.

Speaker 5 (48:30):
On the NFL?

Speaker 6 (48:31):
Like, you just have to know the rules, and you're right,
you gotta know what you're putting in your body.

Speaker 5 (48:35):
Same thing.

Speaker 6 (48:35):
You gotta know the rules about the gambling space because
it is becoming a big part of the conversation and
it ain't going anywhere. Guys, I have a job because
of it on this network. It ain't going anywhere. It
is an exciting part of the game, and I think
it's going to continue to be exciting.

Speaker 5 (48:52):
But you just have to know the rules.

Speaker 2 (48:54):
That's it.

Speaker 3 (48:55):
Well, And that's the thing too is On one hand,
I do feel bad for the guy. Right to some capacity,
he's due to make two point seven million dollars this season.
It's not guaranteed. If he's suspended for a year, that's
probably the end of his Colts career, and who knows
where his career goes from there. This guy's a sixth
round pick in twenty twenty, fought his way to be

(49:18):
a starter, he was in line to be a starter
this year, and now he's probably gonna be on the
sideline for the whole year because he's making fifty or
one hundred dollars bets. Like, I don't like that part
of it. But the other side of this is I
go back to Lou Holtz when he was the head
coach of Notre Dame.

Speaker 1 (49:34):
Now we got to go.

Speaker 3 (49:34):
Hot tub time machine for this, but Lou Holtz was
a stickler. If a player messed up, like I was
always as a kid, I'd be like, man, that guy
suspended for the bowl game. This is a huge game.
And Lou was like, I'm not suspending the guy. He
suspended himself. And that's how I feel about Isaiah Rodgers

(49:55):
seeing guy, Yeah, he suspended himself.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
That's the thing.

Speaker 3 (50:00):
Does anybody argue that NFL players should be able to
bet on NFL games? Is anybody saying that?

Speaker 1 (50:06):
Because I would.

Speaker 3 (50:07):
Argue completely against that. There's no way you can make
an argument that makes any sense whatsoever that NFL players
should be able to bet on NFL games and it
doesn't hurt the integrity of the game at all. That
would be a brain dead take. And so if we're
not arguing that back, I would push.

Speaker 4 (50:25):
Back for one reason, one reason, and one reason alone.
It's because if you could have a situation where a
player can benefit financially from a bet, like if there's
a charitable aspect around it, or like I said, for
personal game, like where it's all.

Speaker 5 (50:44):
Public team to win the Super Bowl.

Speaker 4 (50:46):
Exactly like say Dak Prescott's Dallas Cowboys are back in
the Big Game, and Dak has an endorsement with you know,
bet MGM, and all of a sudden, you know, he
locks arms with his gambling supplier, sportsbook supplier, and he says, hey,
you know what, we're going to come together and I'm
going to put in on one hundred thousand dollars and

(51:09):
so is bet MGM. And if we win, all the
proceeds are going to go to the the Dak attack,
you know, proceed towards at risk kids.

Speaker 6 (51:18):
That's probably the only scenario where I think you can
even make a slight argument for it, though, right.

Speaker 4 (51:23):
But that's But that's my point though, is like where's
the line. Then the line that's off like blurry gentlemen.
And I know that some people say so we can't
have it at all, But I'm kind of laisy fair
about this now. I don't think you should be able
to bet against your.

Speaker 6 (51:37):
Team, especially in an individual game. It's one thing to
say I'm betting on my team to win the Super Bowl.
Of course that's your goal every year. That's fine.

Speaker 1 (51:44):
But you can't open that door, man, not at all.

Speaker 5 (51:48):
It's tough.

Speaker 6 (51:48):
I think the argument that Rich is making about the
charitable aspect to it where it's made public. We see
this all the time when states go go live, right,
We saw it with the Reds. Yeah, Cincinnati. They brought
in some Cincinnati guys and they all bet on the
Reds to win the World Series, which was a basically
a piece of toilet paper ticket. But the point is
that I think has a slight argument.

Speaker 3 (52:11):
But it's gray area zero, and the area is no
gret no nothing, no charity, no great. I'm looking at
it from the league standpoint, Okay, it's fair too. You
cannot be known as a league whose players are betting
on NFL games in any game, you can't.

Speaker 6 (52:29):
Have games on the team to win the Super Bowl,
I think is a different day.

Speaker 4 (52:33):
Hang on, hang on, I again. I know, I know
you're pushing back, and justifiably so, because this is one
of those things that has been a hot button issue
in sports for a very long time, basically as long
as sports has been going on is the integrity of
the game and those who can potentially lose and benefit
from losing. But I'm looking at it differently. I'm saying,

(52:56):
if if there is a system where you can publicly
back her own horse, like horse in horse racing, like
a trainer can put money on his own horse.

Speaker 5 (53:06):
Owners Yeah, yeah, exactly, the owners don't. I don't have
money on their horses when they're running around the track.

Speaker 2 (53:12):
You know.

Speaker 4 (53:13):
To me, like like it makes it more exciting, Like
the thrill of victory for those ownership groups or for
those trainers is so much more thrilling as a result.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
I'm just saying this, like the same.

Speaker 4 (53:23):
Argument you're posing Brian against players ever being able to
bet on NFL games. Ever, is the same argument that
people had twenty years ago about the NFL being involved
in sports betting period or having a team in Vegas period.

Speaker 2 (53:36):
But guess what, sports.

Speaker 4 (53:37):
Betting and the NFL and their involvement in sports betting
so far feels like peanut butter and jelly. So does
the Vegas Raiders. I mean, I didn't love it for
the city of Oakland, but it works. So I'm I'm
at the point where, look, I'm not saying it's the
best idea.

Speaker 2 (53:54):
I'm not even gonna.

Speaker 3 (53:56):
Horrible idea, but this is an awful idea. This is
the word idea you've ever had. I'm confident in saying that.

Speaker 1 (54:03):
I think I'm ally if you like, here's the thing.

Speaker 5 (54:08):
I can't. I can't get on game again.

Speaker 3 (54:09):
No, no, no, but even the Super Bowl you can't.
I'll put it this way. If you went to Goodell
and said, hey, Roger, here to think of it this
way though, right, and you gave the charitable aspect and
all that, he would look at you like you had
nine heads, like how is this good for the NFL?

Speaker 6 (54:27):
Really well, technically wouldn't be gambling if he's giving the
proceeds to charity.

Speaker 5 (54:31):
Also, that's the other part that you can kind of
spin it.

Speaker 3 (54:34):
I mean, come on, man, we were not born yesterday.
If you can bet on your team, there's gonna be
a light bulb that goes off with Layers saying I
can bet against my team, and now you're screwed as
a league. It is better to not even go down
that road, not even.

Speaker 6 (54:52):
You're probably right, but this is a radio show. You
have to fill three hours. It's a good conversation, and.

Speaker 4 (54:57):
Truthfully and truthfully, I feel strongly about this from this
standpoint alone, I am not looking forward to any rules
that limit the availability of players in the NFL to
make as much money as humanly possible while they're playing.
And I'm not saying making money betting, because I don't
think that's a great strategy. But what I am saying

(55:20):
is these guys can link up with endorsers. They can obviously,
like we just discussed, do charitable work through this as
a potential avenue. But in this very short term earning
window that a player has, if they're lucky, they get
three years, if they're exceptional, they get you know, five plus.

(55:40):
If they're one of the greats of the games, they
get to play a decade, and if they're insanely talented,
people will remember their names forever. Like it's it's it's
a short window though usually and if you are an
Isaiah Rodgers, a guy who, by the way, before he
got popped for gambling, none of us would have really
remembered his name from the past two seasons. He was

(56:03):
a mid round draft pick who got some playing time,
mostly featured on special teams, and all of a sudden,
his name's being splashed across headlines because the NFL wants
to make an example of him. Look, the rules are
in place right now, and I agree with the punishment
that fits the crime. If you break the rules, and
the rules are currently where players can't bet on the NFL,
I'm with the NFL here.

Speaker 2 (56:24):
You have to levy justice.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
However, I am oppositional to a rule that limits his
ability to potentially link with the sports book and do
what he wants to do, especially if it's going to
financially benefit him somehow.

Speaker 5 (56:38):
That's a good conversation.

Speaker 4 (56:39):
Though Lloyd Mayweather, he bets on himself every fight. It
makes it more interesting to me. All of a sudden
you find out that he's putting down a million dollars
on himself to win in a huge fight when he
was still fighting.

Speaker 1 (56:50):
I thought that was interesting.

Speaker 4 (56:52):
I thought it was an interesting aspect to boxing that
encouraged me to have even more excitement about what I
was about to watch. Again, if you're betting on yourself
to win or your team to win, I have no.

Speaker 1 (57:04):
Problem on it.

Speaker 6 (57:05):
I think the conversation's different when you're talking about linking
up with let's say bet MGM to sponsor this charitable
donation that they're going to make on wagering on a
certain team. Like that's different than Dak Prescott bets on
Dallas Cowboys.

Speaker 5 (57:22):
I think that conversation is different.

Speaker 6 (57:25):
I think there is some gray area with a current
player linking up with a sportsbook in a sponsorship way.

Speaker 5 (57:36):
Now there's gonna be questions about it. I'm sure.

Speaker 6 (57:39):
I don't know if it'll ever be allowed, but I
am more open to that than a current player being
allowed to bet on the NFL, whether it's on his
team or on another team.

Speaker 5 (57:51):
I hope it's not on another team.

Speaker 6 (57:53):
I think that conversation is Pandora's box that we cannot open.
But I think linking up like sponsorship opportunities. If the
NFL is getting sponsored by by by bet MGM, I
think the players we should have some framework where the
players should also be able to take some of that money.

Speaker 1 (58:10):
Real fast, You're gonna have what.

Speaker 3 (58:16):
More problems probably open this door than not put it
this way. There aren't sponsorships, This isn't for charity. You
could be suspended for a year. Isaiah Rogers is still
betting on NFL games when it's not allowed, right, He's cost.

Speaker 5 (58:34):
I'm way past that.

Speaker 6 (58:35):
Like betting on individual games is no, no, no, no,
no in any capacity. I think doing like the whole
ceremonial ribbon cutting. Oh, we're gonna bet a one hundred
dollars for the Cowboys to win the Super Bowl and
Dak Prescott being paid by MGM to do that appearance,
I think I'm okay with that.

Speaker 1 (58:51):
Not remotely worth it as the league.

Speaker 5 (58:53):
Probably not. Again, it's a radio show. We have three
hours to go.

Speaker 3 (58:57):
We got rich Ordan Berger fed stayed all in American.
We've got Jared Smith FSR, betting analyst. I'm Brian No
coming up next. Two gigantic storylines, which one is more
interesting to you? It's Fox Sports Saturday right here on
Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 2 (59:11):
Welcome back in.

Speaker 3 (59:12):
It's Fox Sports Saturday Live from the tiraq dot Com
studios brought to you by Progressive Insurance.

Speaker 1 (59:18):
Progressive makes bundling easy and affordable.

Speaker 3 (59:21):
Get a multi policy discount by combining your motorcycle, RV, boat,
ATV and more. All your protection in one place, buttlein
save at Progressive dot com. All right, fellas, we've got
two huge stories. We've got the PGA Tour and Live
golf merging on a left field.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
I love this storyline.

Speaker 3 (59:42):
And then we also have Leonel Messi, the iconic soccer player.

Speaker 1 (59:48):
He's joining Inner Miami.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
He goes to MLS and so the question is simple,
which storyline is more interesting to you, not just now
but going forward? What this means for the MLS and
American soccer having Lionel Messi here or is it this
PGA live thing. I'm not saying I don't. I'm not
interested in Messi here in America.

Speaker 1 (01:00:12):
I am.

Speaker 3 (01:00:13):
But man the soap opera aspect of PGA and Live merging,
where PGA Commissioner Jay Monahan he is just crushing these
golfers that go.

Speaker 1 (01:00:26):
To live where's your patriotism? You sellouts?

Speaker 3 (01:00:30):
And then he turns around and makes a deal to
merge both entities. That is just dripping with a soap
opera aspect that Leonel Messi just does not have. So
I would go with the merger myself.

Speaker 2 (01:00:43):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 4 (01:00:44):
The merger in my mind was the top story when
we compare the two because of the implications on the
world of sport. Now, Messi his deal may have shockwaves
through MLS in terms of his you know, partial owner
ship of his the money that MLS makes on their

(01:01:06):
season pass. I mean, that's that's pretty insane that he's
going to be able to share in what they profit
as a league from his signing with one of the
league's teams. However, this isn't groundbreaking in the sense that
David Beckham as long as he played out his entire contract.

(01:01:26):
When he first signed with the Galaxy and agreed to
come over to the MLS, they said you could purchase
an MLS team at the price of twenty five million dollars,
and so the team he purchased was in Miami and
inter Minami is now worth hundreds of millions of dollars.

(01:01:46):
So David Beckham his deal was groundbreaking at the time.
What's crazy about this PGA Live merger is the fact
that j Monahan, PGA Commissioner drew such a hard and
thick line between the PGA and live golf, between his
players on the PGA Tour who are defending the tour

(01:02:09):
and the defectors who went to go play for the evildoers.
It was good versus evil, That's what it was. This
wasn't financial, this was moral. He drew that line by
using the coalition of nine to eleven families he as
he borrowed their message as in a front to condemn

(01:02:30):
the players who left the PGA, and then within eighteen
months turned his back on all that and said, you
know what, that money out there in Saudi Arabia with
the PIF.

Speaker 1 (01:02:41):
Is crazy green.

Speaker 4 (01:02:43):
We are going to change our views on this, and
I am going to be labeled as the greatest hypocrite
potentially of all time. But in the meanwhile, I'm going
to dab the beads of sweat that bunch up on
my forehead when I'm talking about this with one hundred
dollars bills. Good night, everybody. That's that's an insane, earth

(01:03:05):
rattling sports story we just witnessed this week.

Speaker 5 (01:03:09):
Yeah, I agree. I think I'll start with MESSI.

Speaker 6 (01:03:13):
So inter Miami now has more Instagram followers than any baseball, football,
hockey team basketball.

Speaker 3 (01:03:20):
They gained four point one million just because he's signed there.
That's amazing.

Speaker 5 (01:03:24):
And the team that he left lost all though.

Speaker 6 (01:03:27):
Like it's just he is kind of the soccer god
right now, and unlike when Beckham came over, he's kind
of still in his prime, I would say, on the
back nine. But still he's got some good years left right,
And it's going to turn the MLS into a more
relevant product. Overall, the MLS is a vastly inferior product

(01:03:51):
to the English Premier League, the Bundesliga, La Lega, et cetera,
et cetera. But now they've got a star, right and
when you have a star in the NBA, we see
it all the time.

Speaker 2 (01:04:01):
They have a star.

Speaker 5 (01:04:02):
Now they are a contender.

Speaker 6 (01:04:03):
So it definitely puts the MLS more squarely on the
international map here in America. Probably not that impactful of
a move. It probably won't move the needle too much
in terms of where the MLS fits in the sports spectrum,
but still important. The Live story is wild and the

(01:04:24):
Monahan is now the villain himself that he was trying
to portray Live to be. I will say this I
think this story is more of a business story with
sports implications. For example, CNBC broke the story. It wasn't
broken by ESPN or some you know sports outlet.

Speaker 5 (01:04:45):
The story was broken by CNBC. That tells you where
it was born.

Speaker 6 (01:04:50):
This was a couple of guys in a room somewhere
in an ivory tower making business decisions. And we know
the names. It's done in the other PGA board executive.
And then they brought Monahanan eventually to go meet with
the pif you know, director, and eventually they came together.

Speaker 5 (01:05:06):
On this deal.

Speaker 6 (01:05:07):
But this is a business story that is obviously wrapped
with major sporting implications. I don't think those implications will
be felt this year. Everything seems status quo this year,
next year and beyond is when I think the merger
element will start to come into play. But this story

(01:05:28):
is to me, the live story. It's kind of the
love child of secession and billions together. Like it is
a business story that is obviously going to, you know,
have some ripple effects in our sporting world. But I
don't really I can't really wrap my head around it
yet because there's so many details about this deal that
they made that we don't know yet, but it is wild,

(01:05:51):
to say the least.

Speaker 3 (01:05:52):
I think it's straight from pro wrestling. It's a storyline
that seems like it's pro wrestling.

Speaker 1 (01:05:58):
It's freaking real.

Speaker 3 (01:06:00):
It seems like something that you would mesh together with
all we got the nWo and then we're gonna do this,
and then we're gonna do that, and here's the turn,
and like it seems like it was written, like it
really played out.

Speaker 2 (01:06:12):
The thirty for.

Speaker 3 (01:06:12):
Thirty between Live and the PGA Tour is gonna be
freaking wild and it's going on. Rory McElroy is like,
I still hate Live. That was a quote. I still
hate them. Oh it's so juicy now now when we
shift and talk about juicy, that is a description of
the information that is just gushing from every pore of

(01:06:37):
one Isaac loewenkron I low here with the latest points.

Speaker 9 (01:06:41):
Oh, it's a fountain of information today, fellas, because we're
coming off Game four of the NBA Finals Friday night
that saw Denver win in Miami won away to ninety
five for a three games to one lead. Aaron Gordon
leading Denver with twenty seven points on eleven out of
fifteen shooting from the field. Nikola Jokic had twenty three
points and twelve rebounds, while Bruce Brown came off the

(01:07:03):
bench to score twenty one on eight of eleven shooting
from the field. Denver's victory, however, did not dilute head
coach Mike Malone's trademark saltiness.

Speaker 11 (01:07:13):
You know, I told her, guys the first thing, I said,
we're not celebrating.

Speaker 1 (01:07:16):
It's a good win. We've we've done our.

Speaker 11 (01:07:18):
Job, but we're not celebrating hope we've done anything yet.
We know we're gonna have to go home and turn
off the TV, the radio, don't read the papers, don't
listen to everybody telling you how great you are, because
we haven't done a damn thing yet. We have to
win another game to be world champions.

Speaker 9 (01:07:33):
You've heard of Debbie Downer. Mike Malone is Denver Downer anyway?
In Major League Baseball. On Friday Night Show, Hey Otadi
of the Angels at a home run and three hits
at the plate six strikeouts in five innings on the

(01:07:53):
mound as they beat the Seattle Mariners five to four.
Cobbs broke a four game losing streak with the three
to two victory over the Giants in San Francisco. The
Padres said five home runs and a nine to six
win of Colorado. Cardinals said three home runs in a
seven to four victory over Cincinnati. Oakland one at Milwaukee
five to two. It's the aged first three game winning
streak of the season, and the Chicago White Sox got

(01:08:15):
a two to one victory over the Twins. Luis Robert
the game winning RBI single in the bottom of the
ninth inning. The White Sox have won six of seven fellas.
All yours, thank.

Speaker 2 (01:08:26):
You, I Lo.

Speaker 3 (01:08:28):
This is Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio.
At the end of your first year, Discover credit cards
automatically double all the cash back you've earned. That's right,
everything you earned doubled. Seriously see terms and check it
out for yourself at discover dot com. Slash match. I
caught some audio of the Arizona Cardinals war room. This
goes back to the draft in April, and so their

(01:08:52):
GM Monty ausen Fort Okay, he's on the phone with
the Houston Texans. They're going over parameter of a trade here, okay,
and you've got Arizona. They're on the clock and so
Manti Austin for it's like how much time we have?

Speaker 1 (01:09:08):
Six minutes left.

Speaker 3 (01:09:09):
These are like franchise altering moves. Potentially, as the Texans
are trying to move up to number three overall, they
make the deal to draft Will Anderson Junior. This is
a portion of how it sounded from the Cardinals YouTube page.
Some little behind the curtain, A sneak peak at the
war room in action.

Speaker 12 (01:09:30):
Here, okay, here's here's going to be be twelve thirty three,
one oh four, kind of twenty four first for three
straight up? All right, give me a minute, make that
twenty four to two at ninety six has got to

(01:09:51):
drop one oh five. Called him great, wow.

Speaker 1 (01:10:04):
Wow, I love the end.

Speaker 3 (01:10:06):
That's the head coach Jonathan Gannon, just saying.

Speaker 1 (01:10:09):
Wow wow to huh the music.

Speaker 3 (01:10:13):
I didn't know if like Jason up and throw an
ax at mat or what like it's mo Yeah. It
sounded like a horror movie in the background right there.
This is the question I have, and this is the
nerd in me, But as a sports fan, where would
you like to go within reason that you aren't allowed
to go?

Speaker 2 (01:10:34):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 3 (01:10:34):
Because a war room is on the short list for me,
Oh yeah, if I could be in a draft war
room and hear the conversations that will never know about
you know what I mean, the team that is just
completely irate that another team took the guy they were targeting,
and we know what happens in every single draft. I
would love to hear those trade negotiations and the stuff

(01:10:58):
that we never know. I would love to know all
those details.

Speaker 2 (01:11:01):
Yeah, I think you're right. I think I would.

Speaker 4 (01:11:05):
I would echo that sentiment, you know, especially in the NFL,
where it feels like or it is so consequential what
happens during those days. Now, it can have an effect
on your well. First of all, if you're in the
position of general manager or you're a player personnel director
and this is all you do is scout talent and

(01:11:26):
look for pieces that are going to fit the puzzle
that you're you're putting together for your franchise. I mean,
you're staking your job on getting all that right, so
the stakes couldn't be higher. And then in terms of
in terms of just the fact that you truly are
being admitted to a place where you're going to learn

(01:11:47):
how all of the inner workings, like the like who
is in charge, right, you'll find out in a draft
war room. Who has final say yeah, you'll find out
in a draft war room. How much does the head
coach know about players in personnel? You'll find out in
a draft war room. So it's to me that that
might be the holy grail because even as a player

(01:12:11):
on all these rosters, I mean, I've been involved in
conversations that obviously, you know, a lot of people don't
get exposed to, you know, meetings with offensive coordinators and
position groups and squad meetings and team meetings and all
those things. Like I was never invited to the war room,
nor should I have been. I was a player on

(01:12:32):
the team. Maybe maybe some some of the trades could
have been involving me, you know, some of the packages
like you never know, you know. So it's it's an
interesting thing that I think so few people get an
opportunity to do. I would love to be to be
able to sit in on one of those.

Speaker 5 (01:12:48):
Your value is so high, rich, it would never have
been traded.

Speaker 3 (01:12:50):
Oh yeah, right, Yes, that's how sobering would that be
to hear conversations like yeah, you can throw Ornberger into the.

Speaker 4 (01:12:57):
Well dude, Well, and that's that's The other thing is
you would find out exactly, like if your name got mentioned,
exactly how valuable you are based on what compensation you
were part of. Are you just an ad on you know?
Are you are you a feature piece of a trade?
Are you somebody who they speak about like, well, yeah,
well we could lose him, we could replace him. Or

(01:13:18):
is it one of those situations where they're you know,
you know, guarding you know, your value with with you know,
like with with an iron grip. It's you can learn
a lot in a war room. I think that's I
think that's the one place that so few people have
access to that so many would be interested to have
access to.

Speaker 6 (01:13:37):
Yeah, it's funny how the show comes full circle because
I mentioned that clip at the top with Charlie Atkins,
by the way, that's the manager of Football Analytics and
Research that was also shown in that video. He was
titled and he was kind of digesting the trade offers
and then telling the GM and the other executives if

(01:13:57):
it's a good value deal or not based off of
what they were getting back and what they were giving up.
And again it just shows how the narrative and the
behind the scenes with these teams have changed. Analytics nerds
are in charge of deciding whether or not this trade
with this pick go on here and this pick on
there has value to it.

Speaker 5 (01:14:16):
So fascinating stuff. I think the war rooms at the
top of the list.

Speaker 6 (01:14:20):
I think the selection committee with the NCAA tournament would
be at the top of my list as well. I'd
love to hear some of those conversations. But I think
because of the movie Draft Day with Kevin Costner, I
think the war room is number one because to me,
being able to pull off a trade like that. Now,
I know that movie was dramatized to the one hundred degree,
but when we see the videos from behind the scenes,

(01:14:43):
I'll be honest, they kind of resemble that conversations a
little bit. And I do think what airs I mean,
Arizona as a team is not going to be that
exciting this year. This might be the most exciting piece
of content they put out all season. But it is
cool to kind of see how the sausage is made
with the nf draft.

Speaker 1 (01:15:01):
Yeah, I wonder what's the most boring war room?

Speaker 2 (01:15:04):
You know what I mean?

Speaker 1 (01:15:04):
Like like, this is gonna be awesome on the wall
and then they.

Speaker 5 (01:15:09):
Put a dog in Belichick's seat.

Speaker 6 (01:15:10):
Remember that one time during the pandemic they put his
dog in his seat during the show.

Speaker 1 (01:15:15):
And they're just like, we'll take the guard out of
Wichita State.

Speaker 2 (01:15:20):
What am I doing here?

Speaker 10 (01:15:21):
All right?

Speaker 3 (01:15:21):
We've got Rich Ornberger, Penn State, All American, Jared Smith
FSR betting analyst. I'm Brian No coming up next. He's
now QB one kind of We'll have details for you.
It's Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:15:37):
Welcome back in.

Speaker 3 (01:15:37):
It is Fox Sports Saturday right here live from the
tyreq dot com studios. Were brought to 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 in one place. Bundling save at Progressive
dot Com. So rookie quarterback Bryce Young named QB one

(01:16:02):
by the Carolina Panthers as of right now, it's the
next step in the evolution.

Speaker 1 (01:16:10):
As we would say.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
According to head coach Frank Reich says, still got to
earn the job. He's in pencil right now, but he's
QB one taking all the first string reps or the
majority of them.

Speaker 1 (01:16:21):
Now here's the thing with this news.

Speaker 3 (01:16:23):
We go to the betting aspect here right now, Bryce
Young yardage for the season thirty five hundred and a half, right,
thirty five hundred point five. Also touchdowns for this season
twenty two and a half. What do you guys think
about that, You like the over or the under in

(01:16:44):
either of those departments.

Speaker 1 (01:16:46):
I'm thinking the over.

Speaker 4 (01:16:48):
I think that this is going to be an offense,
like many NFL offenses, that's going to feature the talents
of the quarterback. And Frank Reich's history with quarterbacks is
especially year one quarterbacks, or I should say year one quarterbacks.
With him, He's had a lot of veterans, he's had
a lot of younger quarterbacks as well, but he's got

(01:17:10):
a good track record, and so I think this is
going to be a more simplified offense this year. His
playing style is going to be different than defenses have seen.
You know, divisional opponents will get a second crack at him, obviously,
but it takes a little bit to find out a
young starting pitcher in MLB. It takes a little bit

(01:17:32):
to find out the strengths and weaknesses of a quarterback
in the NFL, and his pedigree coming from Alabama and
his makeup and his talent suggests to me that he's
one of those young quarterbacks, especially who he's paired with
in terms of his offensive coordinator and coach, who I
think could have some early gains in terms of results.

Speaker 5 (01:17:54):
Yeah, you look at their schedule.

Speaker 6 (01:17:56):
First six games, Atlanta the road, tough game to open
on the road in the division. But then you get
New Orleans at home in prime time. Their defense is good.
But then Seattle, Minnesota, Detroit, Miami. Now four of those
six games are on the road. Going to Seattle's no picnic.
Going to Detroit that offense, that feels like a high

(01:18:17):
scoring game right there. Between those two teams. And in Miami,
of course, defensively, they've had their issues too, especially in
the secondary. So I could absolutely see a soft landing
for Bryce. I will say this, Rich's prediction of seventeen
starts for Bryce Young. I'm looking at our little chart
now that Brian Nossen us.

Speaker 5 (01:18:34):
Yeah, yeah, looking pretty good.

Speaker 6 (01:18:36):
I'm at twelve, Brian's at eleven, and Rich has seventeen
for Bryce Young.

Speaker 5 (01:18:40):
So good start for you. Rich, You're gonna start game one.

Speaker 1 (01:18:43):
Right, well, yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:18:44):
I mean, and look, nothing's promised obviously injury and that
that was a conversation that came up last week when
we put this together in terms of how many starts
we think these rookies will have. That's that's a potentiality. Also,
let's face it, how many bus have we seen over
the past ten years, A lot, you.

Speaker 5 (01:19:04):
Know what, more bust than breakouts for sure.

Speaker 4 (01:19:09):
So I mean this, it's very possible that Bryce struggles
this season. I just think that it's a more stable
situation than a lot of first overall picks get to
get to if that makes sense. And that's just the
way I see it for now. That could change a
lot once the bullets are flying for real at the

(01:19:30):
NFL level, for any any quarterback or any player.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
I'll throw out Trevor Lawrence, Jags quarterback. Now, the key
thing that you mentioned there, Rich, is a more stable
environment like urban Meyer in the NFL not so stable,
not so stable. But Trevor Lawrence threw for just over
thirty six hundred yards his rookie season, threw for twelve touchdowns,

(01:19:54):
that was it, and he played all seventeen games. So
if he's barely getting over thirty five, one hundred playing
all seventeen. I don't see that. For Bryce Young, I
would take the under. I would take the under myself.

Speaker 2 (01:20:05):
All right.

Speaker 3 (01:20:06):
Coming up next, which free agent will make the bigger impact?
Two big names on the loose. Who will make the
bigger impact? We will dive into that. We're broadcasting live
from the tirack dot com studios. Tirack dot com will
help get you there an unmatched selection, fast, free shipping,
free road hazard protection, over ten thousand recommended installers tirack

(01:20:28):
dot com the way tire buying should be. Okay, So
DeAndre Hopkins wide receiver, he's a free agent running back.
Dalvin Cook formerly the Vikings free agent was released on Friday.
Who will make the bigger impact? Okay, So let's look
at the tail of the tape here, gents, if we will,

(01:20:51):
I'm looking at the first part of this. It's obviously
where they land that makes a big difference. If let's
take DeAndre Hopkins, if he goes to the Chiefs somehow someway,
they do some cap gymnastics and make it work. When
you're on the team with the best quarterback in the league,
that makes a huge difference compared to another squad where

(01:21:12):
if he went to Baltimore and he's playing alongside the
most overrated player in the league right now in Lamar Jackson,
so far a cry from Patrick Mahomes. So it depends
where they land. But generally speaking, I think it's Dalvin Cook.
If you look at Dalvin Cook over thirteen hundred yards
from scrimmage in each of the past four seasons, He's

(01:21:35):
going into year seven, DeAndre Hopkins Hopkins going into year eleven.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
And then you also think about availability.

Speaker 3 (01:21:43):
If you look at d hop he's only played nineteen
games over the past two years. Think about that they
play seventeen games a season. He's played nineteen over two years,
had a ped suspension last season. You normally dive into
the peds when you lost a step. He's been injury prone.
I'm not telling you as a dud. I'm just looking

(01:22:04):
at Dalvin. He's probably gonna be more productive and he's cheaper.
I would guess that Dalvin probably signs for half of
what DeAndre Hopkins is going to sign for. So when
you're looking at bigger impact, if I'm potentially getting better production,
better numbers for the guy for half the price, I

(01:22:26):
think it's Dalvin Cook all day.

Speaker 4 (01:22:28):
This reminds me of those commercials with the Fox that
jumps on screen and he's he's talking about the used cars.

Speaker 1 (01:22:35):
He's like, show me the facts, Carfax.

Speaker 4 (01:22:38):
It's really it's really one of those things where where
you're comparing two very different players from this standpoint, Like
if you're looking for a used car and it's for
a specific need, like you're it's a work truck that
you're really searching for, but maybe a minivan will do.

(01:22:59):
All of a sudden, you start going, okay, well, we
got to obviously break this down the price. We gotta
break this down to you know, the history on these vehicles,
and really how much I can get done with both
of them. Like DeAndre Hopkins is the work truck you're
looking for, but maybe he's too pricey. And you mentioned
those injuries in those suspensions. You're like, gosh, I mean

(01:23:19):
we're a little dinged up on the front end there,
and also somebody poured sugar in the gas tank so
it just wasn't clean for a little while there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:28):
Ah.

Speaker 4 (01:23:29):
But then you know you look at the other side
and you're like, well this mini van, Dalvin Cook, Well,
Dalvin's he's really reliable and he's cheaper, but it's not
exactly what I'm looking for. Doesn't have storage space. Yeah,
but it'd be nice if I could put like a
full refrigerator in the bed of the truck, like DeAndre
over there.

Speaker 2 (01:23:47):
What am I gonna do here? Like it?

Speaker 4 (01:23:50):
I mean, they serve two very different purposes, so it's
so difficult to compare. But at the same token, I'm
right there with you. Show me the carfax, tell me
about the injury history, tell me about the availability. Tell
me about whether I'm gonna wake up in the morning
on a frigid morning and the battery's gonna be dead,
or if I'm gonna be reliably getting from point A

(01:24:12):
to point B. And yeah, maybe my work friends will
tease me because I'm showing up to a construction site
in an astro van, But so what I mean if
it's if it's capable and it's reliable, I think I'm
gonna get more done offensively.

Speaker 2 (01:24:26):
With Dalvin Cook.

Speaker 1 (01:24:27):
I agree with you.

Speaker 6 (01:24:29):
I think the bang for your buck makes a whole
lot of sense with Dalvin Cook. But it's just it
boggles my mind where we are with the NFL that
these types of players are just on the open market,
floating around, and I think if you ask me which
player has a better twenty twenty three season, I probably

(01:24:51):
would lean Dalvin Cook. But I think the fit matters
a lot with de Andre Hopkins, and I think for
a wide receiver it matters a lot who your quarterback is,
whereas in the running back world that doesn't matter as much.
I guess it does a little bit because the defenses
can shade right. But I think in the running back
world it is so much more dependent on your offensive

(01:25:12):
line that the quarterback.

Speaker 5 (01:25:15):
You can have a good running back. I mean, look
at Derek Henry.

Speaker 6 (01:25:17):
You gonna have a really good running back season and
a bad quarterback season. Very hard to have a good
wide receiver season with a bad quarterback season. So I
think the duo and the combination the battery matters a
lot more with DeAndre Hopkins than it does with Dalvin Cook.
You could probably plug Dalvin Cook to a lot of
teams and he has a very similar productive season like

(01:25:39):
he had last year. I don't know if that's the
same with DeAndre Hopkins, so there's some nuance there, but yeah,
the bang.

Speaker 5 (01:25:45):
For your buck with Cook is gonna be significantly more.

Speaker 6 (01:25:48):
You're probably gonna score more touchdowns and pay less money
per touchdown with Dalvin Cook than you will with DeAndre Hopkins.

Speaker 3 (01:25:54):
I love the tweet that DeAndre Hopkins just put out
where he was responding to the original morning tweet. It
was yesterday, but the original tweet complimented him, and the
guy just wrote that Hopkins ranked second at beating man coverage.
He earned ten point seven targets per game, he was

(01:26:15):
eighth best at earning targets per route run. And then
he says this shows he had no drop off in
his ability to get open, and Hopkins just responded, sh
I'm old and can't get open. It's like that's what
it sounds like mostly from people talking about DeAndre Hopkins.
I just I know that he's not the same dynamic

(01:26:37):
player he once was. I still think he can be
an asset. I just think that Dalvin Cook provides more value.
And that's what's so funny is we look at the
running back position and say it's been devalued, YadA, YadA, YadA.
The market certainly has what these guys make certainly has
been devalued. But the conversation shifts when all of the sudden,

(01:27:00):
you say, Okay, who's going to be more productive in
twenty twenty three? Is it Dalvin Cook, this running back,
or is it this wide receiver? Like UH wide receiver? Right, Like,
the market is much better than running backs. OBJ just
got fifteen million. Beckham Junior's coming off as second ACL.

(01:27:20):
There's no way Dalvin Cook is getting fifteen million. So
it's apples and oranges in terms of market value. But
when you're talking production, it is interesting how quickly the
conversation shifts and now all of a sudden, we're team Cook.

Speaker 1 (01:27:35):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 3 (01:27:36):
Don't confuse market and what you're making with actual impact
and percentage of carries rushes. It matters, and so that
part of it has not been devalued.

Speaker 1 (01:27:48):
With running backs, well there is.

Speaker 4 (01:27:51):
There is a huge difference though, and how much you
can get done and how fast. Like a thousand yard
receiver looks very different than a thousand yard running back
because typically a thousand yard running back requires two hundred
plus carries to get there, and typically a receiver with
over one thousand yards I mean sometimes that's eighty six catches.

(01:28:14):
So think about the chunk plays we're talking about you know,
instead of you know, four yards per carry or five
yards per carry being an exceptional season for a running
back in the run game, I mean fifteen yards per reception.
Sixteen seventeen yards per reception is an exceptional year for

(01:28:35):
a wide receiver in the passing game. So it's just
a way more explosive way to exploit defenses when we're
comparing a Pro Bowl season from a receiver versus a
Pro Bowl season from a running back. Is there still
room in the NFL for a run game and a
reason to harvest talent in free agency or in the

(01:28:56):
draft or in trade. Oh yeah, like that continue used
to be the case. And unless they really really change
the rules in the NFL to benefit the passing game,
I feel like it'll always be a part of the game.
But going back to the comparison I made, if you're
looking for a work truck and you buy a minivan,

(01:29:16):
there are gonna be things that your work truck could
do that your minivan can't. You know, It's it's like
Dalvin Cook is only going to be as helpful in
the passing game as a running back can possibly be.
If DeAndre Hopkins comes back healthy and he has a
you know, one of his better seasons, so twelve hundred

(01:29:37):
yard season, a fifteen hundred yard season like we've seen
in the past from him, which is unlikely. But if
and if Dalvin Cook replicates his best season, you would
you'd rather have DeAndre Hopkins because it's going to be
more impactful on your season in total.

Speaker 5 (01:29:54):
Yeah, I agree.

Speaker 6 (01:29:56):
I think I think this debates a little harder because
they play different positions. I think that makes it a
little bit more difficult to gauge. And these positions, again,
are valued so differently in the NFL today that when
you look at what Hopkins is right now, it is core.

Speaker 5 (01:30:11):
I think there's a lot of teams like, let's just
leave it at this.

Speaker 6 (01:30:16):
I'm I'm more surprised that Hopkins got released than Dalvin Cook,
right And and that's I always kind of make this
distinction when when I'm worried about when I'm trying to
grade other teams in what they do, I try to
look at it from I would I would or would
not have done that. I might have released Dalvin Cook

(01:30:38):
because I understand where the NFL situation is right now
with running backs. The Hopkins situation really puzzled me because
receivers are valued so highly today and the great ones
are such a they're so few and far between, and
Hopkins is a great one. Say what you want about
the current state of his career and where he is
back nine, front nine, he is a great receiver. But

(01:31:02):
to let him walk and to release him at the
time that they did was so surprising to me. That's
why I think he might have more value to a
team at some point, and he will.

Speaker 5 (01:31:13):
He will get paid more than Dalvin Cook, I'm pretty
sure that.

Speaker 6 (01:31:16):
But that's where I think the value question gets muddied
a little bit because if you just look at the
counting stats, Dalvin Cook can have a better season, He's
probably gonna have more yards, more touchdowns, et cetera. But
a lot of teams are gonna value Hopkins more because
of the impact that he can bring to the secondary,
you know, having to force coverages to move away from

(01:31:38):
a certain guy. The just the overall force that he
brings to a lineup I think also is very valuable.
So this is a very interesting conversation because these are
two elite offensive players that play different positions that are
you know, a little bit different in age, but still
I think Hopkins at an age where you can still
contribute Cook being of course younger, but because of just

(01:32:00):
the positional value gap between what they do on the field,
it's really a hard conversation to have.

Speaker 3 (01:32:07):
I just think it's interesting because more times than not
the conversation you'll hear people say when it comes to
the NFL Draft, I would not draft a running back
in the first round, just would never ever do it.

Speaker 1 (01:32:19):
There are a lot of people who think that way.

Speaker 3 (01:32:21):
And then you'll yeah, you'll get a ball, You'll get
Jon Robinson. Yeah, they both went in the top twelve,
Bijon and Jamier Gibbs, and the first wide receiver went
twentieth overall. That's Jackson Smith and Jigma to the Seahawks.
So it's just weird, like you'll typically get ah screwed

(01:32:43):
running back down man, you dime a dozen BA and
then all of a sudden you get a curveball and
it's like, whoa top ten?

Speaker 1 (01:32:48):
Whoa twelfth overall? And they traded to get that guy.

Speaker 3 (01:32:51):
So it's just funny how some of those curveballs they
are the outliers.

Speaker 1 (01:32:56):
There's no doubt about that.

Speaker 3 (01:32:58):
But I still think it comes back to you don't
I sound like a broken record, But don't confuse market
what these guys make financially with how much they're asked
to do. Right, if you're carrying the ball three hundred times,
like you aren't devalued in terms of percentage that you

(01:33:20):
have within that offense. And I think we're just looking
at the market instead of the chunk that you have
and what you're asked to do within an offense. Like
Dereck Henry is not going to be making as much
as a wide receiver, not even close. The guy had
three hundred and forty nine carries last year. That that's
a huge workload. So I just separate. It's like church

(01:33:43):
and state. I separate market from workload. They are not
the same thing in my eyes.

Speaker 4 (01:33:49):
All yeah, I mean I get it, and I know
where you're coming from. But like the the level of
production from other positions around on the offense, like for example,
an offensive guard, you know, I mean they're on the
field for a thousand plays a season, maybe more. You know,
if he's your game one starter to game seventeen starter.

(01:34:12):
But if he gets hurt and you have a backup
who's competent, you're gonna You're not gonna really miss that
guard unless he's like maybe a Pro Bowl All Pro
player who's just such a lynchpin in the sweep game,
like pulling out there and mowing down cornerbacks on run plays.
And you are the Tennessee Titans who feature the run.
I mean maybe, but let's face it, like the guard,

(01:34:36):
the offensive guard, your right guard is relatively inconsequential when
you compare him to a running back or when you
compare him to a wide receiver, And I think there's
a bigger gap growing. Now, who do I think is
going to have the better season more likely next season,
Dalvin Cook or DeAndre Hopkins. Dalvin Cook, in my mind,
is going to have the better season, and I think

(01:34:57):
that's dependent on where he signs, where Deanonda Hopkins signs.
But that's just where I'm at two day, looking at
their past two years as examples of what to project
moving forward. And so I agree with you there that
to me, he's the better option. But it's not because
he's going to get the most touches. Because again going
back to that offensive guard, he's going to be on

(01:35:18):
the field more than DeAndre or Dalvin, but he's not
as consequential. So DeAndre Hopkins in terms of if he
has a great season, how he can change a game
in a moment's notice. I mean his value should be
higher because wide receivers, in the way they've opened up
the NFL with the new rules in the passing game,

(01:35:39):
are they benefit your offense in ways that running backs
just they can't. They frankly never could and never will
be able to again because of these rule changes.

Speaker 6 (01:35:51):
Yeah, the wide receiver position in the NFL, I mean
it's so wild because you know, we play fantasy football
a lot, and that's where a lot of the gambling
stuff was birth. And you just know these guys' names
and you know so much more about them than you
do the cornerbacks or the defensive players, or you know,
the kickers or the punters or anything like that. Like,
the wide receiver position, because of the current state of

(01:36:14):
the NFL, is the most talked about, one of the
most other than I would say quarterback, the most talked
about position amongst gamblers, fans, etc.

Speaker 5 (01:36:22):
Etc. Casual fans.

Speaker 6 (01:36:24):
The running back position still gets the flies, it still
gets a lot of attention, but I would say they're
more dime a dozen and that's where that's.

Speaker 5 (01:36:33):
The current state of this. Like, I'm curious if you
if you play, I don't have the numbers in front
of me. I should have pulled them up.

Speaker 6 (01:36:38):
The above replacement numbers for TRIST for Dalvin Cook compared
to DeAndre.

Speaker 5 (01:36:43):
Hopkins, and I'm curious if.

Speaker 6 (01:36:46):
If Dalvin's numbers above the replacement level running back are
that much higher. If I had to guess, I would
say Hopkins has better war right wins above replacement than
Dalvin Cook over the years.

Speaker 5 (01:36:58):
But that's just a guess. I don't all that for sure.
But to me, I think Dalvin Cook's numbers.

Speaker 6 (01:37:06):
I reserved the right to change my opinion when I
find out what teams they play for.

Speaker 5 (01:37:10):
Let's just leave it at that.

Speaker 3 (01:37:11):
Yeah, that matters, It absolutely matters. Okay, We've got Rich Ornberger,
the Penn State All American. He's a master on the
grill and he wears tight T shirts. Yeah, We've got
Jared Smith FSR, betting analyst. He's a fine man. Has
a dog named Jackpot.

Speaker 5 (01:37:28):
Oh, thank you for that.

Speaker 3 (01:37:30):
Shout out to Jackpott. I'm Brian right now.

Speaker 6 (01:37:32):
Is clearly my arguments about Dalvin cooking DeAndre Hopkins are
not that invigorating for him.

Speaker 1 (01:37:39):
Game four wore them out.

Speaker 5 (01:37:41):
Yeah, it's totally totally too much winning last night.

Speaker 3 (01:37:43):
There's a sweat there where the Nuggets gonna get to
over one O seven.

Speaker 1 (01:37:49):
Got there? Very good, plain sweep for you, very nice?

Speaker 2 (01:37:53):
All right?

Speaker 3 (01:37:53):
Coming up next? Do you also find this announcement to
be weird? It is Fox Sports Saturday right here on
five Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:38:01):
Welcome back in.

Speaker 3 (01:38:01):
It's Fox Sports Saturday Live from the Tyraq dot com studios.
At the end of your first year, Discover credit cards
automatically double all the cash back you've earned. That's right,
everything you earned doubled. Seriously see terms and check it
out for yourself at discover dot com slash match. Okay,
so on Thursday, the Big Ten announced it's twenty twenty

(01:38:23):
four and twenty twenty five college football schedules, which I
find to be incredibly weird. We're talking about schedules in
twenty twenty five, Like really, this would be like announcing
if this were the NFL, the NFL announcing hey, in
twenty twenty five, the Chiefs are gonna play the Dolphins,

(01:38:44):
and you'd be like, uh, okay, cool. Can can we
focus on twenty twenty three. Right now, I don't know.
But anyway, the Big Ten they announced the schedules for
next year and the following year in twenty five. You
will see next year USC at Michigan, Ohio State at UCLA.

(01:39:08):
They're keeping nine conference games next year, no divisions, which
I like, you're not going to see, you know, some
Big Ten East team play some some four loss team
from the West or something like. It's gonna be the
two top teams in the championship game of the Big Ten.
I think that makes a lot of sense that will

(01:39:29):
happen next year. But the announcement kind of weird to me.
How do you guys feel about that? Strange to you
as well?

Speaker 4 (01:39:35):
Yeah, it's strange. I mean, look, they're trying to obviously
get a little buzz going because because of the additions
that will be arriving in twenty twenty four and twenty
twenty five, and it just sort of cements what we
know about sports. It's really not whether or not you

(01:39:56):
have the best, or you have the brightest, or or
the or frankly, even even the talent. You just need
the attention. Like we're we're living in an attention economy,
and I sort of feel like, you know, all of
the college football news has been about, well, what's gonna

(01:40:16):
happen with the PAC twelve, and everybody's waiting to see
what the broadcast rights look like, and you know, are
they going to merge with another conference or you know,
are they going to add more teams? You know when
that when's that announcement coming? And and these conferences the
SEC needs no help. They they they realize like, oh geez,

(01:40:37):
you know, look, look at the watch. It's been months
since anybody's talked about the Big ten. Let's put something together.
The most important thing I think in the whole press
release on Thursday was the fact that the conference also
announced the flex Protect plus model that's gonna give schools
the ability to have three you protected annual rivalries. So

(01:41:03):
the conference will also continue with the nine game schedule
featuring a rotation of conference opponents on a two year basis,
but you'll be able to protect three of the rivalries.
And so that's going to be important obviously to an
Ohio State Michigan or you know, the Michigan Michigan State rivalry.
If it's important enough to both sides that they continue

(01:41:25):
doing things like that because rivalries when you add so
many teams to these conferences and you have these giant
super conferences, now they can start falling by the wayside
if you don't have them every single year like you
normally do.

Speaker 6 (01:41:42):
I've already purchased my tickets for Penn State at USC
in twenty twenty five.

Speaker 1 (01:41:48):
Are they heading out there?

Speaker 6 (01:41:49):
I'm already, Rich and I We're gonna tailgate, right Rich,
all day. We'll do the show in the morning. Maybe
hopefully we'll from the.

Speaker 2 (01:41:55):
Parking lot most lightly.

Speaker 4 (01:41:57):
Yeah, the Rose Bull out there or or where where
is this one?

Speaker 6 (01:42:01):
Is this on USC's campus. I'm assuming it'll be. I mean,
if you have Penn State in town, you better be
playing at the Rose Bowl. But speaking of Penn State
and not to you know, completely gravitate the conversation around
our alma mater. But the one thing I do find
very interesting with those because Rich, you mentioned that the
two play opponents. Penn State is the only team in

(01:42:21):
the Big Ten that does not have a protected opponent
going crazy. Yeah, it's very unique, and my friends and
I were going back and forth about it in our
Penn State group chat a couple of days ago in
this drop.

Speaker 5 (01:42:35):
I don't know.

Speaker 1 (01:42:37):
Is it a lion like Ara?

Speaker 5 (01:42:38):
No, it's I wish that would be cool though, I should,
we should, we should set that up. Man, we can
get one of those custom group chats if you.

Speaker 3 (01:42:48):
If you have a born state, you can't do cool
stuff like that. Yeah, fair enough.

Speaker 6 (01:42:54):
It was interesting to me because, let's be honest, I
think if you asked me of the teams that are
in the Big Ten that every team wants to play
because of for notoriety reasons, I put Penn State near
the top of the list.

Speaker 5 (01:43:07):
Right.

Speaker 6 (01:43:08):
Maybe I don't say Michigan or one too, but I
put Penn State very close to that. So I did
find it interesting. And maybe it's because they were a
relative newcomer to the Big Ten when they were forming
in the early nineties, right, and they didn't get a
natural rival. I think Penn State's only true rival is
Michigan State for the land Grant trophy. Like, I'm okay

(01:43:29):
with that. Going to the wayside, that trophy is a monstrosity.
Although Rich, I know when you guys wanted it was probably.

Speaker 5 (01:43:34):
Your favorite piece of hardware that particular way, Yes, but.

Speaker 6 (01:43:37):
Important to the trophy case over there the I mean
that thing looks like that is that is the ugliest
tropey I think every scene in my life.

Speaker 5 (01:43:46):
But so so that rivalry is going away.

Speaker 6 (01:43:49):
I use rivalry and air quotes Penn State Rutgers like
sure regional. You know, I know Penn State has a
lot of you know, New Jersey recruiting ties, but that's
not a rivalry. It is interesting that of all the
schools in the Big Ten, Penn State no natural rivals,
no protected opponents. They're kind of the freelance of the

(01:44:09):
Big Ten going forward.

Speaker 1 (01:44:11):
Yeah, like you're saying, Jared.

Speaker 3 (01:44:13):
So each team in the Big Ten they'll play three
other teams in both twenty twenty four and twenty twenty five.
So these are sort of the quote unquote rivalry games, right,
And so I find it interesting who UCLA and USC
get because they're new members of the Big Ten starting
next year, and so USC they obviously get Ucla and

(01:44:36):
they're like, ah, we'll give them Wisconsin and Penn State.

Speaker 5 (01:44:40):
I like those matchups.

Speaker 6 (01:44:41):
Those really like the Pentstate USC matchup. Man, that game
and Happy Valley is gonna be lit.

Speaker 1 (01:44:45):
How about Ucla?

Speaker 3 (01:44:47):
Ucla, they'll play three teams in twenty four and twenty five,
it's USC, Nebraska and Rutgers.

Speaker 1 (01:44:55):
They're like, Eh, we give him Rutgers both years? Why not?
I don't know what else are we going to do?
Just the thought process behind that is interesting.

Speaker 4 (01:45:04):
I'm having such a hard time, though, getting excited about
something that's still a full season.

Speaker 6 (01:45:11):
We get two more full seasons rich before we get
to go to Pasadena and watch Penn State play.

Speaker 3 (01:45:17):
It is so weird, really it is. It's like, you know,
UCLA and USC are still dating the pac twelve. Yeah,
and yet they're forecasting and making all these plans for
their next girlfriend while they're still dating their current one.

Speaker 1 (01:45:32):
It's so weird.

Speaker 2 (01:45:34):
So weird, I will say it is.

Speaker 4 (01:45:36):
It's to both of your points, like, it's weird that
we're we're doing this now. But at the same token,
it's awesome to imagine, for whatever reason, Ohio State at
the Rose Ball playing the Bruins. It's it's it's incredible
to think about, you know, Penn State at the Coliseum
playing the Trojans like that.

Speaker 2 (01:45:57):
It's weird.

Speaker 4 (01:45:58):
It's it's stuff that, it's stuff that you don't see
very often in college football, and I didn't think at
first I'd like it. I didn't think at first I
would be on board with it, like making now these
really strange geographical alliances where you have this southwestern corner

(01:46:18):
of the United States linking up with what used to
be kind of a Midwest powerhouse house conference. But the
more I don't know, the more weird sports gets and
realignment gets. Anyways, if you're gonna do it, it sort
of feels like, the more I think about it, these
two brands kind of fit with the.

Speaker 1 (01:46:38):
Big Ten because the Big Ten's also changed.

Speaker 4 (01:46:41):
It's it's no longer you know the offensive line running
back factory it used to be. It's starting to catch
up with the skill of the SEC and the ACC
now frankly, and it's it's becoming what college football is
being known for, which is producing these high flying offenses.

(01:47:01):
And Ohio State is sort of leading the charge there,
but not close behind are some of the other top
Big Ten schools and soon to be UCLA and USC.
But but yeah, like when we start going down schedule items,
I'm just like, I don't even I don't even know,
Like I couldn't tell you who the US he opens
with next season, let alone who they open with in

(01:47:22):
twenty twenty four.

Speaker 1 (01:47:23):
Well, you talk about it.

Speaker 5 (01:47:24):
I think the melting pot of college football is here. Guys.

Speaker 6 (01:47:27):
The SEC is not a defensive league anymore either. Like,
just give me the top teams. I don't care about
the conferences or where they have to travel. Just give
me the top teams playing each other every year. That's
all I want to see.

Speaker 3 (01:47:36):
Well, the top of our top team would be one
Isaac lowen Kron.

Speaker 1 (01:47:40):
You talk about leading a.

Speaker 3 (01:47:43):
High level offense, pulling the shots, making it run like
a well oiled machine.

Speaker 1 (01:47:48):
That would be one I low I forget.

Speaker 9 (01:47:52):
And especially in a few moments, because speaking of college sports,
I've got a college baseball item coming up for you,
fellows that have been able to stop laughing at first
Up though Game four the NBA Finals Friday night. It
saw Denver win in Miami one away to ninety five
for a three games to one lead. Aaron Gordon leading
Denver with twenty seven on eleven to fifteen shooting from

(01:48:13):
the field, Nikola Jokic twenty three points and twelve rebounds,
Bruce Brown off the bench with twenty one on eight
of eleven shooting, and Major League Baseball on Friday night
the Angels defeated Seattle five to four, show hey Otani
a home run and three hits at the plate six
strikeouts in five innings on the mound. Cubbs broke a
four game losing streak with a three to two victory

(01:48:34):
over the Giants in San Francisco, and the Padres hit
five home runs in a nine to six win at Colorado,
helping you Darvish earn the one hundredth win of his career.
The Waukees have lost five straight and nine of their
last eleven. Now College Baseball's best of three Super Regionals
are taking place this weekend. One of the most passionate
matchups is Southern miss hosting Tennessee, and you won't believe why.

(01:49:00):
In the build up to the series, visiting Tennessee fans
started complaining on social media because Hattiesburg, the city where
Southern Myss is located, does not have an Apple Bee's.

Speaker 5 (01:49:15):
A.

Speaker 9 (01:49:16):
It's caused a frenzied response on social media by Southern
Myss fans, including the official account of the City of
Hattiesburg tweeting our thriving economy is home to more than
two hundred local restaurants. Granted, it may not be the
Bourbon Street steak and Oreo shake you love shrug emoji.

(01:49:38):
So who would have thought that the rivalry for a
trip to the College World Series has been taken to
a new level because of apple Bees or lack thereof,
fellas back to you good stuff?

Speaker 1 (01:49:52):
I low, people don't believe me. I love apple Bee's.

Speaker 5 (01:49:56):
Yeah, what's part of the common chiefs?

Speaker 1 (01:49:57):
It's fay.

Speaker 9 (01:49:58):
You might as well start singing Rocky Top after saying that.

Speaker 2 (01:50:01):
So good? So I don't know what they're appetizer trios.

Speaker 3 (01:50:06):
You know what I feel like Applebee's is a bit
like the nickelback of the food.

Speaker 5 (01:50:11):
World boy, where it's just start to open up a
can of work.

Speaker 3 (01:50:14):
I'm just telling you it's just fashionable to talk smack
about bold And the difference is Applebee's actually a good nickelback?

Speaker 5 (01:50:23):
Is not?

Speaker 3 (01:50:23):
But it's just fashionable to be like Applebee's sucks.

Speaker 1 (01:50:27):
It's a good mid chain restaurant. What's wrong with Applebee's?
Nothing like they're monceats, big fan of their ribs?

Speaker 4 (01:50:35):
Yeah no, I mean I look, but this is also
coming from a guy who doesn't mind a little nickelback.

Speaker 5 (01:50:41):
Look at it? Low the ground, Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:50:44):
I don't mind.

Speaker 5 (01:50:45):
Let's go.

Speaker 4 (01:50:45):
As a matter of fact, if I'm at Applebee's and
they're playing nickelback, oh that's the elite, not in.

Speaker 2 (01:50:53):
A bad place.

Speaker 3 (01:50:54):
Did you ever see This is a long time ago,
but did you ever see how Kenny Maine used to
do those like silly things. It's kind of like Kenny
Maine shorts when Yeah and he had Marshaw and Lynch
go to an Applebee's. Oh, it's just hysterical, man, it
was very funny.

Speaker 4 (01:51:15):
Man enjoying a chicken fajita roll up and uh, just
some good company. Maybe finish it off with a triple
chocolate meltdown.

Speaker 3 (01:51:23):
I am now on their menu with you gotta go
with the Uh. I forget what their cookie is? A
blondie I think is what it's called blondie.

Speaker 4 (01:51:33):
Well, they are no longer on the menu, at least
on their their corporate website, but the brownie bite with
the scoop of vanilla is there in the new Cinnabon
Mini Swirl.

Speaker 2 (01:51:41):
Listen, I'm I'm gonna.

Speaker 4 (01:51:43):
Have to run you guys, yeah, right in line outside.

Speaker 5 (01:51:47):
Thanks for making the next three hours of awesome.

Speaker 3 (01:51:51):
Tailgate until it opens here on the West Coast. All right,
we've got Rich Orenberger, Penn State All American. Jared Smith
is with us as well. Fsrding analyst, I'm Brian No.
Coming up next, we'll get you some gambling picks and
also we've received some critical feedback due to an outside
the box slash crazy idea. We'll give you details coming up.

(01:52:15):
It is Fox Sports Saturday right here on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:52:19):
Throws it to Joe for picking Pop three.

Speaker 13 (01:52:21):
God had a seven point lead for Denver forty four
to thirty.

Speaker 1 (01:52:26):
Seven in the basketball game.

Speaker 13 (01:52:29):
The Denver Nuggets are gonna win game number four and
take a d Sison three games to one lead in
the NBA Finals. We're coming back to the Mile High
City Baby Final tonight from Miami one eight to ninety five.

Speaker 3 (01:52:50):
Welcome back in It's Fox Sports Saturday Live from the
tyrack dot Com Studios. That was the Progressive Play of
the Day, brought to you by a 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 in one place. Bundle and save at Progressive

(01:53:11):
dot Com. That was on Altitude Radio Network as Denver
is up three to one in the NBA Finals against
the Heat have a chance to close it out in
Game five on Sunday. Hey, props to the crew Bo Benson,
our trusted producer, Iowa Sam technical producer at Stordinaire and

(01:53:31):
Isaac Loewenkron on the updates top the hour, up on
game LaVar Arrington, TJ Hushman, Zada, Plexico, Burris. Make sure
you keep it locked here on FSR and get all
the goodness at the top of the hour. Okay, So
we've gotten some critical feedback here. Okay, critical feedback. This
is directed most notably at you, Rich and your your

(01:53:55):
idea to let NFL players gamble on NFL games. Fernando
checked in and said, is this a real conversation? I
know Rich and Jared just have ideas, but this is
crazy slash naive. It's not even the players we'd have
to worry about, but every shady character who'd become involved

(01:54:15):
in ruin whatever good intention there may be.

Speaker 1 (01:54:19):
How do you respond to that, mister rich Hornberger.

Speaker 4 (01:54:21):
Well, what we were talking about, and I'll reiterate the
point is players or staff being able to bet on
their own team. Like if there was a process where I,
you know, John Doe football player, you know, during the
course of my NFL career, had to place any or

(01:54:42):
all bets before a certain point in the week on
my team or our success. Now, I'm not talking about
player props, I'm not talking about I'm not talking about
anything any exotic bets. I'm talking about simply betting the spread,
just saying, guess what, we are ten point underdogs on

(01:55:05):
the road in Miami this week. I'm taking us and
I'm going to take that to the bank with fifty
thousand dollars, you know what I mean. And I'm doing
it with my app gambling partner BETTBM or fan du
or or whatever. Right you know, that to me is
something that players should have the availability to do for

(01:55:28):
advertising purposes. And if you're just betting on your team
to win, isn't that what we're doing every week? Anyways,
Like I'm putting in the effort, I'm staking my reputation,
I'm staking my career on the fact that I think
I'm better than you. So I don't understand why there's
such a taboo around the subject, especially when the NFL

(01:55:51):
corporate We're the first open the doors. The owners welcome
this in, and now they're trying to forbid players from
having any sort of participation or monetary game.

Speaker 6 (01:56:03):
For the record, I am against players gambling. I am
not against players getting opportunities to partner with gambling companies
if it means there's lucrative sponsorship investments available. I am
against a player opening up his account and dropping one
hundred thousand dollars on a team to win X, even

(01:56:23):
if it is his team. But I think they're because
of how mainstream this is becoming.

Speaker 5 (01:56:30):
Let's be honest.

Speaker 6 (01:56:31):
I see Wayne Gretzky on my TV every day talking
about bet MGM NAHL deals, and I know he's not
a current player. I understand that, but I don't see
a huge gap between that and Dak Prescott promoting bet MGM.
To me, that that that I think is a gray
area that I'm okay with with entering. I'm not okay
with entering the gray area of players actually wagering their

(01:56:53):
money on their team to win. I understand the reasoning
behind it, Rich and I agree with your reasoning, but
I think that is a Pandora's box that is too
delicate to open.

Speaker 3 (01:57:04):
Way too delicate and that's the thing is if you
bet on your team to say, win the Super Bowl, well,
what if you're traded now all of a sudden.

Speaker 1 (01:57:12):
You good point.

Speaker 5 (01:57:13):
That is a very good point.

Speaker 2 (01:57:15):
That's a really good point.

Speaker 5 (01:57:16):
I hope Dak Prescott never gets traded, but that's a
good point.

Speaker 1 (01:57:18):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:57:19):
But again, like what what difference will make? It's a
future's bet. It's not like it, you know what I mean.
It's like, yeah, you may have had information on what
you guys were going to do at the beginning of
the season to help you feel secure and making that bet,
but I mean, getting traded to me doesn't change the morality.

Speaker 6 (01:57:38):
It feels like optics though I think that's the only
thing about it. It's optics, Like there's nothing anything structurally
wrong with it.

Speaker 5 (01:57:45):
It's just how it appears to the public.

Speaker 4 (01:57:47):
And you know what, and in a very puritanical way,
that was the argument against sports betting being involved with You.

Speaker 5 (01:57:54):
Totally agree, which is the irony with all of this.

Speaker 4 (01:57:56):
So point, this conversation may sound very foolish ten years
from now when players are like, join me, Patrick Mahomes
with my sportsbook partner, as I wager to beat the
you know, the New York Jets next week, you know,
like it's I'm telling you it's coming, and as a

(01:58:17):
result of it, we'll look back on very similar to
how we do marijuana suspensions and say, wasn't it silly
when we got mad at players.

Speaker 5 (01:58:24):
From anymore in the NBA? Which is ironic about all of.

Speaker 1 (01:58:27):
It not worth it.

Speaker 3 (01:58:28):
I don't think that day's ever coming for the NFL.
I just don't think they benefit from that.

Speaker 1 (01:58:32):
I don't.

Speaker 3 (01:58:33):
I think there's far more because it's gonna plant the
seed for a guy to say, hey, I can make
some money betting on my team, but what could I
make if I bet it against my day?

Speaker 1 (01:58:42):
It's just not worth it.

Speaker 6 (01:58:43):
It's an interesting Pandora's box and it's a really good conversation,
but I think it's something that the NFL can't really
take seriously.

Speaker 1 (01:58:50):
You can't do it, can't throw it.

Speaker 3 (01:58:52):
Like Mike Singletary one say, okay, rapid fire twenty four
second shot clock for each of us.

Speaker 1 (01:58:56):
What do you have this weekend? Betting wise, Jared.

Speaker 5 (01:58:59):
I like Vegas tonight to beat Florida.

Speaker 6 (01:59:02):
I think the line's telling me that the Golden Knights
are the right side Tonight I think they win tonight.
I think they win the series next week here in Vegas.
And I got some nerfies for you, White Sox Marlins
Nerfy and then Astros Guardians Nurfy.

Speaker 5 (01:59:15):
So that's no run, no run, first ning first games
or today.

Speaker 4 (01:59:19):
Okay, okay, okay, I'll give you a baseball one. Padre
is gonna reset against the Colorado Rockies after a big
win yesterday nine to six over the Rockies. The Padres
over the past eleven games have followed nearly every big
run performance with a one run game.

Speaker 2 (01:59:37):
So I'm taking the under on the twelve and a
half total runs.

Speaker 3 (01:59:40):
Sunday Love Jokicic's rebounding prop take the over. It got
in fouled trouble last night ended on twelve. I'm telling
you it's cashing. Love that thirteen rebounds, run to the
betting window and cash in