Alex Curry & Carmen Vitali Talk NFL Scouting Combine, Stafford's New Contract & More!

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
You're listening to Fox Sports.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Welcome to Fox Sports Saturday. I'm Alex Curry here with
Carmen Vitali. Thank you for spending your Saturday afternoon with CARMEI.
I mean, we are so bad.

Speaker 3 (00:12):
It's been a while since we've been able to say that.

Speaker 2 (00:14):
I say, a lot has happened since our last show.
You've been to super Bowl, You've been to Rome, You've
been to Combine. Real quick rating of all three super
Bowl one to ten experience, the whole experience beating a.

Speaker 4 (00:27):
Week week before, Yeah, week before that had to be
a that was probably a seven.

Speaker 5 (00:32):
Okay, Rome.

Speaker 3 (00:34):
I was sick the whole time.

Speaker 4 (00:35):
But I got everything done that we needed to get done,
So that was more of a business trip.

Speaker 6 (00:40):
And yeah, I'm still going to give it an eight,
okay because it's Rome.

Speaker 5 (00:43):
And even if I don't combine.

Speaker 3 (00:48):
Uh, that's my favorite week of the year. Yeah, nine
out of time.

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Yeah, we're gonna we're gonna get to that in just
a minute, because that's kind of the consensus of every
single person in our industry, Like that is the best,
Like above, super Bowl is the best event of the
week for anyone involved in the NFL. So also the
new uh Luca Lakers or should I say Lidoncic Is
that a thing?

Speaker 3 (01:10):
Boy?

Speaker 7 (01:10):
Yeah?

Speaker 5 (01:12):
Are red hot.

Speaker 2 (01:12):
They just won their fifth straight game last night for
Luca's birthday. We're gonna get into that a little later
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Search Fox Sports Radio.

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We've got a great show for you guys.

Speaker 1 (01:49):
Today.

Speaker 2 (01:50):
We're gonna have NBA insider Mark Medina joining us. In
about thirty minutes. We have the host of NFL and
Fox Podcast, Dave Hellman, an hour two executive producer Ian
with Us Today technical producer Chris Martin at the news desk.

Speaker 5 (02:02):
But let's start with.

Speaker 2 (02:03):
The NFL Combine, you guys, because the future of the
NFL is in Indie this week, and so was Carmen
Us And I've also heard as we said, this is
the best NFL event of the year because this is
really the one event where the entire NFL community is
in the same city. You have gms, you have coaches,
you have scouts, you have all the big execs from
each team, you have reporters, networks and the future of

(02:24):
the NFL. And it's different than Super Bowl because you
can really build those relationships. You can you can make
those connections, you can actually have one on one conversations
with coaches and teams and it's really where you make
your contacts for the rest of the season. So Carmen,
you were there this whole week leading up. Paint the
picture for us.

Speaker 5 (02:42):
What's a day like?

Speaker 2 (02:43):
Also like leading up to the Combine too, because everyone's
there the entire week before.

Speaker 3 (02:47):
Right.

Speaker 4 (02:47):
That's the thing is you see the Combine. It's currently
on TV right now. We got wide receivers running the forty. Yeah,
that is less and less becoming the focus of Combine
these days, especially because there's so many players that are
now opting out of doing the workouts, those kind of
things like.

Speaker 5 (03:02):
You saw what I did during the season.

Speaker 6 (03:03):
I'm here for the interviews, and you'll hear every coach
and scout and personnel executive and GM say to you, Hey, honestly,
what you have to be kind of weary of is
falling in love with the guy at the combine because
they're in T shirt and shorts.

Speaker 4 (03:17):
They have spent weeks and weeks, if not months, training
for this. Oh yeah, that that is not necessarily the numbers.
He can't fall in love with the numbers. You have
to look back at the tape, and so you have
years worth of tape, season's worth of tape on these
guys that you have your scouts combing through every every
single week during the college football season, and then they

(03:38):
kind of summarize that. That goes to the next level
of personnel departments and then up from there. What the
combine is really good for is what you alluded to, Alex,
which is the relationships. It's not just media relationships with coaches, scouts, GMS.
It is the relationships between these players and these.

Speaker 5 (03:55):
Prospects and these teams.

Speaker 4 (03:57):
Because this is just kind of a car wash interviews
that these teams get to do where they have formal
and informal meetings with these players with their agents. There's
also a whole kind of underbelly of free agency talk
that's not supposed to talk happen, but it does happen.

Speaker 2 (04:13):
We already got breaking news yesterday, Rams and Stafford coming together.

Speaker 8 (04:17):
We had like.

Speaker 2 (04:18):
Amy Reid kind of allude to like, yeah, Travis Kelsey's
coming back, like.

Speaker 3 (04:21):
And then Travis Kelsey said he was kind of like, yeah,
so you're.

Speaker 5 (04:23):
Going to get breaking news during this week too, And.

Speaker 4 (04:25):
That's not a coincidence. No, Like all of these conversations
coming out.

Speaker 5 (04:30):
Like everyone's in the same place.

Speaker 3 (04:31):
They're in the.

Speaker 4 (04:31):
Same place and they are all talking with each other
at this point. So it's an incredible week leading up
to it. I got there on Monday, I left on Thursday,
and people are like, what did you lay before drills?

Speaker 3 (04:41):
It's like, well, I can watch the drills on TV,
Like I don't really now.

Speaker 2 (04:45):
Everyone's like now like focusing paying attention the week before,
similar to Super Bowl. This is when everyone's out at
the same bar. This is when everyone's out at the
same restaurant. This is when you can actually make those
connections and contacts with the people you need to.

Speaker 3 (04:57):
There are there is there is media row.

Speaker 4 (04:59):
There is at Combine, which I was a part of,
and we interviewed a bunch of people including you know,
gms and coaches, but also like national media and people
that deal with draft analysts all of that kind of stuff.
And so there's those formal interviews where you get to
talk to these people.

Speaker 3 (05:14):
One on one.

Speaker 4 (05:15):
But yes, the biggest part of being able to go
to the combine and talk to these guys one on
one and actually develop relationships, friendships, all of that kind
of stuff, that is the best part of my job.

Speaker 3 (05:25):
Yes, it happens at the bars, at the bar, the
it happens at the restaurants.

Speaker 4 (05:29):
You go get coffee with people, you go to dinner,
you go to lunch, and then you go out to
Prime forty seven until four o'clock in the morning.

Speaker 5 (05:36):
So my voice.

Speaker 3 (05:38):
You guys can probably hear it ever a good time.

Speaker 2 (05:41):
That's sound great, you said, like, I don't know how
my voice is gonna sound fabulous.

Speaker 3 (05:44):
Okay, well I'm glad because I.

Speaker 5 (05:46):
Haven't heard your voice in like two three weeks.

Speaker 3 (05:48):
So I know, h it was.

Speaker 4 (05:50):
It's a great time always, and then you also have
the Saint Elmos Steakhouse trip or trips. In my case,
I think I went there twice.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
It's on my bucket list. I need to make out
to Combine. I can't say.

Speaker 4 (06:01):
Well more than twenty five to thirty feet without running
into somebody that you know and catching up and everything.
It's it's a wonderful, wonderful week.

Speaker 2 (06:09):
Cynthia Frielan has been like raving about this for years,
like just come in my suitcase, stay in my room,
and we'll just I'm just gonna take you everywhere with me.

Speaker 5 (06:17):
It's like, okay, done, please. You were the perfect person.

Speaker 3 (06:20):
I think is the busiest woman at the Combine.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
She's on the field right now. I think she's the
in arena like post interviewing.

Speaker 4 (06:27):
I saw her on Tuesday or Wednesday when she got there,
and it was instantaneously, all of a sudden, it was
like I saw her outside and she was like getting
her credential and getting everything else. The next thing I know,
she's running around radio row with with a microphone and
a camera following, and then she's up on a studio
spatiation she's interviewing people. And then she's on the field
at Lucas Oil and she's with the prospect. I'm like,

(06:49):
this woman does not stop no, but we love her.

Speaker 5 (06:52):
We love that.

Speaker 2 (06:52):
So it's basically the weekend for the players is like
the longest running job interview possible and imaginable, as you
heard like Karma talk about. You have the team interviews
where the top prospects meet with potential landing spots. You
have the drills and skills, which is kind of what's
going on now. You have the measurables, like the evaluations
are done in medical evaluation. It's like they're the last

(07:16):
sprouted and it's insane. It's insane, like it's a lot,
but it's also the last opportunity for these players to
show what they can do because not every team goes
to every pro day, but every team is here at
the combine.

Speaker 4 (07:29):
It's the people in the prospects that the combine is
most valuable for. Are those fringe guys where there or
the later round the day two, day three guys where
all right, maybe you know you could you could beef
up your stock a little bit if you run a
good forty time or if you impress the right people
in these informals and the formal meetings, or if your

(07:50):
medical evaluation shows that your arms are longer than most,
or your hands are bigger than most, or something like that,
you can absolutely add to.

Speaker 3 (07:58):
Your stock there.

Speaker 4 (07:59):
It's just it's for those guys that are like top
of the top, who are going to draw everybody to
their pro day or who are going to be brought
in on the top thirty visits, which each team gets
thirty visits and they get to bring in up to
thirty prospects into their building.

Speaker 3 (08:14):
But like I said, this was a like the combine
is a.

Speaker 4 (08:16):
Really good area for you to kind of do the
preliminary talks and the preliminary conversations are saying.

Speaker 3 (08:22):
Do we really need to bring him in? Maybe we don't.
Maybe a ten minute conversation with him is going to
be It's not.

Speaker 5 (08:27):
A normal conversation, right, They ask a weird thing.

Speaker 3 (08:31):
It depends on the questions.

Speaker 4 (08:32):
I always like talking to prospects and asking them like
the weirdest questions.

Speaker 3 (08:36):
That they get.

Speaker 4 (08:36):
And like I mean, they'll get everything from sat prep
questions to hypotheticals about what.

Speaker 5 (08:42):
They're doing, like being out.

Speaker 4 (08:44):
The wilderness, and they only have these things to survive, Like,
I will get really weird because different coaches feel like
they can tell different things from a guy based on
his response personality, and and they're quizzing these guys too,
like you've seen it now on these hard knocks off
seasoned editions where they'll get guys up on a whiteboard
and where they will tell them of play, say how
it works, and have the guy have to teach it

(09:06):
back to them to just kind of measure how what
his retention level is, how how much he can work
through things like on the spot, what his you know,
how he operates under pressure because wild That's the biggest
thing too, is that these guys they're on like no
sleep meetings go till eleven pm at night, so like
and then they had to be up at six o'clock
in the morning for breakfast and then to get ready

(09:26):
for media or drills or medical evaluations.

Speaker 3 (09:31):
Or anything like that.

Speaker 4 (09:31):
So they're putting an extreme amount of stress on these
prospects purposely.

Speaker 5 (09:35):
Yeah, see how you help you handle it? Yeah, which
is smart.

Speaker 2 (09:37):
Now everyone knows the big names right that are in
the draft, and most of those players don't actually participate
in the skills like a chador Sanders, cam Ward, Travis Hunter.

Speaker 5 (09:47):
Yeah he participating.

Speaker 4 (09:48):
Yeah he's participating as both a wide receiver and a dB.
He will not pick one, and yeah he's still take
in meetings based on both.

Speaker 2 (09:56):
So this is the big question I have is whatever
team ends up draft Travis Hunder, will they still allow
him to be a two way player?

Speaker 5 (10:04):
And I think they should give him a shot.

Speaker 2 (10:06):
He just won the highest award and honor that you
can at the collegiate level, the Heisman Trophy. Why wouldn't
you let him try to continue to carry that on
at the next level. I mean, people say it's impossible,
but you look at a guy like Shoho Tani in
Major League Baseball. People said the same thing about him too,
like you want to be on the right side of

(10:26):
history if he's able to pull this off, and if
he is that one outlier that is able to accomplish
at the highest level still being a two way player.

Speaker 4 (10:35):
So and he's not working out here at the Combine,
he will at Colorado's Crode, which is the same for
a lot of these guys, but that he's participating in
the Combine in the sense that he's doing all of
the media rounds, he's doing all the meetings and he's
not limiting himself in that way. But I actually kind
of like that he's not working out because it shows
me that he has some at least a little bit

(10:56):
of load management skills, because I think the biggest knock
on a two way player in this day and age
is that today's NFL is just not conducive to it.
You take too many snaps, it takes too much out
of you. You're going against too high of talent. When
it comes to you're an offensive receiver. You're taking hits
from these dbs that are extremely physical. If you're the dB,

(11:19):
you're the one making the hits and not having a
chance to kind of rest and do all of those things.
But I also think that the door is open a
little bit more than people might realize, not because of
precedent that's been set by other players, because we haven't
seen a two way player in a long time, but
we always forget about the third phase of football, and

(11:39):
that's special teams.

Speaker 5 (11:40):
Yeah, there are plenty of.

Speaker 4 (11:41):
Guys that go out there on offense, and now, granted
you're not sustaining drives on special teams, it's not exactly
the same. I understand that, but you are playing two
phases of the ball from a mental standpoint, from all
of those things where you have to be ready to go.
And it can be a sudden change situation too, where
you're on offense and then all of a sudden you
have to get out on special teams because this that
the other happened. There are I mean, this is a

(12:04):
really well accepted and well, the guys at the bottom
of the roster are the ones that play special teams usually,
and now with the new rules on special teams, on kickoffs,
on punt returns, all of that, we're seeing a real
strategy behind special teams. It's not necessarily just the throwaway
players that you don't necessarily have a spot for in
the starting rotation.

Speaker 3 (12:25):
It is no, we're gonna.

Speaker 4 (12:26):
Take this guy because of what he can do on
special teams. So that's also shifting to where there's more
emphasis on special teams, which means there are guys that
play two of the three phases all the time.

Speaker 5 (12:37):
Yeah, I think it's possible.

Speaker 2 (12:38):
And when you look at the top right now, obviously
there's gonna be trades, teams are going to move around,
But when you look at what the top ten right
in the NFL draft order. You got the Titans, the Browns,
the Giants of Patriots, the Jags, of Raiders, the Jets,
the Panthers, Saints, and the Bears. He's going to immediately
help make a lot of these teams better whoever decides

(12:59):
to pick him.

Speaker 4 (13:00):
The Even if a team and I do, I don't
know the real likelihood of him being able to be
a two way player. I think it's more along the
lines of you make him a dB and then he's
in some wide receiver packages because we see that all
the time. Yes, but just having the skill set of
a wide receiver as a defensive back for instance.

Speaker 3 (13:19):
Because the biggest knock.

Speaker 4 (13:20):
On dB is the age old thing is, oh, a
dB is just a wide receiver that couldn't catch.

Speaker 3 (13:24):
No, what if you get a dB that's a wide receiver.

Speaker 5 (13:26):
That can catch and at the highest level is the
Heisman Trophy winner.

Speaker 4 (13:29):
And he has that both side, and he understands how
to mirror and mimic routes because he runs them all
the time. That is something that is invaluable and that's
why he's still going to be such a He's going
to be such a high prospect, even if he's not
a two way player, it's because he can take from
the other side of the ball, Like playing both dB
and wide receiver positions that mirror each other on the field,

(13:52):
you now have such a well rounded skill set for
either one of them. And so that's why I think
that he's such a special player. And I do know
the teams are you know, will be clamoring to get him.
He's a top five talent. Yeah, I mean you look
at kind of the high value positions, edge rusher, all
of that kind of stuff. Where you look at his
competition for one of those top two, top three spots

(14:12):
in the draft.

Speaker 2 (14:13):
Is there, what what's kind of the what's it trending
towards right now? Where where does everyone think he's gonna go?
The mock drafts have.

Speaker 4 (14:21):
Started, Yeah, the mock drafts has started. You look a
lot at you know, the top ten. I don't think
a lot of people think he's gonna last past the
top five. Yeah, but you again, it just kind of
depends on the needs of some of these teams picking first.
So like the Titans, well, their biggest needs of a
quarterback are.

Speaker 5 (14:37):
The like so, I mean, the top of the top
three are like quarterbacks.

Speaker 4 (14:41):
Quarterbacks, and the Browns and the Titans both need edge
rushers too.

Speaker 3 (14:45):
Yeah, this is the only thing.

Speaker 5 (14:47):
You see and wide receiver.

Speaker 4 (14:49):
The only thing about this draft is it's really trench heavy,
which I love. Yeah, I haven't went dove in as
much as I want to, but I'm going to. Uh
So you think that because it's a deep draft for
defensive lineman, because it's a deep draft for offensive linemen. Yeah,
less so for centers than kind of the interior. But

(15:09):
I wonder if that means that, you know, teams can
wait a little bit on those positions and then they
do go after. Obviously, quarterbacks rise. This is it's not
a strong quarterback class. It's not a strong quarterback class.
But if you're the Titans and you're picking one overall, yes,
you have your pick of all of the quarterbacks.

Speaker 3 (15:26):
So I think that that's.

Speaker 5 (15:28):
You're going to take a quarterback, I think, But.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
At the same time, I couldn't.

Speaker 4 (15:32):
I could absolutely see something like an edge rusher there
as well, just to make sure that you're getting the
best player in the draft.

Speaker 3 (15:38):
Because the best player in the draft is not a quarterback. No,
So we're.

Speaker 4 (15:42):
Gonna say it's it's it's gonna be really interesting how
this all kind of plays out, because honestly, the top
five teams have so many critical needs.

Speaker 5 (15:51):
Oh so many needs.

Speaker 2 (15:52):
Okay, we're gonna take a quick break here, but I
want to keep this conversation going when we come back.
I know you talk to a lot of coaches in GM,
so we're going to hit on that when we come back.

Speaker 5 (16:00):
Listening to Fox Sports Radio.

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Speaker 2 (16:14):
Welcome back to Fox Sports Saturday Am Alex Currier at
Carmen Vitalie. We are broadcasting live from the Tarktalk Com
studios in Los Angeles. Thank you for spending your Saturday
afternoon Withcarmeie and Me, and for the.

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Speaker 2 (16:45):
All right, we spent the first part of this show
talking about the NFL Combine, the future of the NFL,
and the entire NFL family is in Indie this week,
and so was Carmen. And we've always heard this is
the best NFL weekend of the year because it's where
you get to build those relationships. You get to talk
to gms, you get to talk to coaches. We kind
of went through the flashy names already, but you got

(17:07):
to talk with a lot of the new faces, new
faces in new places. Let's start with the Bears, right
because Yeah, I mean I think they had the biggest
off season coaching pickup really quick, exactly what they needed.
I mean, this was a make or break franchise higher
and they got it right With Ben Johnson.

Speaker 5 (17:30):
What was his kind of mindset and his mood? What
was he saying at the combine?

Speaker 4 (17:35):
I think what's so interesting about the Ben Johnson Higher
A it's as someone who has watched the Bears her
entire life, Yeah, they never do the thing that they're
supposed to. They always try to get cute with it.
This is the first time I've ever seen them go
out and be like, no, we're gonna do We're gonna
make the best possible decision we possibly can, no matter
what it costs.

Speaker 3 (17:54):
Love that.

Speaker 4 (17:55):
And that's what happened with Ben Johnson because Ben Johnson
was being courted by multiple other teams, but also it
made sense for Ben and I wrote a whole thing
about it, I remember at the time for Fox Sports
dot Com where the Bears made the most sense for
Ben too. And because he's sold on Caleb Williams. And
this is the biggest thing when you talk about and
this is the Bear's a been guilty of this the
last few times, where the regimes don't really match up,

(18:16):
where like you draft a quarterback, then that coach gets
fired and that GM gets fired and then you bring
in a whole other regime who didn't draft that quarterback.
Well that's the case again, first of all, which I
was not thrilled about. But from everything that Ben Johnson
has said publicly, from everything I've heard privately, Caleb Williams
was the one that sold Ben Johnson on Chicago. He

(18:38):
loves he loves Kayleb Williams.

Speaker 5 (18:40):
He what's not to love.

Speaker 3 (18:42):
It was tangible his.

Speaker 4 (18:43):
Excitement about having a quarterback like Caleb, who he hasn't had,
by the way, as a coach in the NFL. If
you think about the mobile quarterback, the athleticism, the ability
to create inside and outside of the pocket in the
offensive backfield, that is something that Ben Johnson has ever had.
And when he was talking about Caleb at the podium
in Indy this this week, his eyes were sparkling.

Speaker 3 (19:07):
Alex like that.

Speaker 4 (19:08):
He was just like, I've never had this guy like
he is. He is a football guy through and through.
He is a total nerd.

Speaker 2 (19:14):
But it also was fun, as we saw with his
like crazy trick plays is here.

Speaker 4 (19:17):
He has fun. But that comes later. And that's the
biggest thing that I am going to again, you know.
I mean, I always try to temper.

Speaker 5 (19:24):
Expectations and we're like, no, right now, it needs to
be great.

Speaker 4 (19:27):
The Bears fans are not easily temperable, but they're not.

Speaker 3 (19:31):
They're not very temperate.

Speaker 1 (19:32):
They don't have it.

Speaker 5 (19:32):
They don't patience, No.

Speaker 3 (19:33):
They will and they don't they shouldn't. But I'm like
my decade somehow, every single off season, they end up
with these sky high expectations and I'm like, can we.

Speaker 2 (19:42):
Just well, I mean, when you get the number one
overall pick and there were such high expectations about Caleb
Williams and then now you got the best head coach
on the market in Ben Johnson, I get it.

Speaker 5 (19:52):
There's a lot of excitement. Now we just need to
live up to.

Speaker 3 (19:54):
The I need.

Speaker 4 (19:55):
I need people to understand though, that this isn't going
to happen right away, Like it's not you're not going
to get the fun ship plays whatever.

Speaker 3 (20:03):
Ben Johnson and Ryan Poles, when I got to talk.

Speaker 4 (20:06):
To him, Yeah, both of them emphasize the first of all,
they emphasize emphasize the same things. So like it's very
clear that Ryan and Ben are on the same page.
I heard the same thing from Ryan when we were
talking to him one on one that I did from
Ben at the podium, Like same words, same kind of mentality.
But they're both of their mentalities is we're stripping this

(20:27):
down to the studs. We're starting from ground zero. We're
going to start building this foundation where it should be,
and a foundation, you know from building a house. Yeah,
it's not sexy, it's not a sexy.

Speaker 3 (20:39):
Part of building the house. It's not the fun marble.

Speaker 5 (20:42):
It's not the little contra vision what the future is
going to look like.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
It's not.

Speaker 4 (20:46):
It's it's very much plain, simple, solid, and that is
what that is what Ben Johnson is going to bring
to this team. Okay, and he should have and does
have the full support of Ryan Poles and so it's
not going to look that fun yet. And the biggest
thing too, that's my biggest question mark going into this
is talking to players that have been coached by Ben Johnson,

(21:08):
talking to coaches that have coached with him, some of
which have gone over now to the Bears with him.

Speaker 5 (21:13):
Yeah, big, he's tough, he is intense. That's a good
thing he is not.

Speaker 4 (21:21):
I found there had to be a buffer when when
Ben Johnson first took over as offensive coordinator in Detroit. Yeah,
there had to be a buffer between him and Jared
Goff because they not that he couldn't handle it. It's
just that Ben is super intense and Jared has was
was a veteran even at that point. So you have
these guys that are kind of they have the way

(21:42):
that they do things, and because Ben is so intense,
he needed a buffer to kind of translate what he
was trying to say to Jared. Now that relationship blossomed
over time. Yeah, it became a really really good one
this last year. I mean, Jared would always tell him
to go, didn't want him to go, would always talk
about would always talk about how much Ben has done

(22:04):
for him as a player. I mean, Jared Goff has
been playing the best football. Like the reward of being
coached by Ben Johnson is playing the best football of
your career. It doesn't It doesn't mean it's easy. It
doesn't mean that it's fun. It's not necessarily fun, and
it's not gonna be fun right away. But if you
also take, you know, look back at to what Caleb
Williams himself has said verbatim with all of you know,

(22:28):
his offensive coordinator gets fired, Matt Eberflus gets fired. Caleb
Williams says, I want to be coached harder, I want
to be coached tough. And I'm like, all right, be
careful what you wish for, because Ben Johnson's going to
come in there and do that. And I really hope
that he responds in the way that he says he's
going to because Caleb is also very He's not shy
about saying like, not everybody can coach me, and to.

Speaker 2 (22:50):
This feels like it's going to be a little spicy Yeah,
and he's going to chow spicy.

Speaker 5 (22:54):
Relationship, which if you welcome that, you're going to be
just fine.

Speaker 3 (22:57):
That's that's the biggest question mark I have is are both.

Speaker 5 (23:00):
Saying we should up our ex mouation.

Speaker 3 (23:04):
No, yeah, it's gonna baby might not look great.

Speaker 4 (23:09):
Need I remind you first year under Dan Campbell, Granted
Ben Johnson wasn't the offensive coordinator yet, but first year
under Dan Campbell, the Lions went three thirteen and one.

Speaker 5 (23:18):
That No, the Bear's got to be better. They have
more talent, any.

Speaker 2 (23:21):
Better than a tenth overall pick. We'll save that for
another day. But now let's check in with Martin Wise
and see what's trending.

Speaker 8 (23:28):
We've got two games going on in the NHL right now.

Speaker 9 (23:31):
With fourteen twenty three left in the second period, Boston
has a two to nothing lead over Pittsburgh, and with
eleven minutes left in the second period, Florida.

Speaker 8 (23:39):
Has a one nothing lead over Calgary the Flames.

Speaker 9 (23:42):
In college basketball right now, number five Tennessee and I
was sixth Alabama going at it the Volunteers with an
eighteen to sixteen lead over the Crimson tie with eleven
minutes left in the first half.

Speaker 8 (23:55):
At the half.

Speaker 9 (23:55):
Number oh sorry, number twenty four, Missippi State is trailing
els thirty seven to thirty five. LSU is only three
and twelve in the SEU play. They're not They're terrible.
The women are got that almost always, almost always. Seventh
thranks Saint john right now with a sixty three to
fifty eight lead over at Seaton Hall. Saint John's sixteen

(24:17):
and two in conference play, twenty five and four overall,
three point fifteen left in the second half there against
sixty three.

Speaker 8 (24:23):
To fifty eight to score.

Speaker 9 (24:24):
Earlier today we saw Auburn clinch SEC title. They beat
Kentucky ninety four to seventy eight. Auburn twenty seven and two,
number one team in the nation. Tenth rank Texas Tech
beat Kansas seventy eight to seventy three. Thirteenth ran Clemson
over Virginia seventy one to fifty eight, and sixteenth rength
Maryland beat Penn State sixty eight to sixty four.

Speaker 8 (24:46):
Ladies, back to you guys.

Speaker 2 (24:48):
Thank you Martin. You're listening to Fox Sports Saturday. I'm
Alex Curry here with Carmen Vitali. We are broadcasting live
from the tark dot Com studios in Los Angeles. Thank
you for spending your Saturday afternoon with us. It is
time for our first guest, NBA insider Mark Diana. Thank
you for joining the show.

Speaker 10 (25:02):
Alex Carmen, thanks for having me. Always fun talking MBA
with you.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Oh what a week for Luca and the Lakers. Five
straight wins is now one eleven of the last thirteen,
fourth in the West. Are the Lakers now true contenders
with Luca and Lebron?

Speaker 10 (25:17):
I was actually just about to say that, Alex. I'm
not putting them as championship favorite, but I'm putting them
in the championship contending conversation. Yeah, and that's a huge step.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
It's huge.

Speaker 10 (25:30):
I thought prior to the Luca Dongons trade, their ceiling
was second round at best, Yeah, and at worst playing
elimination or losing the first round. And that's certainly something
the Lakers aren't about, because not only are they about
winning championships, when you look at the last season, you
know they get bounced to the Denver Nuggets in the
first round. This idea that they would just be content

(25:52):
with laying a playoff team and nothing else doesn't sit well.
But I think as of Bertains to Luca, this obviously
was a huge trade, obvious reasons why they did it,
but it was more of a long term play with
saying themselves up to have that next superstar, especially once
Lebron James retired, and they thought maybe short term they
take some lumps because they're struggling defensively, but as you mentioned,

(26:14):
they've been a really top defensive team and the Luca
magic and the chemistry is real in all front so
put them in that window.

Speaker 3 (26:22):
Yeah, and that.

Speaker 4 (26:23):
Was my biggest thing is it seems a little redundant
right now, but you're talking long term play, but.

Speaker 3 (26:28):
For this short term I think I'm more.

Speaker 4 (26:30):
Interested though, in how did two get along off the
court or who? You know? This is Lebron's team. It's
still Lebron's team as long as Lebron's on it. But
then you inject this superstar who that team in Dallas
belonged to Luca, So now you've got two superstars on
the same team. Who takes a backseat is that. Have
you seen any sort of friction there. I'm very curious

(26:52):
to see how these egos are clashing.

Speaker 10 (26:54):
Yeah, no friction yet I've seen nothing but positive signs.
I think the best example was before Luka Doncis's debut,
where Lebron James you know, told him to you know,
decide what he wants to do with starting lineup intros
and Luca you know uh said about, hey, I'd like
to be called last, but moving forward, Lebron will take

(27:16):
that mantle. And this might sound like a big deal.
Who cares? NBA players care about that stuff, you know,
it's one of many symbols on what they mean to
the team, their status, et cetera. But Lebron James's message
about don't worry about fitting in fitting out, this shows
that he obviously has respect for Luca and I think
unlike past years when Lebron would say, yeah, I want

(27:39):
to have a point guard that handles the offense, runs
the plays, I don't I can move off the ball,
and then he would decide to change his mind. Well,
the reason is the person Russell Westbrook, D'Angel Russell not
the same kyleiber players as Luka Donci jag. So yeah,
I'm not to say everything's going to be perfect, but
I think that when you're looking at all the potential

(28:00):
concerns Lebron Luca dynamic is of the least of them
because they're the best talent, and I think that from
a chemistry standpoint, they work really well. I think moving forward,
it's about to what degree can the rest of the
supporting task sustain their level of effort as well as
what they can do defensively, because the defense part it's
really hard to wrap my head around. They don't have

(28:22):
any size besides Jacks and Hayes, but they're going all
out with effort to make up for it, and so far,
so good, But you do wonder can you just keep
that up for the rest of the season in the playoffs.
Those are the question marks I have. But with Luca
and Lebron, it's going to be nothing but magic, I
think moving forward.

Speaker 5 (28:41):
I agree.

Speaker 2 (28:41):
It also helps that Lebron had shared previously that Luca
was his favorite player in the league and he kind
of looks like a little kid in a candy store.
But it was also a very emotional week for Luca
after that MAVs game on Tuesday, Lucas said he was
relieved to have kind of that first matchup behind him.
Does it feel, and I mean you're around the team daily,

(29:04):
does it feel like Luca is kind of over that
shock of the trade?

Speaker 3 (29:08):
Now?

Speaker 10 (29:09):
Yeah, I think that he has gone through all this,
you know, the different stages of grief, and not to
say that it's ever going to be over. I think
that the most painful and emotionally charged moments are behind him,
of trying to come to grips with getting traded. You know,
even though he led them in the finals last year,
he was seen as that next generational star that would

(29:32):
stay with that franchise like Dirt Novitski did for twenty
one years.

Speaker 3 (29:35):
They thought there was going up.

Speaker 4 (29:37):
Yeah, in Dallas, they thought there was going to be
another statute next to Dirk's.

Speaker 10 (29:41):
Yeah exactly. I mean they should still have that because
of what he meant, but I doubt that'll happen now.
But I think those are the two main pillars. Now,
let's look down the line. If the Wakers have his
face off in the playoffs, there's obviously going to be
a lot of motion here. But I think that the
emotion for the most parts, for the good because as Luca,
he's a competitor. You want that edginess, and so I

(30:04):
don't think the Lakers are saying, you know what, like
we don't want that emotion, because that's what makes him great. Now.
I think where the potential trouble could be is if
he's trying to make it all about himself and having
a good performance at the expense of the team. But
as we saw against Dallas, it was Lebron and Luca
running the show, and so they really did a good

(30:25):
job of playing off each other.

Speaker 4 (30:27):
And I want to ask a little bit more about
thanneddy Gritty here. How is Luca recovering? He's still working
through that calf issue. Is he how close to one
hundred percent is he? And what have you seen from
him just kind of even outside of games with his
recovery process.

Speaker 10 (30:43):
Yeah, they don't put exact percentages, So what I say
that this is just my own assumption intuition. He's not
one hundred percent. I don't think he'll ever be one
hundred percent this season, but I think that the conditioning
concerns are behind him. He's no longer on minutes restrictions.
I think it was a telling sign that he did
play last night against the Clippers, because back to back.

(31:06):
They're originally holding him out on back to backs, but
you know, they're still a work in progress. His shooting,
especially from the outside, has still been up and down.
But I think that compared to everything else where, he
was trying to learn the playbook, trying to get acclamy
to the Lakers, get over the shock of the trade.
All the potential challenging parts are behind him. Now it's

(31:27):
about with the Lakers, how does everyone else around him adjust.
I think Lebron, you know, because of what we've said
and what we've seen, that's going to be fine. But
the next two questions are and role players sustain their
strong level play. Really hatcham More is out now with
an injury, and there's show projected timetable and again the defense.
They're playing an elite level right now because of their effort,

(31:49):
but at some point you can't help. But wonder does
the lack of size catch up to them? And I
say that with full support of what they did to
trade Anthony Davis to get Luca Dacis because of how
special a player he is. But there's no way around it.
Ad with the defensive Player of the Year candidate, and
they took a back seat because of his departure with
that on the defensive front.

Speaker 2 (32:09):
Now you mentioned the conditioning, and there were so many
reports about the MAVs concerns about Luca leading up to
the trade, citing his love of beer and hookah as
well as his weight management, lack of professionalism. It feels
silly and it feels like that was like some sort
of like there's more to the story. Yeah, on the
MAVs side, But it doesn't seem like the Lakers have

(32:31):
any concerns with any of that with Luca, do they?

Speaker 10 (32:34):
Well they I think they have concerns, but I think
it's all relative and put in perspective. When I asked
Luka Doncic about how he viewed that criticism on his
way out, he said it was a source of motivation,
but he mostly saw that it was not true. I
thought it was telling that. Rob Palinka then interjected and said,
you know, when you're talking about the great the all

(32:54):
time greats, so you know there's always ways to still,
you know, find ways to improve to make sure that
you're the best version of yourself. So what I'm paraphrasing
but his essential message was, yeah, he can improve in that,
but it's not enough of a concern because even if
he's not going to be seen as the same example

(33:16):
as how Lebron James is taking care of his body,
he still is performing at a high level. And he's
only twenty six, so a lot of these conditioning issues
they don't really become issues until you hit your early
mid thirties as a professional athlete. And I think in
the short term, the Lakers view it this way. He's
under their umbrella. They can instruct him. Lebron James is

(33:38):
a model they can ship away at some of those weaknesses.
And I think here's another example to tie it in
with the Lakers, even someone like Kobe who is a
model of work ethic and cared about his body. When
he scored eighty one points and it was the prime
of his career, his pregame diet that day was Pepperoni
pizza in great soda. And the reason why is it

(34:00):
didn't matter at that point, Yes, because and he's still
young that he can burn off those calories without issue.

Speaker 5 (34:08):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (34:08):
I mean there were stories of Michael Jordan, like playing
two rounds of golf smoking right before his game like the.

Speaker 3 (34:15):
Stars of our youth. Yeah, the lucky Stars.

Speaker 2 (34:18):
That a thing like insane, Mark, thank you so much.
We appreciate all this insight real quick. Austin Reeves, how
long do you expect him to be out?

Speaker 10 (34:29):
Uh that we don't know, Uh, stay tuned, same thing. Yeah,
but yeah, that's those are the concerns the Lakers have,
big ones. Haluca is a good fallback.

Speaker 2 (34:40):
Yeah, it's a great one. Okay, thank you so much.
Enjoy the game tomorrow night. All right, when we come back,
you guys, it's the dudes and the Dunton Sports. You're
listening to Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (34:54):
Listening to Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 2 (34:57):
Welcome back to Fox Sports Saturday. I'm Alex Curry here
with Carmen Itally. We are broadcasting live from the tart
dot Com studios in Los Angeles. Thank you for spending
your Saturday afternoon.

Speaker 4 (35:06):
I know, man, should I'd be staring at a cloud
and like, you know, wearing baggy jeans.

Speaker 3 (35:11):
Good guy.

Speaker 5 (35:12):
I went to two.

Speaker 2 (35:14):
They did like a prime like a fire relief show
at the Palladium, which is like three thousand people.

Speaker 11 (35:20):
It was.

Speaker 2 (35:21):
They were like we usually sell out stadiums like they
sold out so fi They're like, so it's nice playing
this little shoe box with all of you guys.

Speaker 5 (35:27):
So it was, Oh, that was so cool and like major.

Speaker 4 (35:30):
From what I've heard, they have not changed as far
as they are show that they put off.

Speaker 5 (35:33):
They are rawch I haven't.

Speaker 2 (35:36):
That was my first time seeing them live and I
was like kept looking at my husband like.

Speaker 5 (35:39):
Oh, okay, it's one of these. I love it. Don't
ever stop.

Speaker 2 (35:44):
And that leads us to the dues and the don'ts
in sports highlight.

Speaker 7 (35:49):
I love that putting a spotlight on the don't.

Speaker 5 (35:52):
The subject brings me no joy.

Speaker 3 (35:54):
Don't that's insane.

Speaker 1 (35:56):
It's time for the dues and the dots in sports.

Speaker 2 (35:59):
Okay, I gotta do, okay, do take that shot and
make that shot. Recently, a college student, Blake, a Texas
Tech student, nailed the most insane ninety foot putt on
the hardwood at a recent basketball game. Now Patrick Mahomes
happened to be their court side his alma mater, and
celebrated with the fan like jumped up shoulder bump.

Speaker 5 (36:21):
Blake has had quite the week.

Speaker 2 (36:23):
He was on the Today Show talking about the shot,
where Patrick Mahomes sent in a video message to tell
him that Texas Tech Athletics was going to pay his
tuition next year. Absolutely insane, and Mahomes made the kid
a member of his NIL programs have sent him like
all this insane swag, but like a ninety.

Speaker 3 (36:47):
That is on the hardwood quite the feet of athleticism.

Speaker 6 (36:50):
So he's a student athlete, he is, they're paying their
pay for his stuition.

Speaker 3 (36:54):
He's a student athlete. He's got an IL money.

Speaker 5 (36:57):
It's like insane.

Speaker 4 (36:58):
When I was working for Arizona's athletics in college, I
was technically labeled because I had a stipend a student athlete,
and I'm like, nope.

Speaker 3 (37:05):
But hey, I got priority on my class schedule and.

Speaker 5 (37:08):
All that other stuffing.

Speaker 4 (37:10):
Uh mine is do back your sources because we haven't
talked about this yet. Guys, Indy, there were some insider
wars in Indy. Jordan in Rappaport got into it. Got
into it at my hotel Starbucks. I'm so mad I
missed it. I literally padded would miss them by like
maybe an hour. They got into it after conflicting reports

(37:32):
about Tom Brady and Matthew Staffer potentially meeting up in
Montana at a private community like residential community when they
all belonged to.

Speaker 10 (37:40):
Uh.

Speaker 4 (37:41):
There was there was security was called, there were things
that were happening, But hey, I appreciate both these guys
going going to bat.

Speaker 3 (37:47):
For their sources.

Speaker 5 (37:49):
Hilarious.

Speaker 4 (37:49):
It was it was the talk of the combine hilarious outside.

Speaker 3 (37:53):
Of anything else. I think that was what people wanted
to hear about more.

Speaker 2 (37:56):
Yeah, definitely was all right, don't ever stop being a
kid at home show. Hey, Otani and Dodger's manager Dave
Roberts have had the most hilarious back and forth pranks.

Speaker 5 (38:05):
Going on since last year.

Speaker 2 (38:07):
And it kind of started at Spring when Otani got
Joe Kelly a Porsche as.

Speaker 5 (38:13):
A thank you for giving him number.

Speaker 3 (38:15):
That's not a prank.

Speaker 4 (38:17):
Someone is welcome to play that pran No, no, So this was.

Speaker 5 (38:19):
Like how it started.

Speaker 2 (38:21):
Got him a Porsche basically for his wife as like
a thank you for giving me number seventeen, and Dave
Roberts was like, hey, I want one too, so a
Tani started giving him these toy Porsches, and last year
it was like he would just kind of put him
all over the places for Dave.

Speaker 3 (38:38):
This year, at.

Speaker 2 (38:39):
Spring, Otani removed Dave's car from his parking spot, like
hid his car and put this like little kid Porsche
that you like sit, not even that when you sit
on your feet, not even that one yet. That's probably
the next one when that you sit and you have
to like move your legs. So Dave came back that
was a couple of weeks ago yesterday and filled Otani's

(39:02):
car like it was a ball pit and every ball
had a face of Dave Roberts on it.

Speaker 5 (39:07):
So we opened his door and all the balls fell
out of.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
His car and they've just been going back and forth
and it's beautiful.

Speaker 5 (39:13):
Please don't stop.

Speaker 4 (39:14):
That's hey, listen, Like I said, please, I won the
actual porch though, yeah, actual porch. Right, do under promise
and over deliver. Don't over promise then under deliver, Okay.
Wide Receiver Isaiah Bond this happened today. Earlier in the week,
was like, hey, I'm gonna run a four to one
forty yard dah, I'm gonna break break combine record.

Speaker 3 (39:37):
You want to know what he ran it? He run
four point four one on this first run.

Speaker 4 (39:43):
He got food, guys, you got food at Lucas Oil
running and like a four four one.

Speaker 3 (39:49):
Is a great time.

Speaker 5 (39:49):
It is. But when you like talk the talk, he
gotta walkta.

Speaker 3 (39:53):
Walk a walk.

Speaker 4 (39:54):
Yeah, Marcus Golden, I believe he ended up. He ran
slower than his teammate, so not he didn't even run
the fastest.

Speaker 10 (40:03):
TV.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
So that's guys.

Speaker 5 (40:06):
Just don't say it.

Speaker 3 (40:07):
Just don't say it. That's all.

Speaker 5 (40:08):
Show up and deliver, Show up and deliver. All right,
when we come back.

Speaker 2 (40:11):
How far can Luca and Lebron's Lakers go this season?
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (40:19):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 2 (40:23):
Welcome to our two of Fox Sports Saturday. I'm Alex
Curry here with Common Batali. Thank you for spending your
Saturday afternoon with Carmeie and me. Welcome to the football
off season, which really isn't totally the off season yet
because there's so much happening. The quarterback dominoes are about
to fall since Rams and Stafford reached that agreement, and

(40:44):
now the rest of the quarterbacks on the market should
start to fall into place. We'll get into that a
little later this hour. And if yeah, we're also the
future of the NFL is in Indie and the entire
NFL family at the combine right now.

Speaker 5 (41:00):
The draft is coming up.

Speaker 2 (41:01):
We talked about that a lot in the first hour,
so if you miss that, you can listen to our
podcast once we get off the air. The other sports
are about to heat up to NBA back half. We're
going to dive into one of the most exciting teams
in just a moment.

Speaker 5 (41:15):
Also, baseball is back.

Speaker 2 (41:16):
You guys show how Tawny hit an opposite field home
run in his first at bat at spring training yesterday,
So he's picking up right where you left off.

Speaker 5 (41:25):
La fans, you gotta be happy.

Speaker 2 (41:27):
Right now, we are broadcasting live from the tire dot
Com studios tyrek dot com. We'll help you get there
an unmatched election fast, free shipping, free, it has a
protection in over ten thousand recommended installers tyreq dot com
the way tire buying should be.

Speaker 4 (41:39):
You can stream this show and all of our Fox
Sports Radio shows live twenty four to seven in the
new and improved iHeartRadio app. Just search Fox Sports Radio
in the app to stream us live. And one of
the newest features in the app is that you can
select Fox Sports Radio as one of your presets, just
like the presets on a radio dial.

Speaker 3 (41:55):
So be sure to preset.

Speaker 4 (41:57):
Fox Sports Radio in the iHeartRadio app and it will
always pop up at the top of your screen.

Speaker 3 (42:02):
Just do it, do it.

Speaker 5 (42:03):
Please, just do it?

Speaker 7 (42:04):
All right?

Speaker 2 (42:05):
We also have the host of NFL and Fox podcast,
Dave Hellman, joining us in about thirty minutes.

Speaker 4 (42:09):
He was also at the combine, sure, and then he
wrote a whole really well timed thing about how Matthew
Stafford shouldn't go anywhere.

Speaker 5 (42:18):
Did he have insider information? Does he know?

Speaker 2 (42:22):
All right, but let's start in the NBA with one
of the most exciting teams. I also maybe bias the
new Luca and Lebron Lakers or Ledoncic and the Lakers.
I'm not sure if I saw that somewhere or if
I made it up, but I'm rolling.

Speaker 5 (42:38):
With it, and I kind of love it.

Speaker 2 (42:41):
Luca to the Lakers is going to reignite the NBA ratings.
The league is better when your biggest franchises are great,
and they were having rating issues, not just this season,
seasons past, and everybody wants to watch this magic right now.
And Lakers are red hot. They've won eleven of the
last thirteen. Last night they made it five straight wins

(43:04):
on Luca's twenty sixth birthday, So happy belated birthday, Luca.

Speaker 5 (43:09):
Lakers are now fourth in the West, inching closer to
that third spot you got.

Speaker 2 (43:14):
Oksee at first, they've their own one against the Thunder
this year, they got Memphis at two. They're two and
one against the Grizzes this year, and they got Denver
at three and they're one and one against the Nuggets.
So this is matchup really fun. Like these are the
teams that now I'm confident the Lakers could be in

(43:38):
a seven game series.

Speaker 5 (43:39):
You're quick with Luca, Oh, I am so confident.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Like every game Luc and Lebron have played together, they
just keep getting better and the smile on Lebron's face.
We talked about this with Mark Medina. You asked him
about like what the chemistry's like. Yeah, both having these
big superstars like now on this same team. Lebron has
been extremely vocal. Back in twenty nineteen, he was talking
about how Luca was his favorite new player in the league.

Speaker 5 (44:02):
He wanted to play with him, was trying to get
him like.

Speaker 3 (44:07):
Game apparently, and like so.

Speaker 2 (44:11):
If you watch video of Lebron, like his his energy,
his reactions the week before getting Luca, and then the
week after getting Luca. I haven't seen that kind of
smile on Lebron's face since he's won a championship. Lebron

(44:31):
does not look like the forty year old player on
the court right now. He he this kind of gave
him like that second wind towards the back end of
his career, and you not only see it on the court,
but you can hear it in his voice and you
can see it in his excitement when he talks about
the team and when he talks about Luca.

Speaker 5 (44:53):
But there was also.

Speaker 2 (44:56):
This has been a very emotional and I think telling
a week the Lakers because Luca played his former team
on Tuesday at Crypto. I was there, and let me
tell you, Crypto felt it felt like a playoff atmosphere,
like there was a different level of excitement and intensity

(45:16):
obviously because of everything that went down between Luca and
the MAVs, And there was a lot of emotion from Luca,
like seeing his former really just seeing everybody for the
first time since everything went down. There was like the
thank you for Ad who's still hurt not playing, which
was like heartbreaking.

Speaker 5 (45:35):
Because when Ad is healthy, he's so good.

Speaker 2 (45:36):
But also extremely on brand for him playing in this
first game with the MAVs and having the most insane
first half and then getting injured in the second half,
and he's out now for weeks. But like Luca recorded
his first triple double as a Laker, and since it
was against his former team, he became only the third
player to record triple doubles against every NBA franchise in

(45:57):
the process. But again, Luca's tone after the game and
his post game conference wasn't like excitement.

Speaker 5 (46:05):
It was like.

Speaker 3 (46:07):
Repent.

Speaker 4 (46:08):
You spend your entire career up until this point, and
you've gone through so many highs and lows with that team,
and then it's not your decision. It's one thing if
he decided to leave in free agency and go elsewhere
or whatever. This was not his decision.

Speaker 3 (46:21):
It was a trade no, and it came seemingly out
of nowhere.

Speaker 4 (46:25):
And from everything we've heard, it's not that it doesn't
sound like Luca had a huge heads up on any
of this.

Speaker 2 (46:30):
Zero and usually playing that caliber or face of the franchise,
you get some sort of a hat gap.

Speaker 3 (46:35):
You dictated everything.

Speaker 4 (46:37):
Think about the way Lebron James has moved throughout his career.
It's everything has been calculated because it's been on his terms,
even if it was a trade, yeah, if whatever. Yeah,
I do think that a lot of the excitement on
Lebron's part is probably because of the fact that now
he doesn't have to do all of the heavy lifting
to play, making the ball handling.

Speaker 3 (46:54):
You can pick and choose his spots a little bit more,
which is very important. Pressure forty years old, The pressure
is off his shit. It's just it's just nice to
feel be like, all right, you go this.

Speaker 4 (47:03):
But I will say I think there is there's there's
a novelty to it right now because it's new.

Speaker 3 (47:08):
You know, Luca's a shiny new.

Speaker 4 (47:09):
Toy for la It's still only well it's I guess
it's March now, March first, it's still only March. I
do expect there's still to be an EBB and a
flow because, like we talked about with Mark Mandina, the
Lakers needed more when it came to defense. Yes, they
traded away their top defender for however unavailable he has

(47:29):
been in the past.

Speaker 5 (47:30):
Anthony Davis.

Speaker 4 (47:31):
Yeah, you now you have two superstars and you have
all offense, and that's fine right now, that's fine at
this point in the season. Nobody's playing defense at this point.
But I'm gonna be very interested to see if the
tenor of their relate of Lebron and Luca's relationship changes,
or the tenor of the Lakers in general changes once
you start getting closer to playoff basketball, where you do

(47:51):
start playing defense and you do start seeing teams kind
of try and box you up and all of that. Like,
this is going to be very interesting to see how
it ends up materializing down the stretch when we get
into basketball that really does matter, because, yeah, right now,
it's exciting. He's a superstar. This trade came out of nowhere.
You don't see guys change hands like this, like those
type of guys change hands. Oh, especially going to a

(48:14):
high profile team where they were this close with Lebron
and they still made the postseason all that other stuff.
But now you have a real true superstar for now
and the future, even when Lebron is off of this team. Yeah,
that's all really exciting right now because the possibilities seem endless.
But once we get to the reality of it, does
that change anything.

Speaker 3 (48:33):
That's going to be very interesting for me.

Speaker 2 (48:35):
I think the bottom line for me is the Lakers
are significantly better now with Luca any team.

Speaker 3 (48:42):
That would have gotten Lucatashashi, Yeah, significantly.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
And it feels like Luca is almost their comfort wise.
I mean, we were talking about kind of his tone
after playing the MAVs on Tuesday, and he said, he said,
there's a lot of emotions.

Speaker 5 (48:56):
I didn't sleep. I can't really explain it. It was
just different.

Speaker 2 (48:59):
I'm just glad it's over, honestly, And I feel like
that might have been kind of that final hump for
him to get over, to kind of have that closure and.

Speaker 4 (49:09):
Say it's gonna take time, because like at this point,
like he still needs to he needs to ask recommendations
on like where to go get a smoothie, where like
he's like he doesn't know the area. He doesn't know because.

Speaker 5 (49:19):
He's got a house in Dallas.

Speaker 2 (49:21):
He thought his future, his entire future and career was
going to be in Dallas, and everything you got, like
your entire life gets completely up, like turned upside down,
which like Martin and I dove into this, like when
the trade went down, like there is some shady stuff
that like I feel like there's much more to the
story there's so much he got to follow the money.

(49:42):
There's there's something with these new owners. Because we heard
Mark Cuban in twenty I think twenty twenty twenty one
say you will find me getting a divorce from my
wife before trade.

Speaker 3 (49:52):
Before you trade.

Speaker 2 (49:53):
Look, and I don't know if you saw him, but
he was sitting courtside at that game.

Speaker 5 (49:59):
And.

Speaker 2 (50:00):
I have to imagine the painful smile he had on
his face every time Luca drained a shot.

Speaker 3 (50:05):
Was like, I mean, he's not the majority owner. He's
not the one that happen.

Speaker 2 (50:08):
Doesn't make the cause, doesn't make you gave up, gave
that up, and gave that.

Speaker 5 (50:13):
Up, probably gave up the team.

Speaker 4 (50:15):
He fels kind of guilty about it because he's like, hey, Luka,
if it had been up to me, I'm sorry.

Speaker 2 (50:18):
Like, yeah, I even felt bad.

Speaker 5 (50:22):
I got to point this out.

Speaker 2 (50:23):
I was thinking about it for Klay Thompson because he
chose the MAVs over the Lakers last year because of Luca,
and I just to then come to the Lakers to
face him too. And he has history because of his
dad with the Lakers, So it was just like there
are so many other emotional things going on.

Speaker 5 (50:42):
In that game on Tuesday.

Speaker 2 (50:43):
It was really cool to witness, especially Anthony Davis too,
and the thank you tribute they gave for him and
all the fans going crazy. Also very on brand that
he was in street clothes and not playing because he
was injured.

Speaker 3 (50:53):
But it's just I do like what Mark said.

Speaker 4 (50:57):
And I was talking to you a friend of mine,
he's the managing editor, the NBA managing editor for the
Athletic Tyler Batiste, and we were talking about all of
this and he said the exact same thing that Mark
Udina said, where yes, like I said, any team would
have been better with Luca on it does My big
question is does this make the Lakers the favorite? And
both of them said no. They said it doesn't make
them the favorite, but it makes them a contender because

(51:19):
we know that the West is going to be hard
to get out of it, Like that's just that's how
it's been the last few years. We feel like the
East is locked up way in advance and you kind
of know how things are going to fall, and then
they do fall that way. In the West, it's just
it's kind of it's the wild West. It's a little
bit more of that. So I do think that they're like, again,
we have to kind of see how this ends up materializing,

(51:41):
because on paper and the possibilities and YadA, YadA, YadA
are end list right now. But at the end of
the day, there are other teams that are going to
have something to say about the Lakers trying to actually
win another championship before Lebron retires.

Speaker 3 (51:52):
Oh and how that all how easy or hard that is?

Speaker 4 (51:57):
I think is going to dictate how comfortable is while
Lebron is still on the roster and vice versa.

Speaker 2 (52:03):
Yeah, I mean, I think this move gets them to
the Western Conference final, Like, that's it where I feel
comfortable they're gonna get And it depends who they face.
But I put my faith in a Luca Lebron combo. Again,
if you have Austin Reeves and everyone else healthy, understanding
that everyone else on the team has to be healthy, yeah,
I would still put my money on those two superstars. Again,

(52:25):
extremely biased over here. But another thing that I'm really
confident about is JJ Reddick being the leader and the
coach of this team. They've been posting a lot of
his post game speeches and I mean, if you still
don't think he is the right fit coach wise for
the Lakers, you're just a hater at this point. And
it feels like he has figured out kind of that

(52:47):
Lebron Luca sweet spot.

Speaker 5 (52:48):
And they've only played seven games.

Speaker 2 (52:50):
Together, like this is still very very fresh, Like everything
is still like Lebron said, He's like, these games are
still dress rehearsals for us. We're still figuring each other out.
We're still figuring out Like, yeah, it works, it's March first,
it is.

Speaker 5 (53:03):
I mean what we.

Speaker 2 (53:04):
See is it like comparing to like football terms, like
Luca is the perfect quarterback where Lebron gets to be
the wide, fancy receiver now and all the like, like
Luca runs the show. Takes the pressure off of Lebron
to be the to be the distributor. But not only
is it better for Lebron like on the court, but

(53:25):
mentally and for the second half of his career. He's
just rejuvenated. He just looks. You can tell the skill
set between the two of them offensively again, offensively is
going to fit perfectly like And the other crazy part
is they haven't reached their full potential yet. Like, like
I said, they've only played seven games together. They're currently

(53:45):
fourth in the West behind Okay see Grizzlies, Nuggets, who
they just beat. So the question is now, how far
can the Lakers go in the playoffs if Luca and
Lebron are healthy, I am confident to get to the
Western Conference finals.

Speaker 4 (53:59):
It's it's hard for me say I think how far
that they'll go in the playoffs. I think it's more
I like, I look at it from seeding and you
look at Luca basically being a one man show getting
the MAVs to the fifth seed.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
He did this last year.

Speaker 5 (54:12):
He got them to the he got him to the finals.

Speaker 4 (54:14):
Yeah, And I'm just in general, I like when I'm
talking about how far Lakers are gonna go, I don't
know that I'm confident in saying, because again, especially with
these with these series and everything like that, when you
don't have when your defense isn't locked up, That's that's
my biggest concern because I think playoff basketball is swayed
by defense. I think the age old thing across all

(54:34):
sports is like defense can win championships, and that's I
think true and even in basketball. But I do think
that it's it's the five seed or above them, because
if Luca single handedly can get the MAVs to the
five seed. Ye, then Luca and Lebron theoretically right should
be able to get you.

Speaker 5 (54:51):
And they're more right now.

Speaker 4 (54:53):
Yes, So like I think that this is like exactly
where we could see them enter the playoffs. How far
they go, I don't know yet, but I would expect
the four seater higher. That's that's my That's where I
want to come from with predictions. I'm gonna change change
a little bit because.

Speaker 3 (55:09):
I don't know. I don't know.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
I'm just a happy camper has a has a Laker
fan as an LA sports fan because like it's fun
to watch again. And everyone I've talked to, like around
town is like, oh yeah, no, now I'm watching every
game again.

Speaker 5 (55:21):
Like I said, it's gonna helps.

Speaker 3 (55:23):
In general right now. Yeah, we'll see.

Speaker 5 (55:26):
It's gonna be so fun.

Speaker 2 (55:27):
All right, We're gonna take a quick break here, but
when we come back, the quarterback Domino effect has started
and is the dynasty over in Kansas City. You're listening
to Fox Sports Radio. Welcome back to Fox Sports Saturday.
I'm Alex Curry here with Carmen Vitally coming to your
life entire tak Com Studios in Los Angeles. Thank you
for spending your Saturday afternoon with carme and me.

Speaker 3 (55:48):
I just hit a wall man, No, not yet, I know.

Speaker 5 (55:51):
I know that on Arab It's like I was like,
what's happening?

Speaker 4 (55:56):
The combine is such an insane time like handle at
both ends and.

Speaker 3 (56:01):
It just comes in waves.

Speaker 5 (56:02):
It's like I feel like you're back in college. Same
with a super Bowl week.

Speaker 2 (56:06):
It's like go out as late as you can, and
you have to get up and perform as early.

Speaker 3 (56:10):
As early as you possibly can.

Speaker 5 (56:12):
And don't look like you went out the night exactly.

Speaker 4 (56:14):
That's the thing it was. I mean, I love it
because I just like I feed.

Speaker 3 (56:18):
Off that kind of stuff.

Speaker 4 (56:19):
But it absolutely is like college where you're expected to like, yeah,
be attentive.

Speaker 3 (56:24):
And I'm like, I'm not as young as I was.

Speaker 4 (56:26):
No, You're like, hello, there is something that happens in Indianapolis.
If any of you have ever been there during this week,
and you go into a dinner or you go into
a bar and somehow like the time space continuum, just
like like Vegas.

Speaker 3 (56:42):
It's a black hole.

Speaker 2 (56:43):
Yeah, like Vegas. Yes, you don't know what time it is.
It can it can like eleven pm. It could be
four in the morning.

Speaker 4 (56:49):
The bars in India don't close on time, and so
they just like draw the curtains, so you've absolutely nooid
and all of a sudden you look down at your phone.
You're like, it's three o'clock in the morning. Yeah, I
go to bed at ten pm. Every good for you.

Speaker 5 (57:00):
Night al again, Carmen, I got a question.

Speaker 9 (57:04):
Okay, Martin, So in the times based continuum of NFL,
NFL you've like location based events, Like so, I've been
to the Senior Bowl and the Super Bowl.

Speaker 8 (57:16):
I've never been to the Combine.

Speaker 3 (57:18):
Oh, that's so funny because it's like a happy medium.

Speaker 9 (57:20):
I'm both right, I've experienced the Senior Bowl and somehow
I'm walking through Mobile and it's three thirty.

Speaker 8 (57:27):
In the morning and it's like, wait a minute, I
just left from this.

Speaker 9 (57:30):
There's only three places to be right here, and it's like,
oh wait, that's Brian Flores.

Speaker 3 (57:35):
Oh Awfrome, what's up, dude? Hey, how are you awesome?

Speaker 9 (57:37):
Good luck with the And so I'm just wondering how
and where does like the Senior Bowl experience compared to
the Combine experience.

Speaker 4 (57:45):
Peter Bowl is just a smaller combine because it's even
like Indianapolis. I I'm of I'm in the camp of
like please never move the Combine from Indianapolis, like they
they thought about moving into La the other year a
couple of years ago.

Speaker 5 (58:00):
Special it's the special things.

Speaker 4 (58:02):
And I talked about it before, Like the reason that
there's a vortex or like a black hole is because
you never run out of people to talk to if
you're connected in this industry, because like you just keep
seeing everybody on the street, in the bar, at the restaurants,
so like mobiles like that, because mobile is so condensed.

Speaker 3 (58:19):
The downtown is so small.

Speaker 4 (58:21):
And yeah, you're right, there's three places you go to,
like it's like vets and then that's it basically, and
that like that Wiener Schnitzel like brought worst place the
habard Asher, thank you, and it was like some German
like brewery whatever and like and then so the Combine
instead of there being like two or three places, there's
like five or six, okay, and then Super Bowl obviously

(58:41):
it depends on where simples as right, but like there's
always a centralized, you know, convention center, radio road type area.
But I've also experienced Seener Bowl and I I experienced
Singer Bowl before I experienced Combine, and thank god, because
I did not know how to act in mobile.

Speaker 3 (58:59):
I was like, what is this?

Speaker 4 (59:00):
I just get to go out and run into all
these people and I got my GM buying.

Speaker 5 (59:05):
Was so you were with the Bucks.

Speaker 3 (59:05):
I was with the Bucks.

Speaker 4 (59:06):
O GM is like over in the corner, just buying
us all shots. Yeah, And then I see like Freddy Kitchens,
who was the head coach of the Cleveland Browns, like
falling up a bar stool at the time. Jerry Jones
is holding court in this back corner. The floors are
literally sticky, and we're drinking out of plastic cups, and
Jerry Jones is like, right, it was wild, and I
like didn't know how to act. I got way too
drunk the first night, and then exactly and so then

(59:28):
like the next morning, I got bailed out because practice
got rained out so I don't have to go practice.
And then by the time Combine rolled around in a
few weeks after that, I.

Speaker 5 (59:36):
Was like, Okay, I got this.

Speaker 3 (59:37):
I got this.

Speaker 5 (59:38):
I got this.

Speaker 4 (59:38):
There's like the water, the water between each drink and likes.
But it really I figured out that what happens is
you just one person comes up, you start talking to them.
Before that person leaves you, somebody else comes up and
then you get pulled into that conversation.

Speaker 3 (59:54):
And so that's how time goes so quickly there.

Speaker 4 (59:56):
But it's also why it's so important for a community
that is relationship based, all relationships. It's an incredible time
and you just get to catch up with any everybody
that you haven't seen in a long time, no figure
out how their families are, all of that kind of stuff,
because like I like to build real relationships, not transactional ones.
And so it's like I love hearing about like you know,
I got coaches showing me pictures of their grandkids or whatever, and.

Speaker 3 (01:00:18):
I'm like, oh my god, they're getting so big all
this other stuff.

Speaker 2 (01:00:21):
That's why people But like if you're not in the
industry and you haven't been on the road, like I try,
I try to explain it the best I can. Your
relationships are built on the road, whether you're like a.

Speaker 5 (01:00:30):
Part of a team. So there's been a part of team,
you don't everyone's there, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:00:35):
Like that's where like the real relationships and those like
family connections within the industry are built. Is when you're
on the road, and these are the unique times when
it's like not just the team or certain games that
you're covering, it's like everybody all in one place, everyone's
guards down, everyone's having a good time.

Speaker 3 (01:00:54):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:00:55):
And like there's all these unwritten and like unspoken rules too,
which I've actually seen, Like hey, psa, guys, if you're
an up and coming reporter and you order the combine,
do not take pictures at the bar. No, don't do that.
You don't report on anything you see directly. You do
not take pictures. You do not take video like otherwise.

Speaker 5 (01:01:14):
Learn hard.

Speaker 4 (01:01:15):
Is why you can't have nice things if that's the case. So,
like I've seen a little uptick in that with some
of these younger reporters coming in. You know, it's phone's
always in their hand.

Speaker 2 (01:01:22):
Yeah, yeah, put it away, put it away, be present
or you take present.

Speaker 3 (01:01:30):
I do that. I take.

Speaker 4 (01:01:31):
It's so funny because like I'll wake up the next
morning and forget about conversations that I had, and then
I'll have in my notes like all this like like
breaking down like tight end play and tight end positions
and how that relates back to the offensive line. Like
because I was talking to like the Dolphins tight end
coach at the time, like all of that stuff is great,
but don't there's there's no actual documentation that's allowed, which

(01:01:52):
is hysterical.

Speaker 5 (01:01:53):
Don't do it. Don't do it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:54):
All right, we're gonna we're just gonna move on and
go and go back to you, Martin. I love the sidetrack.
What's trending?

Speaker 8 (01:02:02):
Take memories? Yeah, yeah, remember you know what I do.

Speaker 2 (01:02:05):
Yeah, you hold your temples and you blink and you
go mental picture.

Speaker 8 (01:02:09):
There, you go, take memories.

Speaker 9 (01:02:10):
Be like, ooh, that guy's having a lot of fun
I wonder how much funny has during the year.

Speaker 8 (01:02:14):
You know, that guy's locked in.

Speaker 3 (01:02:16):
I wonder how lot.

Speaker 8 (01:02:16):
Anyway, let's see here.

Speaker 9 (01:02:19):
Top five Top ten match up in SEC play in
men's college basketball. Fifth rank Tennessee hosting sixth rinth Alabama.

Speaker 8 (01:02:27):
The Crimson tie with a.

Speaker 9 (01:02:28):
Forty nine to forty five lead with fifteen forty eight
left in the game at the half. S Houston, the
fourth ranked team in the nation, has a thirty seven
to twenty five lead over Cincinnati. We just watched Mississippi
State beat LSU eighty Yeah.

Speaker 8 (01:02:44):
I said that LSU was leading for a lot of
that game.

Speaker 3 (01:02:46):
I was just about to.

Speaker 9 (01:02:47):
Say, no, Mississippi State one, LSU lost the second half
by fourteen points. Yeah, I was about to double check
that one. LSU still badness. He played three and thirteen.
There you State the twenty fourth forty fourth ranked team
in the nation. Auburn won the SEC title tonight with
a ninety four to seventy eight win over seventeenth rank Kentucky,

(01:03:10):
seventh ranks Saint John's and brus to seventeen and two
in Big East play, beating Seaton Hall seventy one to
sixty one. Texas Tech goes on the road, beats Kansas
seventy eight to seventy three, Texas Tech to tenth rank
team in the nation, thirteenth ranked Clemson with a win
sixteenth rank Maryland where they went over Penn State. And
in the NHL, right now, the Florida Panthers leading the

(01:03:32):
Flames two to nothing with about ten minutes left in
the final period, and the Bruins lead the Penguins to
nothing with about nine minutes left and the third period.

Speaker 5 (01:03:42):
Back to you, guys, nailed it, Thanks Martin.

Speaker 2 (01:03:45):
You're listening to Fox Sports Saturday at Alex Career at
Carmen Vitali. We are broadcasting live from the Tar dot
Com studios in Los Angeles. It is time for our
next guest, the host of the NFL and Fox podcast,
a bestie of our show, Dave Hellman.

Speaker 5 (01:03:56):
Thanks for joining the show.

Speaker 11 (01:03:58):
Hello friends, it is good to be honest.

Speaker 2 (01:04:00):
As yes, right, we appreciate you, we love you. And
let's dive right into the topic we have not talked
about yet. Today, Matthew Stafford and the Rams came to
an agreement on a new deal to keep them in LA.
Do you think there was ever a chance that the
Rams were going to let Stafford go.

Speaker 11 (01:04:16):
I do think there was a chance, which is funny
because it didn't feel real for the first I don't know,
thirty six hours from the time I read the first report,
I was just like, this is dumb, and this doesn't
make sense for anybody.

Speaker 1 (01:04:32):
Yeah, but the.

Speaker 11 (01:04:33):
Problem is what makes a whole hell of a lot
of sense. Money.

Speaker 5 (01:04:37):
Yeah, money, all the money.

Speaker 11 (01:04:39):
And the uh you know. The crux of this was
that the Rams gave Stafford permission to talk to other teams,
and really, once you do that, it can help you
get a sense of what a player's worth. But it
can also really poison the well in a contract negotiation,
because the minute the New York Giants or the Las
Vegas Raiders can approach you and say, hey, man, you're

(01:05:00):
making forty million dollars on year on average per year, Well,
we can bump that up to like fifty six if
you want. Yeah, it's real easy to lose the leverage
when another team is willing to blow your offer out
of the water. But fortunately for the RAMS, I think
there was still a really good relationship between Stafford and

(01:05:23):
the decision makers. Sean McVay left sneed. I don't think
there was any acrimony or any sense of like disrespect,
which I think is often what leads to guys changing teams.
And fortunately the relationship aspect of this was very good,
and it allowed everybody to say, hey, aren't we better together?

Speaker 5 (01:05:43):
We almost we almost made it.

Speaker 11 (01:05:46):
Yeah.

Speaker 4 (01:05:46):
That was the big thing is I think that not
only is there a good relationship there between Drew Stafford
and Sean McVay and and the rest of the organization,
but there was also there had to have been some
sort of confidence on the RAMS part to be like,
all right, if you really, if you really want to
go somewhere and win.

Speaker 3 (01:06:04):
Your options are pretty limited.

Speaker 11 (01:06:06):
Yeah, I mean, I agree, I agree with you, Karen,
But like I said, I think that confidence can turn
into uncertainty really quickly when somebody starts throwing around a
super high number. And on top of that, it's great
for the Rams to say that, but the reality is
they were kinda, in my opinion, at least, gonna be

(01:06:27):
up the creek without a paddle if Matthew Stafford had
demanded demanded out. I mean, if you look around, if
you don't have Matthew Stafford, you could try to throw
the bag at Sam Donald. I don't think that would
excite anybody in LA after watching Donald play the Rams
in the playoffs. Now you could not. I mean, you
could try to entice Aaron Rodgers. I mean, he lives

(01:06:49):
in Malibu, but I mean that is that's a lot,
that is a whole lot of extracurriculars that go along
with it, on top of the fact that he's forty
one years old. And then if it's if it's not
those two guys, then you're talking about maybe Justin Fields
or you signed Jimmy Garoppolo, who was their backup. I mean,
have I said a single name that gives you confidence

(01:07:11):
that the Rams would be closer to a Super Bowl.

Speaker 5 (01:07:13):
I don't more than Matthew Stafford. Absolutely not.

Speaker 2 (01:07:15):
Right now, you mentioned Aaron Rodgers and the Rams were
a team that he was reportedly interested in. But now
that's off the table. What do you think happens to
Rogers now?

Speaker 11 (01:07:27):
Funny little subplot of this offseason is that the you know,
Joe Shay and the general manager of the New York Giants.
He had his end of year press conference. Obviously was
a terrible year for the Giants and they're on sinn
ice they might get fired, and Joe Shane said to
New York reporters after the season that I'm not going
to do any hail Mary stuff to try to keep

(01:07:47):
my job. I'm not going to do anything desperate to
try to hold onto my job for another year. And
in the months since that happened, they made an extremely
aggressive push for Matthew Stafford. And now as soon as
staff re upped with the Rams, you're hearing reports out
of New York that the Giants are going to try
hard to get Aaron Rodgers to come play for them.
You know, he's already in that area he can just

(01:08:09):
move to the facility on the other side of North Jersey. Yeah,
that sounds pretty desperate to me. Yeah, that sounds like
the Giants doing anything they can to be in the
mix this year. So that I mean, that seems like
the presumptive favorite. If that doesn't work out, you know,
maybe whichever team doesn't win the quarterback lottery, I guess

(01:08:32):
you would say in the draft this year. I don't know.
Maybe the Raiders are worth mentioning, probably the Tennessee Titans
if they're not in love with one of these quarterbacks
at the top of the draft. But if the Giants
don't want him, I think it's you know, I'm not
sure Aaron Rodgers is going to be in love with
his options.

Speaker 4 (01:08:50):
I want to talk about something else. You talk about
media availabilities and things that are said at the combine
and all of those things you covered the Cowboys. You
know a hi media cycle works. You know that Dallas
Cowboy beat writers are usually the ones that have to
stay the entire week because Jerry Jones does not speak

(01:09:11):
until the end of it. Well, that day was today
and he blew them all off.

Speaker 3 (01:09:16):
What is behind that, Dave, I don't know.

Speaker 11 (01:09:19):
What's behind it, But I don't. I think it is
something with the capital s that is very stronge.

Speaker 3 (01:09:25):
What do you mean.

Speaker 11 (01:09:27):
Is it's very strange and outside the norm behavior. So
for anybody that's not familiar with the combine, I'll paint
you a quick picture. Every general manager and every head
coach speaks to the media at the combine. It is
mandated by the league. It's one of the handful of
times a year that you have to talk. Well in
typical Jerry fashion, he typically waits for the end of
the week. He brings everybody onto his super cool cowboys

(01:09:50):
tour bus and he has a you know, he has
a state of the union with the local media. He's
been doing it for as long as I can remember.
I've had a chance to sit in on those, you know,
at least ten times, if not more, and to not
do it A you're not meeting your requirement to talk
for the week, and b again, it is such a
huge departure from the norm that it can only mean

(01:10:13):
one of a couple things. Is A Jerry really doesn't
want to talk about something. Maybe he's not trying to
give the game away. You know, you've heard reports this
week that the Cowboys are in conversations with a couple
of their free agents or B. And this is this
is my theory. I don't have this confirmed or anything.
My theory is that the Cowboys are pretty aggravated about

(01:10:35):
the way that they've been treated over the last year. Obviously,
they caught a lot of flak for the way they
approached last offseason. They've been raked over the coals by
everybody in the.

Speaker 3 (01:10:44):
Media, So that's their own salt.

Speaker 5 (01:10:46):
They dated to themselves, guys.

Speaker 11 (01:10:48):
I never said that it wasn't fair. But it's up
to the Cowboys how they perceive these things, you know.
And if the Cowboys, if they don't feel like being
their normal grip garyus sells, maybe maybe they feel justified
based on how much of a bummer the last six
to eight months have been. Or you know, maybe Jerry

(01:11:09):
was just busier than he thought.

Speaker 5 (01:11:11):
But again, exactly everything is something for Jerry.

Speaker 11 (01:11:16):
I completely agree with you, and that's why I don't
know for sure what is up. And I believe Jerry
told the Cowboys media that he would talk next week
when everybody gets home to Texas. Maybe we'll find out
next week, but I firmly believe something is up. Whether
it's because some Cowboys news is coming, or maybe Jerry

(01:11:37):
Jones is just mad at the media, I'm not sure,
but it was very It made my eyebrow perk up
very high.

Speaker 2 (01:11:43):
For sure, especially since like that, Yeah, that's Jerry's time
to shine.

Speaker 11 (01:11:50):
It really is like Jerry never misses a chance the
old court, So to not want to sit down and
let everybody know what he thinks that is, that's a
departure from the normans. I would call it a red flag.
I can't wait to see what it means.

Speaker 4 (01:12:05):
Okay, now you've just created also something that you have
to account for.

Speaker 3 (01:12:09):
Talk about any when he talks next week.

Speaker 5 (01:12:11):
Yeah, why didn't you talk to us last week?

Speaker 3 (01:12:12):
Week? All of these base reporters have extended their trip.
They pay for the whole week.

Speaker 5 (01:12:17):
Pay us back, Jerry.

Speaker 11 (01:12:18):
Seriously, there's always going to be some fun drama with
the Cowboys guys every year.

Speaker 5 (01:12:24):
Okay, So you were out at the Combine this week.

Speaker 2 (01:12:27):
We've we've been talking about how it's probably one of
the top rated events football events for people in our industry,
just because everybody's there.

Speaker 5 (01:12:36):
Is there any inside scoop that you can share from.

Speaker 2 (01:12:38):
The week, maybe like a player that stood out to you,
a coach you talked to, some insight info.

Speaker 5 (01:12:42):
What can you give us?

Speaker 11 (01:12:44):
Oh my gosh, Yeah, I mean we're getting We're getting
real inside baseball here, Like I don't mainly what I
go for is the the player aspect of it. I'm
a huge draft nerd, and you know, covering the league
all the way up to the super Bowl is uh it.

(01:13:05):
You know, I get a late start these days. I'm
not as hip on the draft as I probably should be.
So it's very fun. It's very fun for me to
like get out there and ask people what they really
think about guys that I've been hearing about, uh and
see what the real opinion is. And again, I don't
know how much this moves the needle, but I've got

(01:13:25):
a big draft crush on a fellow named Jihad Campbell
out of Alabama, Okay, And I liked him as a
player heading in and I got a whole lot of
good feedback about him while I was in Indianapolis. So
you know, I don't think that's gonna, you know, drive
a lot of clicks right now in March, but maybe

(01:13:46):
maybe when this guy's balling out later in the season.
People will remember I said it because I talked to
a lot of people like yeah, yeah, absolutely, yeah, big time.
And I think a guy that can make a difference
right away.

Speaker 4 (01:13:57):
And somebody who I think has kind of set the
table for him too is in Green Bay Is Cooper?
What's his last what's his first name? Why am I
breaking on that? Edgrin Cooper? There it is, It's been
a long week Edgrin Cooper? Who because John Campbell is
one of those like inside outside guys. He's played both
inside off ball, linebacker and edge for Alabama and you

(01:14:21):
see kind of the creative ways that the coaches that
can now use guys like that in the past Rush
And so I'm with you, Dave, like I think that
like his stock has risen or at least we got
confirmation that guys behind the scenes and decision makers.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
So yeah, see that too.

Speaker 2 (01:14:38):
That's exactly absolutely Dave. We appreciate you coming on. Thank
you so much. What happens with the boys? The boys?

Speaker 4 (01:14:48):
Yeah, everybody will be tuning in to Jerry's remarks, and.

Speaker 2 (01:14:52):
You know what, maybe that's why, maybe that's why he
did it once again, spotlight on Jerry all Right, Dave,
Thank you so much. We're going to take one more
break here when we come back. Who won our NFL
season picks between Karme and me? Oh listening to Fox
Sports Radio, Welcome back to Fox Sports Saturday.

Speaker 5 (01:15:14):
I am Alex Curry here with Carmen Fatalite.

Speaker 2 (01:15:16):
We are broadcasting live from the Tire Talk Com studios
in Los Angeles. I thought we were this was a
commercial because this song's using so many commercials.

Speaker 5 (01:15:21):
I was like, right, are we back or is this
a commercial? What's happening here?

Speaker 3 (01:15:25):
Listen? If you missed any of today's show, it was
a fun one, dude.

Speaker 5 (01:15:29):
We had a great time.

Speaker 3 (01:15:30):
Go back.

Speaker 4 (01:15:31):
Check out the short show. Our podcast is going up
thanks to our lovely producers. If you missed any of it,
check it out. Search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get
your podcast, Be sure to follow and review, rate, subscribe,
five stars, do all of those things. Please search Fox
Sports out with us wherever you get your pods, or
go to the iHeartRadio app. I mean, like we'd today's reads.
We're an eye opener, like we're everywhere.

Speaker 5 (01:15:52):
We're everywhere, all right.

Speaker 2 (01:15:53):
So this is our first show post Super Bowl and
throughout the entire season.

Speaker 5 (01:15:59):
Carmen and I did NFL pictures.

Speaker 3 (01:16:01):
Are you sure we have to do this?

Speaker 5 (01:16:02):
Yes, we do.

Speaker 2 (01:16:03):
We have to know the end of the season final
tally producer and lead us through what what what?

Speaker 5 (01:16:11):
How did we end this year? Okay?

Speaker 12 (01:16:13):
I mean, judging by both of your guys's tones, I
think you guys both already know how.

Speaker 4 (01:16:19):
I psych myself out every single week. I go with
my heart, not my head. Actually know I go too
much with my head because I'm like, I dissect certain
things and it.

Speaker 12 (01:16:28):
Just okay, well, well, trusting your head. That got you
to fifty four and forty one. That was your total on.

Speaker 3 (01:16:34):
The year, and yeah, anyway about five it's a first.

Speaker 5 (01:16:38):
Dad, not bad.

Speaker 12 (01:16:39):
And then Alex, your totals were sixty one and thirty four.

Speaker 5 (01:16:42):
Oh maybe, Okay, that's it.

Speaker 12 (01:16:45):
That's a win for Alex.

Speaker 2 (01:16:47):
So I think at the beginning of the year there
were some suggestions of like what the loser had to
do and if I remember correctly, and we can also
change this, we can put out a vote. I think
the loser had to write like a rap about the
winner and recited on the show.

Speaker 5 (01:17:02):
If you have another idea moment. But I kind of
love that one.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
It could be like two three lines, funny, weird, whatever
you want. You're a writer, so like that feels on brand.

Speaker 3 (01:17:14):
I don't have caydence. I don't need delivery skills.

Speaker 5 (01:17:16):
I believe in you.

Speaker 4 (01:17:18):
Yeah, all of the I was saying, all of the
listening to all the little.

Speaker 5 (01:17:23):
Say you've wrapped little Wayne on here.

Speaker 3 (01:17:25):
You're right, No, I wrapped Boozy on.

Speaker 5 (01:17:28):
Here beautiful, even better.

Speaker 3 (01:17:30):
Boozy is easy. He just spells things that spell things.

Speaker 5 (01:17:33):
There you go see already inpo.

Speaker 3 (01:17:35):
I just found out. I want to gi a quick
shout out.

Speaker 4 (01:17:38):
Yeah, Jason Fitz buck Rising are following us today on
this show.

Speaker 3 (01:17:43):
Love Buck Rising is a good friend.

Speaker 4 (01:17:44):
Love Jason Fitz's work.

Speaker 3 (01:17:48):
On the show.

Speaker 5 (01:17:48):
He's a guest.

Speaker 3 (01:17:49):
He literally just texted me talk nice. I can hear you.

Speaker 5 (01:17:51):
Oh yeah, let's go back. Even though absolutely you.

Speaker 3 (01:17:55):
Know, he didn't tell me any of this, and we
sat next to each other on Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:17:58):
Row all week.

Speaker 4 (01:17:59):
No d no.

Speaker 3 (01:18:01):
So I might be talking nice, but I'm gonna give
you some. I'm gonna give you some.

Speaker 4 (01:18:04):
My face is my face is not talking nice, bug,
But I have a great show.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
There were so many things we didn't get to today.
We got sidetracked. Martin Wise also thank you for like
the other sidetrack. I think the combine was our sidetrack today.
This is a Combine show. Is it still on right now?
I don't know if you're looking at it it is.

Speaker 4 (01:18:26):
I believe it's still drill.

Speaker 2 (01:18:29):
I didn't get to ask you who stood out to
you at the combin Someone that you're keeping an eye on,
that you're really excited about.

Speaker 4 (01:18:35):
Yeah, I mean, I loved that Dave brought up to
hot Campbell because again of like the name of the
game this year, I feel like is position of flexibility
just in general, because there are guys even that I'm
looking at from a lion like lines perspective, like on
offensive defensive line, guys that can go in and out.
Tyler Booker of Alabama is an inside.

Speaker 2 (01:18:55):
Like so another Alabama player days was an Alabama player.

Speaker 5 (01:18:58):
Yours an Alabama player.

Speaker 4 (01:18:59):
Track littered with Bama players with our list if they
make the National Championship or not. But Tyler Booker who
is listed, I believe as an inside offensive lineman as
a guard. It does have position flexibility as far as tackle,
and I heard from Lanceer line this week we got
to interview him on Radio Row and it's talking about
all right, your injuries, especially along the offensive line, are

(01:19:19):
when not an if, and so if you guys, if
you have guys that have position flexibility, go in and out,
that's it's invaluable as.

Speaker 11 (01:19:26):
Far as.

Speaker 4 (01:19:28):
Over or just you know, in general, you want to
keep continuity as much as possible.

Speaker 3 (01:19:33):
So I really do think a guy like Tyler.

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
Booker can be a good addition to a team that
wants to insulate against the line because you can only
hold so many offensive linemen on your roster, you know,
anywhere between nine to eleven offensive linemen on your active
roster poor game day, and it depends on you know
what what who you are as a team and all
that other stuff. So I'm shocker of all shockers. I'm

(01:19:57):
looking at offensive linemen this game favorite position group for
so many reasons. But I do I really appreciated hearing
from people about Tyler Booker and just how athletic he
really is.

Speaker 5 (01:20:08):
Yeah, I love that.

Speaker 2 (01:20:09):
Oh, thank you so much for spending your Saturday afternoon
with us. Stick around Jason Fitzbuck Rising coming up next.
We'll see you next week, same time, same place,

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