Steve Hartman & Geoff Schwartz Preview Game 7, Question Sheder's Leadership & Praise the Dodgers-Padres Rivalry

Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:01):
Don't listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 2 (00:04):
Living the dream once again here on a fully loaded
Sports Saturday. This is Fox Sports Saturday and we're broadcasting
live from the Fox Sports Radio studios. And yes, Jeff
and I reunited, reunited.

Speaker 3 (00:21):
How are you, Jeff?

Speaker 4 (00:22):
I am good.

Speaker 5 (00:23):
Got to be back with you today, buddy. It's been
a long time, and it's good to hear your voice
and talk a little sports. Baseball on right now College
Warts series on which I know we're gonna cover pitch
to pitch tonight, but so much sports, you know, a
different time of year, right like it's you know, your
sort of feel the football coming soon, but there's other
stuff to talk about.

Speaker 4 (00:42):
So it's nice.

Speaker 2 (00:43):
Well, you feel like as we come to the conclusion
with tomorrow's Game seven of the NBA Finals out to
conclude the basketball season as far as the games are concerned,
and you know, hockey's done. So you know, we people
tend to talk about Dog's Day, dog days of so,
but I was looking at it this way.

Speaker 3 (01:01):
Jeff, havn't done this as many years as I have.

Speaker 2 (01:04):
You know, sometimes you're almost forced to talk about certain
things because well they're just it's that time of the
year and then you get a little bit of a breather,
and that's what we have right now where you can
start to get a little more depth. There are a
number of stories that Jeff and I want to get
into today that are sort of in the news, but me,
you're not following as closely as some of the other
big stories, but you probably will once we talk about them.

(01:27):
By the way, before we get to what's going to
happen tomorrow night Game seven of the NBA Finals. And oh,
by the way, a little change here, Jeff and our
programming Adam Kaplan, our NFL insider, will join us in
the next hour. Mark Medina was not able to move
into our first hour today, our MBA insider, so Mark
will rejoin us next week. But before we do that,

(01:48):
I'm just curious about this College World Series.

Speaker 3 (01:52):
I was excited because my UCLA.

Speaker 2 (01:53):
Bruins were in the World Series for the first time
in twelve years. They got up ended, losing back to
back games to LSU in Arkansas, so they got eliminated.
And now we get this LSU matchup against Coast and Carolina.
But you're a Carolina guy, so how big is this
Coastal Carolina, you know, a couple of wins away from
winning the College World Series.

Speaker 5 (02:15):
You know, I mean, you know, it's like living in
Los Angeles and you know the team in Fresno is
in a College World Series. I mean, we're pretty pretty
far away. But look, I think I think Coastal is
interesting because you know, we talk about in football, in
basketball wanting the smaller school, right the group of five
or the mid major to win championships. Well, baseball is

(02:38):
that sport, right Baseball that can happen. Coastals won before
in Oregon State is not a mid major, but they
were independent. Now they were in the College World Series.
You know, Murray State was in the Murray Valley.

Speaker 4 (02:50):
Murray State. Murray State was like, you can have those runs.

Speaker 5 (02:53):
And so when you look at the game tonight, LSU
and Coastal Coastals like they're not a fluke. And so
this is what people want, right, people. People want this
vibe that they want the lower school, the mid major
to have a chance to win championships. It's here, it's here,
it's LSU, who's one before that won a couple of
years ago against Coastal. So it should be fun to

(03:14):
watch seven o'clock tonight. I would expect a little low
scoring game to start with. These tend to be low
scoring early on, but you know, high level college baseball. Again, No,
there's no NFL tonight, so obviously there's no NBA tonight.

Speaker 4 (03:26):
It's no NHL tonight.

Speaker 5 (03:28):
Half the baseball games are already over with right now,
so you know college baseball can fill that void with
Oh yeah, these are high level games. An't fun to watch?
And Steve, what's so interesting about college sports and why
it's so different than the NFL. We saw this the
other night in the LSU Arkansas game. Is how often
in college sports teams lose games rather than win games,

(03:53):
right if that makes sense?

Speaker 4 (03:54):
Right? And in pro sports a lot of times.

Speaker 5 (03:56):
A team can lose a game, but the other team
has played really well to win the game, right. I
mean LSU didn't do anything to win that game the
other night, Arkansas just messed up multiple times in a row.
A soft ground ball fielded by the wrong guy, a
double play ball shorts off, just turns it down and
throws a third base, a line drive right right, the
left fielder doesn't catch it, and then a line drive

(04:19):
to the second base. I mean, that was a tough play,
but off his glove. There are four plays that you know,
ninety seven percent of the time are made and Arkansas
just didn't make four of them four times in a row.
And that's what not the joy of college sports, but
that's what makes it so unique. While we like to
watch it, which is again like the failure we see
often is different than pro sports.

Speaker 3 (04:41):
I still love it.

Speaker 2 (04:41):
And you know, one of the things we're going to
talk about a little bit later on is the continuing
evolution of where we are in the college sports world
right now, some big stories coming out. Basically a cap
has been placed on how much money can be distributed
by these universities in these nil deals, So we're gonn
to talk a little bit about that later on, how

(05:02):
that's going to affect the transfer portal, which to me
has been the biggest story really in the new evolution
of where college sports is going.

Speaker 6 (05:09):
Now.

Speaker 2 (05:10):
I'm going to take advantage today Jeff, because of course,
you know Jeff from Countdown presented by bet MGM, Brian
know crack Krackenberger, Jeff had been doing an humbling.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
How long you guys been together on that show. Now
on Sundays.

Speaker 5 (05:22):
This I think this will be our fourth season coming
up this we now so I know, yeah, you guys
are right after us every Sunday, so you get to
hear the end of it.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
I hear all of it. I get up early on Sundays.
I listen to you guys, love every second out of it.
But I'm going to take advantage of this jet because
obviously tomorrow you guys are going to be just going,
you know Nutso with every prop bet possible for this
Game seven between the Pacers and the Oklahoma City Thunder,
here's my observation.

Speaker 3 (05:50):
Of what's been happening in these NBA Finals.

Speaker 2 (05:53):
And again I'm not going to get into how many
people are watching.

Speaker 3 (05:56):
I'm watching, Okay, that's what I do.

Speaker 2 (05:58):
I've been an NBA fan, and it's interesting because this
will be the twentieth Game seven in the NBA Finals.
Then the previous nineteen, the home team has won fifteen
of the nineteen games, and the last time we had
a Game seven, the road team won. That would be
Lebron and Kyrie and the Cavs upsetting the seventy three
win Golden State Warriors team. But the first road team

(06:21):
to win a Game seven in the NBA Finals. I
witnessed that as well as a fifth grader when my
Los Angeles Lakers lost at home at the Forum to
Bill Russell and the Celtics, and what turned out to
be Bill Russell's final game at the Forum.

Speaker 3 (06:36):
You know, this had never happened before.

Speaker 2 (06:38):
So when you look at this game tomorrow, I see
two things here. The first thing that hit me about
this series is I felt like, you know, I've seen
the numbers on Oklahoma City. You know, sixty eight wins,
average margin and victory what twelve thirteen points over the
course of the season. I mean that one of the

(06:59):
probably ten greatest regular seasons in NBA history in terms
of wins, point differential, everything else you have to understand
about Shake Gildess, Alexander, he Will Chamberlain and Michael Jordan
are the only three players in NBA history to have
three consecutive years of scoring at least thirty points per

(07:21):
game while.

Speaker 3 (07:21):
Shooting at least fifty percent from the field.

Speaker 2 (07:23):
That's pretty rare fight here, Chamberlain, Michael Jordan, Shay Gildess, Alexander.
So I really came into this postseason expecting to watch
this Juggernaut, realizing that I really haven't seen much of
this team. They're never on TV, right, they show the Lakers,
they show the Celtics. You know, how much have I
actually seen of this team? And I have as we

(07:44):
get ready for this game seven tomorrow. I have been
underwhelmed by this team, not because of the individual play,
but the inconsistencies. And I keep staring at the bench
at this Mark Dagnall guy, and I'm thinking, all right,
this guy was the G league coach, and then when
Billy Donovan left, they elevated this guy to the head

(08:06):
job when they were a miserable team.

Speaker 3 (08:09):
And now here they are with not only the.

Speaker 2 (08:12):
Second youngest team ever to get to the NBA Finals,
they have five first round picks in the next two years.
They're in a position to really dominate this league for
the at least the rest of this decade. But I'm
not so sure they got the right coach, because when
you see a team that just seems to check out
like this team has at many points, not just in

(08:35):
the NBA Finals, but in an earlier series as well,
that to me is a problem. And if I were
Oklahoma City right now, even if they win this game tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (08:45):
I really have to take a serious look.

Speaker 2 (08:48):
Do you want to dominate this league for the next
five or six years, because you have a chance to
do that. I just don't know if this guy has
the right temperament, because they just seem to be in
a fog half the time. Jeff, and I have to say,
my takeaway from these NBA Finals is I am far
less enamored with Oklahoma City than I was going into
these playoffs.

Speaker 5 (09:09):
Yeah, it's it's it's pretty interesting when you look at
at them in the in the postseason so far, right,
because you look at the things that win the postseason.
We talk about all the time, two of them. Right,
We talk about experience, which the okay, you didn't really
have experience and coaching, right, those are two things we
talk about often. And okay, see, uh, you know, their depth,

(09:35):
which they have a ton of help them get to
the record they had and play as well as they
played in the regular season, right, and me having the
ability to just roll guys through and have fresh guys
and have fresh scores wins you a lot of regular
season games. The thing that I noticed, and this this
is your point about coaching, I'm not sure this is.
I don't know whose fault this is exactly, but Dagnall

(09:56):
doesn't have a five. I think he trusts finish a
game right now, which is a problem because because the
Pacers have their five, they have their five, and he
continually seems to be battling to find those five right
starting lineup. There's there's like a lineup where like plus
minus is maybe the best lineup, but they don't really

(10:20):
like that lineup. And then they went away from the
two bigs. They've started the two bigs, and then the
second half last game they didn't start the two bigs,
like they have another lineup with Caruso in there. That
feels like they're still trying to find that lineup because
I think they don't. They have Sga and they have Williams.
So those are two guys that are good.

Speaker 4 (10:39):
They don't you know, is it Chet Holmgren the third?

Speaker 5 (10:41):
Well check kind of disappears a lot, right, he's the third,
and they you know, they don't have really and Cruso
can be this guy, but they don't have like a
McConnell ish player, right. They don't even have a Ben
Matt Like Ben Matherings done nothing for two games he
can score twenty seven to night. The Thunder don't have

(11:01):
that guy, right, Like, they don't don't have some sort
of pieces. I think that the Pacers have, and Dagnal's
trying to find the best way to position his team
to win. But look, Oddsmakers, obviously, like the Thunder is
still they're seven and a half. It was just the
lowest number they've been for any home game the entire postseason.
It might even take take down to seven in some places.

(11:22):
And when OKAC is playing their brand of basketball, they're
not gonna lose. But the Pacers have been able to
get them out of that brand of basketball a lot
of times in this series. And with three minutes left
the game is tied, I don't know who I try out.
Howie burn being healthy is a big is a big
important factor in this right If he's not healthy, it
changes obviously how you feel about them. But the Pacers

(11:45):
feel like they just have more guys that you know,
have these big shot opportunities, these big shot moments. And
that doesn't mean I'm picking them tomorrow. I will not
be picking them tomorrow. But that's I think the feeling
you have about coaching is there's not this, here's my five.
He's trying to find the five. And it's Game seven
and he's trying to figure out the five guys. Now,

(12:08):
as far as game six, Steve, that was the lowest
rate offensive game they've had the entire season. So I
would expect there to be be a lot better in
game seven. They're a better home team. They haven't lost
too there's a lot of things that you know they're
going in their direction for success.

Speaker 4 (12:24):
Okay, so I.

Speaker 5 (12:25):
Think they do win tomorrow, and all the things you
said I think are absolutely because any thing about it
sga good Jayala Williams good chet to.

Speaker 4 (12:33):
Me, I don't. I'm as soft as the right word.

Speaker 3 (12:36):
He's softy.

Speaker 1 (12:37):
I guess.

Speaker 3 (12:38):
Look at I was a big proponent chep Hol.

Speaker 4 (12:41):
He has only one. He's had thirty pounds.

Speaker 2 (12:44):
He does because he gets absolutely They so aggressive and
they just knock him out of the way like he's
not even there. I mean, obviously his skills, he can
do a lot of things on the court, but he
gets bullied around and it's no I mean, but he
is better at home.

Speaker 3 (13:01):
There is definitely better at home than he is on
the road.

Speaker 5 (13:03):
There's two there's you know, the biggest instances I've been
on chet rebounds in this series because he's the biggest.

Speaker 4 (13:08):
Guy show of the most rebounds.

Speaker 5 (13:09):
So I watch him every time that Indiana's at the
line because you know, you get it, you box out,
you get it, you get a misshot. This is the
thing where I just he never gets a rebound when
Indiana misses the foul shot because he's doing one of
two things. He's either so forcefully trying to box out
the guy that that he that he actually pushes the

(13:31):
guy like off the spy sort of off balance on
his heels, that someone else comes in, like the third guy,
the third okay See guy comes in and gets it,
or he gets just like shoved under the basket. So
far he can't get get get the ball. And so
but again the thinking about okay See, like he chucks
do for a twenty ten next game, like you can
see that happening. So there's there's and if okay See

(13:57):
plays the defense, we know they can play obviously right
like that could be over quickly. So I'm looking forward
to the game. A lot of variables in this game,
But you're right, long term, is okay See a dynasty?

Speaker 2 (14:08):
I don't know they have a chance to be won.
I mean they got everything there. Again, second youngest team
ever to get to the NBA Finals, they would be
the second youngest champion team. And by the way, the
first one was that seventy seven Trailblazers team which the
next year started the year fifty to ten before Walton
got hurt. And that was the end of it, just
like that. I mean, it was over before it even started.

(14:31):
This we know about Shay Gildess Alexander the one time
he had to step up Game four, you down two
games to one, you're on the road, and this guy
puts up fifteen points in five minutes. And my favorite
stat of that game for him was this zero assist.
In other words, he just decided, forget it, I am
just going to take over this game.

Speaker 3 (14:51):
We have to win this game.

Speaker 2 (14:53):
And that's the game where his game, at least to
my I went even another level, realizing that I'm the
guy that has to carry our team.

Speaker 3 (15:02):
We have to win this game. I've got to do it.
I got to do it myself.

Speaker 2 (15:05):
Zero assist and he scored fifteen points in the last
five minutes and they won that game, all right. So
later on Jeff, I'm gonna hold you to this because
not everyone is going to wake up early on countdown.

Speaker 3 (15:16):
I'm gonna get you. Gotta give us some plays a little.

Speaker 4 (15:18):
Bit later on the game, on.

Speaker 3 (15:20):
The game that's gonna be coming up tomorrow night.

Speaker 4 (15:22):
All right.

Speaker 2 (15:23):
On the other side, we got to get to the
Shudor Sanders situation and what the Cleveland Browns do from here.
I've got some thoughts in this one, Jeff. I didn't
share with you earlier when we spoke, but I have
a I want to get your get your input as
a former NFL player, especially a former offensive lineman, on
the impact of off the field activities concerning a young quarterback.

Speaker 3 (15:46):
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Speaker 6 (15:49):
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Speaker 2 (16:02):
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Speaker 3 (16:28):
I watched Jeff Schwartz all the time.

Speaker 2 (16:30):
Where do you have Do you have your setup in
your man cave or where is that setup.

Speaker 4 (16:35):
For you office? It's a bedroom, yeah, so.

Speaker 3 (16:38):
You have a separate man cave though.

Speaker 4 (16:41):
Yeah, I have, Ay, I do.

Speaker 5 (16:42):
I don't use as much anymore because we host a
lot of people on Sundays for the NFL. This is
how I get my wife to watch football as we
invite people over. So I mostly watch downstairs now. But
I do have a room with three TVs.

Speaker 3 (16:54):
Yes, yes, I know that, So there. Jeff is very
busy guy.

Speaker 4 (16:57):
All right.

Speaker 3 (16:58):
So, Jeff, I want to get.

Speaker 2 (16:59):
Your insight as a former offensive lineman in the National
Football League. So I've said this many times about the
definition of a leader is someone that inspires others to follow.

Speaker 3 (17:12):
And there could be a lot of ways you do that.

Speaker 2 (17:14):
You could be just by force of personality, aggressiveness, or performance,
but whatever it is about you, it inspires others to follow.
When you have a football team, by nature of the position,

(17:34):
a quarterback needs to be a leader.

Speaker 3 (17:36):
He needs to be a team.

Speaker 2 (17:38):
Leader because when you get in that huddle. I saw
this when when I joined the Raiders in nineteen eighty four.
They were coming off another Super Bowl win with Jim
Plunkett and we had a young quarterback out of BYU
named Mark Wilson. Mark Wilson probably could throw the football
better than Jim Plunkett, but the difference, and I would
talk to the players when they were in a huddle
with Jim Plunkett as opposed to Mark Wilson was night

(17:59):
and day because they could look at Jim Plunket and
he had been there, done that, He'd won two Super Bowls.
They knew he could do what they wanted to do,
and that was lead them to a championship. They didn't
have that same feeling when Mark Wilson was in the huddle.
So when you're a young quarterback, when you're trying to
as a rookie, you know take over potentially is the

(18:20):
starting quarterback.

Speaker 3 (18:22):
Of your team.

Speaker 2 (18:23):
The first thing you need to do is to be
able to get that respect from your teammates like, Okay,
this guy is coming and we'll see how he plays.
Maybe he doesn't have the game, but he's already showing
us a certain level of maturity, a certain level of well,
whatever it takes to be a leader on a team.
You can see those qualities early. You can't manufacture a leader.

(18:46):
Either you have it or you don't have it. And
the concern I have because I don't want to condemn
Shador Sanders for you know, you know, speeding. I believe
I got plenty of speeding tickets when I was his age,
so I was no you know, but I wasn't trying
to be the quarterback of an NFL team.

Speaker 3 (19:03):
So let me ask you this.

Speaker 2 (19:05):
I know you can't speak directly for members of the
Cleveland Browns, but you get a general sense of an
NFL locker room. How do you think the veteran teammates
on this Cleveland Browns team take to a quarterback that
just makes a mistake, but the same mistake twice in
less than a month. Does that in any way hurt

(19:26):
his potential to be a leader on this team?

Speaker 3 (19:29):
Or is that just.

Speaker 2 (19:30):
Dismissed as if we really don't care what he does
off the field, We'll just reserve it to see what
he does on the field.

Speaker 3 (19:36):
How is that going to work?

Speaker 4 (19:37):
Okay, so most of the time, and I've said this
for most.

Speaker 5 (19:41):
Any issue in the NFL is that as long as
it doesn't affect how you play on Sundays, we don't care.
I don't care who you sleep with. I don't care
what you on the weekends. I don't care who you
hang out with. I don't care who your wife is.
I don't care. I'm at joys you make on social media.
If you help me win and help we make money,

(20:02):
I don't care.

Speaker 4 (20:03):
Right.

Speaker 5 (20:04):
The issue becomes, obviously, is if the problems cause you
to play worse and cause you to miss games and
cause your you to not play as well, right, not
study as much, not be ready to play, not be
able to play at the level that you want to play.
So that includes, by the way, your judgment right, because

(20:26):
your judgment as a player is important to your character.
But also just like how you study, right, how you
prepare and once meeting ticket whatever, man, we all have tickets.

Speaker 4 (20:39):
You're right. I've had a ninety five and sixty five before, like.

Speaker 5 (20:43):
Whatever, I didn't have it again, like you know, like
I haven't had it again, knock on wood, I had
at one time. So I think that that's the concern
is that it's a judgment, right, because poor judgment leads
to other issues, other leadership issues. And if you can't
be trusted to not go twenty five to thirty miles

(21:05):
hour over the speed limit twice in a month, can
we trust you to be our starting quarterback? Can we
trust you to do these other things that we magic
guys like listen you I imagine people listening. Now, you
run companies and you hire people. Let's say, can you
trust the person that calls in, Hey, I got another
speeding ticket.

Speaker 4 (21:22):
I gotta miss I gotta go to court today. You're like, ah,
another one? Like really?

Speaker 5 (21:27):
And so that becomes the issue, right, Steve, it's not
one ticket's fine and he wasn't tricky and driving right. Fortunately,
that's very good, right. Obviously we know that it can
be an issue, but it's a judgment, right. And when
people have eyeballs to dure like they do right, wrong
and different, everything he does under a microscope, and every

(21:50):
time he gets pulled over, it's all gonna be news.

Speaker 4 (21:53):
Now.

Speaker 5 (21:54):
I think I did not watch all of the trap
the body camfis, but seem like he was very respectful,
which is good. Obviously, those are all good things. But
I think as of right now to me, will not
affect the locker room. I think the Browns decision makers
are like, you know, like let's not do it again, dude.

(22:14):
And missing the court date's not good.

Speaker 4 (22:16):
That was part of it.

Speaker 5 (22:17):
He missed the court date for the first one a
lot of times that I could have dealt with with
the team security. I'm kind of surprised that that maybe
he didn't tell the team security that he had a ticket,
because normally team security kind of helped. You know, there's
typically former police officers team security. They can help get
rid of those. I had to happen one time to me,
I got dude, I got pulled over. I was in Detroit, Okay.

(22:37):
I was about ten o'clock at night. I was leaving
a team function, a team dinner, and it was a
four lane road, two lanes each way. I'm talking to
my wife on the phone, and I saw this cop.
I was driving my I have a black Tundra with
black windows. Would do at tending windows in the back
in the front. You gotta be legal North Carolina. So
I was in Detroit and so I'm driving. I thought

(22:58):
this cop sort of like slow down driving by me.
The other direction. I told him.

Speaker 4 (23:02):
I was like, man, it's kind of weird. He's gonna
pull me over for some reason.

Speaker 5 (23:04):
He pulled me over, okay, and and he goes like,
you've been drinking. I was like, no, I don't drink,
and he accused me of drinking. He made me do
the alphabet backwards. He's like, your eyes are red, like
they're not. I'm not drinking. What are you talking about?
So all this stuff and am giving me a forty
four and a forty as my ticket. And so I
told team security and they said, you know, they're like, well,

(23:27):
we'll deal with this, and they got it's funny.

Speaker 4 (23:29):
I got word back.

Speaker 5 (23:30):
They said I was rude to the police officer and
I said, yeah, I was because he told me I
was drinking and driving and I was not. Accused me
multiple times of being drunk and under the influence and
I was not. But again, like team security makes those
go away if they're not bad. I mean, there wasn't bad.
He see a forty four and a forty is what
I was giving a ticket for. So I was not speeding.

Speaker 3 (23:50):
No, I hope that was completely dismissed as it was.
It was.

Speaker 2 (23:55):
Yeah, I just I again final word here on shoot door. Look,
I'm rooining for the kid, really, you know, the Browns
need a break. But on the other side, I want
to get into suddenly forgotten quarterback they drafted ahead of them,
that went to your school.

Speaker 3 (24:11):
Why is no one talking about Dylan Gabriel.

Speaker 2 (24:13):
I want to talk about him, but first let's find
out what is trending right now.

Speaker 3 (24:20):
Martin sporting the Dodger cap today?

Speaker 4 (24:22):
Oh gross, is it a Dodgers hat?

Speaker 3 (24:25):
That's that's a Dodgers logo for sure.

Speaker 7 (24:28):
Yes, that is a Dodgers come out wearing black on
their heads like this.

Speaker 2 (24:32):
It's interesting because my son Garrett, we were at the
game Thursday.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
He has a green Dodgers cat. I consider this a
Los Angeles hat.

Speaker 7 (24:41):
Yeah, I don't like it, Like JE have to paint
the picture because we're on the radio.

Speaker 2 (24:45):
Yeah, so you basically have a Dodger cap, but it's
not blue. It's got the Dodger LA logo on it.
But it's a black hat. It's a cool hat.

Speaker 4 (24:53):
I like it.

Speaker 7 (24:53):
If I'm wearing a red hat with the Yankees logo,
is that a Yankees head or is that a New
York hat?

Speaker 4 (24:58):
I would think you're representing New York. He's what I'm
saying now.

Speaker 2 (25:02):
Yeah, you see he's a Giants fan. See, Jeff is
a die hard Giants fan. And by the way, Jeff,
you got all of the manager and Bob Melby, you
stole him from San Diego.

Speaker 3 (25:12):
Well, good job. He's a good manager. Hey, we went today,
stole the manager from San Diego.

Speaker 7 (25:17):
They were given Raphael Devers by Boston and he had
a two run home today, three to two.

Speaker 3 (25:24):
The score.

Speaker 7 (25:25):
The Giants victorious over the Red Sox. Blue Jays beat
up the White Sox.

Speaker 3 (25:29):
Seven to one.

Speaker 7 (25:30):
Cubs hit a ton of home runs today, but Carl
Riley hit his thirtieth, setting a record for switch hitters
at this point in the season. They lose ten to seven,
managers due and eleven innings. The Cardinals edge of the
Reds fixed to five. Brewers pound the Twins nine to nothing.
On the road, Yankees had Clark Smid had a no
hitter into the seventh inning. In this one, Yankees had

(25:51):
four solo home runs. Clark Smith got pulled on that
no hitter. Yankees only gave up one hit in the
whole game, nine to one. The final score there. In
the Rays beat the Tiger eight to three. Tempas on
twenty two of its last thirty games. Two games in action.
Right now, the Rangers three to two over the Pirates.
I catch that one on FS one that's in the
top of the ninth inning, top of the eighth inning.

(26:12):
The Braves have a three to nothing lead over the Marlins.
Boston Red Sox are pausing cutter Crawford's rehab. He hurt
his wrist in the process of his second rehab stint.
According to manager Alex core And, the Atlanta Braves have
placed raining and outside Young Award winner Chris Sail on
the fifteen day injured list. He's got a fractured left ribcage.

(26:32):
Back to you, Steve, the way you just jumped through
it christ Day. It was a fractured left ribcage.

Speaker 3 (26:37):
I just I can feel the pain. We had a
fractured left That's what they kind of said happened. He
was warming up and he felt the twins and that's
exactly the face you just made. I can't do that anymore.
I got to move a little slower these days, just
a little bit, not too much, but a little bit slower. Martin,
Thank you very much.

Speaker 2 (26:53):
We'll check in with you a little bit later on
Once again, here Fox Sports Saturday. We're live from the
Fox Sports Radio studios. You can ream this show and
all of our Fox Sports Radio shows live twenty four
to seven of the new and improved iHeartRadio app. Just
search Fox Sports Radio and the app to stream us live.
And one of the newest features in the app is
that you can select Fox Sports Radio is one of
your presets, you know, like the preset on your radio dials,

(27:15):
So be sure to preset Fox Sports Radio and the
iHeartRadio app will always pop up at the top of
your screen.

Speaker 3 (27:22):
So with all the attention Shudor Sanders has been getting in.

Speaker 2 (27:27):
Cleveland, you lose sight of the fact that he was
the second quarterback they took in the draft. The first
guy they took in the draft was a guy who
had a phenomenal season at the University of Oregon until unfortunately,
the way they formatted the college football playoff. I want
to ask you about that a little bit later on,
and ran into a buzzsaw in that playoff game. But

(27:47):
you know, when I look at the numbers again of
the remarkable I haven't whatever what else can you call it?
Remarkable collegiate career of Dylan Gabriel. You know, almost nineteen
thous was in yards passing one hundred and fifty five touchdowns.
Whether he's at Central Florida, Oklahoma, Oregon, this guy produced
every single place he played. And yet everyone just assume

(28:11):
as well, Shodor Sanders meet that guy out, there's a
way Dylan Gabriel can beat out Shoodoor Sanders.

Speaker 3 (28:18):
And I'm like, why can't he is?

Speaker 2 (28:22):
There is there any reason to believe that just based
on their ability to play the game, that Dylan Gabriel
could legitimately beat out Shoodoor Sanders and be the better
quarterback moving forward for the Cleveland Browns.

Speaker 5 (28:37):
Well, look, Dylan Gabriel played great for organ last year,
but there are limitations in his game, and those limitations
are just not there in Sanders game. If they're if
you know, if your best is playing, you know, like
his best.

Speaker 2 (28:50):
Right when you say limitations, I understand, But he's the
same high. He's the same high as Touah. He's basically
what's the difference here?

Speaker 3 (28:59):
I mean, look a look at the I'll touched every year.

Speaker 2 (29:02):
This guy, you know, one hundred and fifty five touchdowns
thirty two picks. He completed seventy three percent of sixty
five percent of his passes sixty four games.

Speaker 3 (29:10):
He never had an off season in his college career.
Never every year. He was a really good quarterback. Yeah
so any one, Yeah no.

Speaker 5 (29:22):
I So when I watched Gabriel play, the limitations I
saw that I think are the issues for the NFL.
And you can work through these. It's just the you know,
over the middle, he just can't see or you know,
he just can't see over the offensive line. Now, you
can build an offensive line for that. By the way,
and we've seen over the years, I think the best
example of this is what is what happened with Drew

(29:43):
Brees in New Orleans, where they built a very specific
offensive line. They had big, big guards, right, big physical
guards that made the pocket very firm in the front.

Speaker 4 (29:58):
Right.

Speaker 5 (29:58):
So if you have big bodies like a vision, these
big offensive guards, they keep the pocket very firm in
the front. They don't back up. They make a standup minializer,
and that allows Drew Brees to see better when he's
in when he's in the pocket. So you can build
an offensive line around a smaller quarterback. But what I
saw with Gabriel were the issues of of just sort
of throwing over the middle and the accuracy that takes.

(30:22):
And I just did see that as often as I
was looking at Ohios to exploited that in that in
you know, in the Rose Bowl. And that's my concern
with him in the NFL. Now now, uh, well, are
the intangibles there of just being a winner? Absolutely right?
Everywhere he's been, he's won. Leadership is going to be there.

(30:42):
He's he's he's mobile, right, he's he can move a
little bit. But I think at their best Sanders will
be better than Dylan Gabriel in the NFL. Now does
that mean Santras?

Speaker 4 (30:54):
Is it all pro?

Speaker 5 (30:54):
And I don't know about all that. The way I
look at this going and we're already seen report that
I've said this before, I'm gonna get credit when I'm
right on this. There's two quarterback jobs or battles happening
in Cleveland right now. One is for starting quarterback Joe
Flack on Kenny Pickett. And there were reports over the
weekend or sea be over the week that they're already

(31:16):
talking about trying to find a trade partner for Kenny
Pickett and the loser of that battle is gone. They're
not keeping both those guys, then there's a battle for backup.
Dylan Gabriel and Troduced Sanders both are making the roster.
They're not cutting either one of them because if they
cut them then they're free to waivers and to get
picked up. And Sanders, because he was drafted fourth, it's
to me because he drafted behind behind Gabriel, is gonna

(31:38):
be the fourth guy right now, and I think it's
gonna be hard for him to pass up Gabriel during training.
He's always gonna be the guy who gets the reps last,
because Gabriel is not gonna be bad enough I think
to ever pass in practice. He's gonna be just fine
in practice. But I think Sanders won't play, but airing
games in him in the preseason and at some point
this year, I do expect Sanders to play. I don't know,

(31:58):
I don't know when it's gonna happen, but I do
think he would. He will play ahead of Gabriel at
some point this season.

Speaker 3 (32:04):
All right, We'll see how that plays out.

Speaker 6 (32:06):
Now.

Speaker 2 (32:06):
On the other side, I want to get into a
little in depth on the decision to essentially put a
salary cap nil cap for the teams around college football.
Everyone said, well, this is this was necessary, Like we
we got to figure this out. We got to put
some kind of bar set for all the universities on
how much money they can spend.

Speaker 3 (32:27):
But what did they do? How is this actually going
to help the situation?

Speaker 2 (32:31):
And how does this change what's going to happen as
far as the transfer portal is concerned, because that, to
me is a far bigger aspect of how the college
football game especially has changed.

Speaker 3 (32:44):
We'll break it down for you. This is Fox Sports Saturday.

Speaker 1 (32:48):

Speaker 2 (32:52):
Steve Hartmin Jeff Schwartz here Fox Sports Saturday. We're live
from the Fox Sports Radio studios. So Jeff and I
go back a number of years, used to do our
regular show here on Saturdays, and you know we were
talking back in the day, Jeff about you know, the
very beginning of this whole thing. You know, Sonny Vaccaro

(33:14):
obviously with Ed O'Bannon. This was an idea that there
should be a level of compensation teams using name, image
and likeness for their profit and the athletes, some of
the mex athletes getting nothing nothing. I remember when I
was doing color commentary for UCLA football in nineteen ninety six,
we opened the season at the newly expanded Nieland Stadium

(33:38):
to over one hundred thousand. This was Peyton Manning's junior
year at Tennessee, and I'm literally one hundred thousand people
are wearing a number sixteen jersey.

Speaker 3 (33:49):
Well, he's like that.

Speaker 2 (33:50):
The entire stadium is decked out wearing Peyton Manning's jersey
and he's getting zero for that, nothing, zero.

Speaker 3 (33:59):
And they're making millions off of him.

Speaker 2 (34:01):
So we were talking about this years ago that at
some point, you know something's going to happen. Well, here
we are, Jeff, and all hell is broken loose, and
so they're trying to, you know, create some kind of order.
And the first thing they end up doing is they said,
all right, we're obviously we got to pay the money.

Speaker 3 (34:20):
We get that, but we're going to put.

Speaker 4 (34:21):
A cap on it.

Speaker 2 (34:23):
Okay, they're the twenty million, that's it, that's it. But
the bigger problem to me has not been the money
that the players have been receiving. It's this idea of
the transfer portal. We're literally every single year you have
to let's say as a coach, account for which players
are going to stay, which players are going to leave,

(34:47):
all the while recruiting, and then of course when you're
losing players, you got to go into the portal and
it's at mad scramble. Everyone's a free agent and I
guess highest bidder or best deal, whatever it is that's
going to land that player. So I'm asking you, as
someone that loves the college game. For years, you were
part of the Pac twelve network.

Speaker 3 (35:10):
Is this fixable?

Speaker 2 (35:11):
Is there anything more that could be done to restore
some order so that it's actually going to benefit the
future of college football? And I'm gonna I'm specifically talking
about college football. I mean college basketball. All the sports
are effective, but college football is the big money maker here.

Speaker 3 (35:29):
Is there something you.

Speaker 2 (35:30):
Could see that could make this less of a problem
and actually move college football in a positive direction?

Speaker 4 (35:40):
No, No, I knew it.

Speaker 5 (35:43):
I mean, look, this ends with a power conference, one
power conference playing by a different set of rules that
everyone else, right, a different playoff and everything, And that's
where I think the uniformity becomes at least finished.

Speaker 4 (35:59):
Right, That's where that's where we're going to the problem
with this. And we talked about this for years, is
that the NT double A.

Speaker 5 (36:09):
Instead of having the foresight to think, okay, well this
is an actual possibility, they buried their head in the
sand hope the Supreme Court will ruin their favor. They
lost nine nothing. I don't know about you, so I'm
my mom was an attorney. I would have wanted to
be a lawyer if I didn play.

Speaker 4 (36:27):
In the NFL.

Speaker 5 (36:28):
I kind of follow, like I'm fascinated by by like
law and order, and I follow like Supreme Court decisions.
I think I don't read them all, but I thought,
you know, hard is to win anything nine to nothing
in the Supreme Court, like even like eight to one
is unusual. They lost nine nothing. Into supremere was like, no, no,
we don't buy anything. You're saying right left, center, hard right,

(36:51):
hard left. We don't believe any of it.

Speaker 4 (36:53):
They lost nine nothing.

Speaker 5 (36:55):
And since that moment, they've had no say in what happens,
and the market is taken over and it's determined that
this is sort of where we're at in the sport
right now, and the way it gets fixed is them
coming together collectively to make the changes, which is which
would be maybe a salary cap and we'll talk about

(37:15):
that house settlement in a second, and maybe limiting the
transfer portal. The problem with that is the people that
benefit the most from it, why would they want to
make the changes? Like why would the sec want to
do things differently? Why would organ for example, you know,
my my ducks, like they benefit from this new structure,

(37:36):
why would they want to change any of it? And
so and also too, like once you start down the
road of the players getting paid, how do you roll
that back? You know, the house settlement is really interesting.
So there's a settlement that just happened where the players,
not the players, the schools are now allowed to pay
the players, okay directly.

Speaker 4 (37:58):
And it's actually it's it's not a rule or a change.

Speaker 5 (38:02):
It's just a settlement from a lawsuit. It's not even
like a permanent thing. It's just this what the lawsuits stipulates.
It's twenty million dollars per university to pay their student athletes,
and some can't even afford.

Speaker 4 (38:15):
To do it. It's it's a real wreck. And but
it's not a hard cap.

Speaker 5 (38:18):
It's not a salary cap, because there's nothing's collectively bargained.

Speaker 4 (38:22):
It's just a settlement.

Speaker 5 (38:23):
And so there needs to be a collectively bargained arrangement,
there needs to be a union, and all these things
that just college sports are never gonna have. There's not
going to have these things. And so to me, there's
really no fix for the money. If anyone thinks that's
a problem, could you make the portal one transfer window? Yes,
that can certainly happen. And here's the thing, Steve. If

(38:46):
the powers that be coming together and say, okay, we're
limiting the portal or how much you can move right,
you get one movement, that's it, or you get one
your second one, you have to sit out a year,
which is what it used to be. They're gonna lose
any lawsuit, like they just didn't put anything in place.
They're gonna lose every single lawsuit because they've lost everyone already.

Speaker 4 (39:10):
And so like that's where we're at.

Speaker 5 (39:11):
I think it's all these things to say that I
just don't think it's ever gonna change from what it's
at now. And that's sort of if you're upset about
the way it is, sorry because I feel bad, that's
not gonna change.

Speaker 2 (39:22):
The interesting thing to me about this whole thing was
the concern was if you have a guy switching schools constantly.
It's gonna be very difficult with a young player to
adapt to a new system, and that hasn't been the case.
I mean, we've had guys go from school to school.
I just meant to Dylan Gabriel. I mean, he had
done two transfers and he never missed a beat. So,

(39:45):
you know, it just it really is fascinating to me
how this has played out. It really has not been
in any way to the detriment of the player. Yeah,
there have been a few.

Speaker 3 (39:54):
I know you're still bitter about Travis Dye leaving Oregon
for us.

Speaker 4 (39:58):
Well, no, I mean never got over all right, I
never did. No, just beat him all the time, all.

Speaker 3 (40:04):
Right, Bud.

Speaker 2 (40:05):
On the other side, we're gonna get back. We get
ready for Game seven of the NBA Finals. Can the
Pacers shock the world and end up as champions?

Speaker 3 (40:12):
And if they win? Why them? This is Fox Sports Saturday.

Speaker 6 (40:18):
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 2 (40:30):
Rolling along here on another big sports Saturday, Fox Sports Saturday,
where we are live from the Fox Sports Radio studios
coming up here in about fifteen minutes. We're gonna be
joined by our NFL insider here at Fox Sports Radio,
Adam Kaplan. I'll give it the latest of the camp's
going on and then you get ready for the summer off. So, Jeff,

(40:54):
what was your normal hiatus during the summer before we're
getting ready for the star of season. You know, you
have the mini camps, you OTA's all that kind of stuff,
and then you're off for a little bit before you
actually get ready for the training camp ready for the
start of the season. What was your normal routine during
that time?

Speaker 4 (41:15):
Workout?

Speaker 5 (41:16):
It is something my buddy who trains off its alignment
now and some of us the other day about how
a lot of his not a lot of his guys.
To take that back, some of his guys or some
people that want to work with him say like I
got a vacation to take in the summer, and it's like, no,
but here's your time is after the season. This is
working time, and a lot of guys now, man, they

(41:38):
take vacations before like this time of year. I could
never imagine that. Now could I go a weekend to
the beach with my wife. Absolutely, but you know, I
was getting ready to play football. So you go from
you know the end of your off season program, and
I would go out to Arizona and train until I
don't know, six days before training camp and go back home.

(42:00):
And that's what I spent the summers. Now, my birthday
is July eleventh. Obviously, fourth of July is a week
before that, So those are sort of landmark days in
my mind.

Speaker 3 (42:10):
Where is it a lamdmark day? Because you know my
birthday is the fourth of July, so oh.

Speaker 4 (42:15):
It is happy birthday, Yes, thank you.

Speaker 5 (42:17):
I will think about that this year when I'm having
some some BroadWorks or some rip or something. You know,
fourth of July is like my my head. Fourth of
July and Christmas like my heaviest work days. I have
like multiple shows on fourth of July. It's actually kind
of nice. I'm glad I don't like, I don't really
like to like drink and hang out outside one hundred
degree weather, so I can I can actually work. But nonetheless,

(42:38):
so those were like milestones in my head as far
as where I needed to be to get ready for
the season. Right, so July fourth, you still sort of
you're eating well but you know you got a little
cheat day, right, you have fun and fourth of July.
Then my birthday, July eleventh was typically about two weeks
fourth training camp, and that was sort of the last
day of any sort of cheat meal, any sort of
cheating or just like that was like the buckle down,

(42:59):
like get right to kind of way in soon or whatnot.
So I use those days as as landmarks for where
I should be to get ready for the season.

Speaker 2 (43:08):
Well you should have that attitude, because I'm sure after
your rookie season when you finally realize, oh, this is
what the NFL is about. As you get ready for
a year two, you prepare yourself a little bit better
right now, and then you get into routine. You become
a veteran. You're like, all right, this is how it
works for me to help me get through an entire
season and still be alive at the end.

Speaker 3 (43:29):
Of the season. And then you go through the routine.
So you know, every player is different.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Obviously, they all have their routines, those that are most successful,
and they're off season routines. So usually the guys that
have the most successful careers during the course of the season.

Speaker 3 (43:42):
By the way, also I got to mention baseball.

Speaker 2 (43:44):
I was at the Dodgers Padres game on Thursday, Jeff,
where all hell broke loose late in that game, a
lot of bad blood. And you know, I lived in
San Diego for a number of years and being an
LA person obviously, and then when I went to Sandy.

Speaker 3 (44:00):
You know, people don't understand this.

Speaker 2 (44:01):
If you live in Los Angeles, there's no negativity towards
San Diego. Everyone loves San Diego. I mean, it's the
beautiful city. You want to go down there, spend a weekend.
It was great when the Chargers are down there, you
go see the Chargers game. San Diego is a beautiful city.
And if you're an LA person, you hold no animosity

(44:22):
to San Diego.

Speaker 3 (44:24):
But when I got to San Diego, I couldn't believe it.

Speaker 2 (44:28):
I was like, what are you doing when you really
hate La? Nobody nobody hates you. This is why the
people of LA were so upset about the Chargers situation.
They didn't want the Chargers leave them in San Diego.
They're great in Sandy. We love the San Diego Chargers.
But that's a whole long story I want to get
into right now. While they're in La, but I mean
they never want La.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
Never really LA never said oh we need the Chargers.
That never happened.

Speaker 2 (44:51):
Still, but you know, it's it's interesting that this rivalry,
it was always a one side rivalry because you know,
you're a Giants fan. I'm a Dodgers fan. You know
it's Dodgers Giants. I mean, this goes back forever, and
I hate and I hate it. Like when the Giants
played the Angels in the two thousand and two World Series.
I was rooting for the Angels, not because that I
was an Angel fans, because they were playing the Giants.

(45:13):
I didn't want to see the Giants.

Speaker 4 (45:15):
When was the biggest Yankee fan last fall.

Speaker 2 (45:18):
And so I was sitting there, and in fact, Bruce
Bochie was when he became the manager of the Podres
when I was down there.

Speaker 3 (45:24):
I love Boach.

Speaker 2 (45:25):
Right then he goes to San Francisco, they win the
series in twenty ten. They came to Dodgers Stadium early
in twenty eleven. I popped my head in his office.
I'm like, really, Boach really can'ta win with the Giants.
So that's the rivalry, But you can create a rite.
Remember the Lakers and the Sacramento Kings had a little
bit of a rivalry in the early two thousands, right,

(45:47):
and it was it was Anna mosity, like it was
really d Christie, you know, it was all CRIDs of
crazy stuff. I feel that's where like the Dodgers Padres
are right now. But this is healthy and sports like
the WNBA is trying desperately to get you know, some
kind of or carryover momentum from last season, and the
one way to do that is keep shoving Caitlin Clark
down to on the floor and attacking her because it'll

(46:09):
make headlines every time she goes down.

Speaker 3 (46:12):
But I don't think that's bad.

Speaker 2 (46:13):
Fans want to feel like because I was there at
Dodger Stadium, you know, and you know the fight breaks out,
you know, Tatist goes down, and then they throw at
Shohy in the next inning. I love this stuff because
I take it from a fans perspective. I want to
believe that the same fire, the same hatred I have
for the opponent is shared by the members of the team.

(46:34):
So when you have that kind of animosity on the
field or on the court, to me as a fan, man,
sign me up for that any day of the week.

Speaker 4 (46:44):
So hatred and villains are good for sports. Oh, they're
absolutely great for sports. You know.

Speaker 5 (46:51):
You know Angel Rees play today from the shug Sky
and singing reaction on social media like yeah, I mean, look,
it's it's unfair to Angel Rees that people make fun
of her a lot. Yeah, I mean people mark Kaylen
Clark after her last game too. But guess so everyone's
watching now right, They're watching, and it's great for sports. Look,
the Dodgers and Padres too, are also circumstances of just

(47:13):
being good at the same time. They've made in the
postseason a couple years the Padres I mocked my Dodger friends,
and obviously they won the World Series last season.

Speaker 4 (47:21):
They lost the Padres the postseason.

Speaker 3 (47:23):
Yeah, like like that, and they almost lost them last year.

Speaker 5 (47:26):
Like the Dodgers should never lose the Padres, you know,
in the postseason. So them being good obviously is the
reason why the Giants have not been good recently. They
had the year a couple years ago they won one
hundred and seven games out of nowhere, but for the
most part that rivalry has been very one sided since
basically twenty fourteen Giants last World Series. So the Dodgers

(47:46):
and Padres have both been good, and both and being
good is obviously going to lead to more important games
and the bigger feel for the games. And look, I
think all the things that come with hatred are great
until you know, he don't want any want to get hurt,
of course, right, Like, and I think that what we
saw the other night Tatis Scott hit is you know,
getting hit on the hand is not great, right, I

(48:08):
think you would want to avoid dat if possible. But
you know that we grew up. You know, I'm much
younger than you, obviously, but we I grew up in
the era too when you threw it guys, you know,
like that was part of baseball. I had high school
coaches where that was. Unfortunately, now thinking about it, it's
terrible and never had my kid do this. But you know,
that day we're like, hey, man, you know, like we're throwing.
If someone gets hit, we're throwing. You're certainly old enough

(48:29):
to remember pay to Martinez.

Speaker 2 (48:31):
Well, yeah, he was the best picture of baseball, but
he did it as much out of intimidation as anything else.

Speaker 5 (48:36):
I mean, I I manas and Bumgartner, like, my favorite
picture is a is a you know as an adult,
like he threw guys all the time. That was like
he one of the things he always did, so that
that's how we used to watch baseball. And as long
as it doesn't lead to injuries, I think it's finally show.

Speaker 8 (48:50):
Hey.

Speaker 5 (48:51):
I was very surprised at his reaction. He took one
in the ribs yep uh, and then just waved off
the Dodgers. He's like, yep, this is baseball, Like I
just got hit.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
Like he's got hit.

Speaker 3 (49:03):
He shook the hand of the first basement he did,
and the pitcher.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
Got tossed immediately. I mean, you know, he knew that
there was no at that point.

Speaker 5 (49:10):
Why even why you even have a fight over him
getting hit. It's what baseball sort of has been over
the years. I love, by the way, my favorite thing
about baseball fights, and you know there wasn't a fight
the other night, just is the bullpen guys.

Speaker 4 (49:22):
They scream out the bullpen.

Speaker 2 (49:24):
Oh yeah, because I was down the left field the lows,
and we saw them they were right below us. They
so fast, they run so fast. Its honestly, it was
the weirdest thing I've seen. Obviously countless baseball fights over
the years. This was like a gathering. Like it was
just this mass of every single player and coach and
manager for both teams in this mass right now. Some

(49:45):
people were, you know, immediately running their cameras right behind
home plate to catch you know, some of the back
and forth Dave robertson Schulton everything else.

Speaker 4 (49:53):
It was really Roberts.

Speaker 5 (49:55):
Look, you're supposed to defend your guys. It looks also
just a very long season, you know, like you're gonna
I have these dust ups. But as you said, all
these things are good for baseball in my opinion. Look,
I'm a I'm a diehard baseball fan. I've loved baseball
my whole life. I watched the Giants earlier. Today, I
watched again, we got I got the College World Series
on now. I'll probably watch a little bit tonight. I mean, obviously,

(50:18):
betting on it sort of helps a little bit with
some of these things.

Speaker 4 (50:21):
But like, I'm the.

Speaker 5 (50:23):
Fan that baseball desperately needs. Thirty eight years old, young
kids like that wants to watch baseball, and I love it.
And you know, baseball, they have some incredible players and
and it's nice that we're starting I think we're getting
a little the ratings are up a little bit this year,
like people starting to care a little bit more.

Speaker 2 (50:41):
The clock was the best thing ever happened. I'm a traditionalist,
so boy, they made the decision with that.

Speaker 5 (50:46):
I went to a minor league game the other night
on Wednesday night. Charlotte Knights are here, the Triple A
White Sox team. They're playing the Gwinnette Striper's the Triple
A Braves team. And even my son at one point
turned to me and was like, Dad, this is I
like how fast it's going now?

Speaker 4 (51:03):
Yea. And my kids, by the way, they love Savannah
bandeas They've been three times this year.

Speaker 3 (51:06):
Ready big.

Speaker 5 (51:11):
They went last night in Richmond, They've been to Charlotte,
they won and won in Atlanta this year. They wan't
want to Clemson. I don't have all the tickets, but whatever.
And you know, that's a fun brand of baseball. So
for my son to say, like, Dad, I like the
pace of this game is great and I have noticed
that so of you like that's been a great change
because it goes faster. You know, I'm not you know,
the bigger bases and the less shift is not leaving

(51:33):
more hits of the matter, but the pace of play
is a lot better. The last thing baseball has to do,
and I make this play of time, is the blackout
rules are ridiculous. I'm a Charlotte, North Carolina. I have
four teams I cannot watch, which is when my Giants
play the Braves, I get it fine, the Orioles, I don't,
the Nationals and the Reds.

Speaker 3 (51:54):
What why are those three threads?

Speaker 4 (51:56):
The Reds? Yeah, the Reds. Yeah. If you're in Iowa,
and Sam talks about this whole topic. If you're in Iowa,
there's six teams blacked out.

Speaker 3 (52:03):
I know my sisters in Iowa.

Speaker 5 (52:05):
Yeah, And it seems like baseball is trying to get
more trash, which they are. They have star players, they're
marketing better, they're doing the better job of that. They're
letting the players show emotion, right, like they're doing all
those things. And it's good when the Dodger and Yankees
are good obviously, right, it's good for baseball. But they
got to drop the blackout rule because I should be
able to watch any baseball I want to watch anytime.

Speaker 4 (52:27):
I pay for the app.

Speaker 5 (52:28):
I pay for MLB TV, like, let me watch all
the games and but all this pub and look as
much as I think the WNBA is probably not doing
enough to protect Caaitlin Clark. I mean she I watch
every Fever game. I love watching her play. She's a
ton of fun. She gets battered for a super and
like Maybor, it should have been tossed, I know. I mean,

(52:51):
it's just she hit her like a cha truck sticker.
But again, like we spent three days debating it, she was.
It was on national TV shows. I'm not sure the
wm was doing it for that purpose. But it's good
for the league. All those such is good and baseball
ratings are up, I think for many reasons, and part
of it is like things like this get.

Speaker 2 (53:09):
Attention absolutely, Jeff, I promise you, in the years that
we were together on a regular basis, we never once
mentioned the WNBA.

Speaker 3 (53:16):
Now we talk about it. Not a chance we were
going to do it back in the day, but it
is definitely in the news these days.

Speaker 2 (53:21):
All right now, later on, don't go anywhere, because Jeff's
gonna give us some of his inside picks for tomorrow's
Game seven of the NBA Finals between the Pacers and
the Thunder. But coming up next, it's going to be
a trip around the National Football League the best of
the best. NFL insider Adam Kaplan will join us. This
is Fox Sports Saturday.

Speaker 6 (53:41):
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to
listen live.

Speaker 3 (53:53):
Steve Harbin and Jeff Schwartz.

Speaker 2 (53:55):
Here Fox Sports Saturday, coming live from the Fox Sports
Radio Studios. By the way, for the best pregame show
every weekend, be sure to tune into Fox Sports Radios
Countdown presented by bet MGM every Saturday and Sunday morning
from nine am to noon Eastern six to nine am Pacific.
Gonna count it down all the biggest games, no better

(54:17):
plays to prime you for all the playoff games going
on right now. So tune into Countdown presented by bet
MGM every Saturday and Sunday morning right here on Fox
Sports Radio on the iHeartRadio app.

Speaker 3 (54:28):
And I never ever miss it ever I get up.

Speaker 2 (54:31):
I'm an early riser anyway, Jeff, So I hear you,
and I hear my old buddy Richie on Saturdays.

Speaker 3 (54:36):
I love everybody out there be.

Speaker 4 (54:37):
No older I get. The more I'm an early wake
up person too.

Speaker 3 (54:40):
You will find that that'll increase of yours. I'm sure
your parents get up, like you know, in the middle
of the night half the time.

Speaker 2 (54:47):
Yes, all right, Well, let's here's a guy that never
sleeps because he's working twenty four to seven to bring
us the absolute latest news and the best inside information
on what's happening around the National Football League. We just
call him our own Fox Sports Radio NFL insider, Adam Kaplan.
All right, Adam, we got a lot of ground to
cover here. I want to start with the Chador Sanders

(55:09):
situation and is there any fallout?

Speaker 3 (55:11):
Let's let's make it a very basic question.

Speaker 2 (55:13):
Is there going to be any fallout in his situation
with the Browns based on being busted for speeding twice
in less than a month.

Speaker 8 (55:21):
They're aware of it, They've talked to him as I
understand that that's where it stands. That's what I know.
I was about twenty four hours. I've been looking into
this because I've been keeping an eye on the brown situation, Steve,
just because the job's wide open, and Joe Flako, I've
covered since two thousand and seven is there and it'll
be interesting story seeing what he did two years ago.

(55:41):
For them, and Cher dropped from really should have been
a second third round selection to a fifth round. We
could go over the reasons why. We've talked about that before,
and Kenny Pickett was acquired in a trade, and it's
just and they have Dylan Gabriel, So yeah, my understanding
is they've talked to him privately, he's he he's aware
of what happened, he lived it, and that's kind of

(56:02):
where it stands.

Speaker 5 (56:04):
So I've been to the opinion that there's essentially two
quarterback battles in Cleveland. There's Flacco and Kenny Pickett for
the starting quarterback, and then there's Gabriel and Sanders to
be the backup. And there was a report this week
that the Browns might already be looking to offload Kenny Pickett.

Speaker 4 (56:20):
Is that how you read this as well?

Speaker 5 (56:21):
That there's sort of one for a starting quarterback, one
for backup, and then eventually I believe Sanders wins the
backup job and he becomes a starting quarterback at some
point this season.

Speaker 8 (56:30):
Let's go, let's let's get let's start with the latter. Okay,
So covering this business like twenty seven years the way
these things usually happen, jeff Is we call it evaluation mode.
Let's say there are after Thanksgiving, if they're clearly eliminated
for the playoffs, like that's over. That's when you go
to the young kid. Now there's a there's a part
of this. It's either Sanders or Dylan Gabriel. Dylan Gabriel,

(56:50):
they really like they fell in love with it. Not
everybody likes him around the league. He's a little small,
throws the ball well for guy hit size, Stanior ball
interesting quarter back, but Chador's more talented. No offensive dealing,
Gabriel should Ward's more talented. But the belief around the
league is that Gabriel is more advanced in his processing
and learning. That's why there's a very realistic chance by

(57:15):
the time we get to the end of August that
Gabriel is probably going to be ahead him that. Now
you're asking me this in June. That's the way I
see it, based on what I know about every quarterback
and the roster. Pickett simply doesn't throw the ball well. Now,
that's the word around the league. I've known this since
he was drafted, though talking to Steelers before they traded him.
His last off season with them. They thought he was
coming along a little bit, that the Armstrong got a

(57:35):
little better. But he's another guy that doesn't see the
rush real well. And that's you know, it's another problem
with Joe Flacco is forty years old. He didn't look
as good with the Colts last season. They brought him
in for his experience. He knows that building. But here's
the funny thing about Joe Flacco. Two years yes, after
what he did two years ago, he was actually told, Okay,

(57:58):
we're going to take care of this, we're going to
bring it back. And then the general manager Andrew Barry,
did a one to eighty and he didn't bring him back,
which was mistake. Now they've rectified it. But it's a
little bit different now Joe, it's a little bit older.
So that to move this along here, Jeff, the quarterback
situation is ridiculous. There is I've not seen this before,
by the way, that what we're looking at, I've seen

(58:19):
a lot of mystery and something that's convoluted. But is
you outline in the beginning of this. There's a lot
of stories that are going on. By the way, Deshaun
Watson won't play football this season, but he's still on
the roster.

Speaker 4 (58:29):
All right.

Speaker 2 (58:30):
A team that is flying on under the radar, and
I'm a little surprised to not getting more attention because
of some very interesting offseason moves.

Speaker 3 (58:38):
Is the Raiders. I mean, you bring in Pete Carroll.
I mean, just let's just start right there. All right.

Speaker 2 (58:44):
You have a coach that has built a you know,
potentially Hall of Fame resume already. He comes back and
gets another opportunity in his seventies to coach in the NFL.
And we've seen comeback coaches do it pretty well. I
keep going back to Dick for Meal and what he
did after a fourteen year layoff when he went to
the Rams and turned that thing around. But you know

(59:04):
he bringing Geno Smith Ashton genty, the number one running
back in the country by almost everyone's account. I know
that you're in buzzing about this Thornton kid. You know,
the wide receiver that ran a four three forty at
six foot five and though he didn't catch that many
passes at Tennessee in the Oregon. Yeah, that that, by
the way, that's an Al Davis pig. You know how
that was a mister Davis pick right there? You know,

(59:26):
I don't care about the numbers. I'm Mervin Fernandez, are
you all? I was there when I thought he was,
Oh yeah, just came from the Canadian Football have to
tell Yeah. So Mervin Fernandez was a guy they had
an eye on. He was playing in the Canadian Football
League and it was the same type of play. He
was a big receiver, he could run fast, and they

(59:47):
were just absolutely enamored with signing Mervyn Fernandez. And if
you look him up, he actually had a couple of
decent years. But he was right that these were you know,
these are the kind of guys, whether it was speed, size, whatever,
that mister Davis had fallen in love with. What is
your gut feeling right now on how this season is
going to play out for the Raiders?

Speaker 4 (01:00:05):
All right?

Speaker 8 (01:00:05):
So I talked to someone who worked with Pete in
the seattlefront office. You know it's Pete. Very well, this
guy still talks to Pete. He said, listen, here's the
deal with Pete. He knows what he's overtaking, but he's
going to bring in a sense of calmness, a sense
of Okay, this is what we're going to do, and
this is we're going to how we're going to do it.
He has You know, there's competition days in practice. They're

(01:00:25):
probably gonna steve. They're probably going to overachieve. If you
really look at their roster, particularly defensively, you go, how
are they going to compete? Well, you mentioned Genti, right,
Gino Smith who tripped Chip Kelly. Gosh, it's spent. This
is thirteen years now.

Speaker 2 (01:00:39):
Right, Well, and also remember everybody, Chip Kelly is now
the offensive coordinator of the Raiders.

Speaker 8 (01:00:43):
Yeah, well no, I just brought Chip Kelly up because
he actually this is a great story. Did I tell
you the story about Gino and Chip? So this is great. Uh,
Chips Kelly's play quarterback for the thirteen draft was Gino Smith.
That was until the entire Eagles front office and Chip
flew to Westford to go to the pro day and
they met with him for the pro day. It didn't
go well, but he loved Gino's athletic ability and loved

(01:01:06):
his arm, and they just he didn't have a good
meeting with him, so they moved off. So Gino and
Chip know each other very well. You got Bowers. They've reached,
they've reshuffled their offensive line. They think their offensive line
is going to be good, but defensively they're they're a
bottom five talent level and that's why they're probably Steve
around six to seven wins, maybe max out of eight.
This is not I don't see this being a Jim

(01:01:28):
Harball situation that the Chargers have a little bit better
offensive talent and better talent last season. But you're right, Steve,
to bring it up. They're probably gonna be better than
we think. And I know, Jeff, Jeff, and I look
at the gambling numbers, the over runner total is a
little bit higher than I if the last time I
looked at it, a little bit higher, and I expected
to be.

Speaker 5 (01:01:45):
To bounce with you, the news came out of Kansas
City that left tackle Josh Shimmons will appear to be
healthy for a training camp, and I think this is
going to be under reported story because he was looked
as off tackle one before he got hurt on October
twelfth against against Oregon. How important is it for this

(01:02:05):
to work out for Cantacy because if it does, they
have the love tackle now for the rest of the
Holmes career.

Speaker 8 (01:02:11):
Well, it's actually torn to Teller ten and and that's
a longer recovery. So we should should people should understand
that that's a seven and nine. It was really it
was actually it was reported as a cl but Simmons
corrected it was actually to tell at ten and I'm
looking at my my notebook here, So that's a that's
a nine month rehab. Now, one thing I've learned about
this business with injuries. Everybody's doing well in the off season.

(01:02:34):
Let's see what happens when we get to training cap
where he's at. I'm a little hesitant to give the
guy the thumbs up that he's absolutely going to be ready,
uh for the regular season. But yes, he's doing well,
as I understand it. But let's that's a very bad injury.
But teller Tenant is worse than an acl I.

Speaker 4 (01:02:51):
It's not good.

Speaker 8 (01:02:51):
Yeah, all right, so let's be careful, all right.

Speaker 3 (01:02:54):
So what's the latest on the Aaron Rodgers situation? Is
when I could, I couldn't.

Speaker 8 (01:02:59):
He's confirmed it. He's confirmed it. Yeah, he's married.

Speaker 4 (01:03:01):
But there's no pictures though of his wife. I'm not
saying that I know.

Speaker 8 (01:03:05):
Jeff to mention one thing, let me mention one thing
with And by the way, Chip Kelly was also a
little bit weird with his marriages over the years. But
there as you know, because you were he was the
O C. I think for what when? Why don't you
use Yeah? But again he was married. I think he
was married as a head coach at Organ. I don't
think anyone even knew, right, Jeff. But yeah, it's it's Chips.

(01:03:26):
I like Chip. I've nothing against them.

Speaker 4 (01:03:28):
Fantastic.

Speaker 3 (01:03:29):
He wasn't fantastic at U C l A.

Speaker 8 (01:03:31):
I'm sorry, that's fine, but that listen, he's a different
guy and Jeff experienced it because he worked on him.
But who were we just.

Speaker 4 (01:03:38):
Talking about since we just Aaron Rodgers.

Speaker 3 (01:03:41):
Oh okay, Look they're super happy.

Speaker 8 (01:03:44):
Look they have a quarterback. They have an answer now
that they As I kept telling Steve for months, no
matter what these Steelers will tell the public, they were
not going into the season with Mason rut Office. They're
starting quarterback. I don't care what they tell you publicly.
They were going to bring in another veteran to take
the job. So they got it. Look, they know they
feel they're gonna be better. But Steve and Jeff the

(01:04:04):
over undertotal, it's still eight and a half in the
money is being bet on the under which I find faceting.

Speaker 2 (01:04:09):
I don't understand that. Come on, think about it. I
mean they won ten games last year. In fact, they've
had a winning record the last four years. Ben roethlisbergers
last year he couldn't throw more than ten yards down
the field. Ye had Kenny Pickett, Mason Rudolph, he got
whatever that was last year with the Russell will and
Justin fields.

Speaker 3 (01:04:28):
And you're telling me they're not better off now they.

Speaker 4 (01:04:32):
Were divisions better with Bengals possibly.

Speaker 2 (01:04:35):
Right, Wole is gonna be? How's Cleveland gonna be? And
the Bengals are there? Is there nook?

Speaker 8 (01:04:41):
Look, let me say this and.

Speaker 3 (01:04:42):
By the way, and by the way, the Steelers own
the Ravens, right they all.

Speaker 8 (01:04:48):
Let me say this though about the Bengals their offense. Now,
they that they kip t Higgins and we could argue
whether that was a good decision. That's huge because Jermaine
Burton has not worked out. That was the guy they
thought he would replace them. They've made a decision that
wasn't going to happen. It's defensively for the Bengals. And
by the way, the Bengals over under Turtles ten and
a half. Well, It depends which number you look at it.

(01:05:09):
It's between nine and ten and a half. Their defense
at tons is not competitive last season. And now Golden
comes in, who is a former head coach of Temple
in Miami, and he's been a defensive coach, so he
Their feeling is that he'll be way more aggressive to
lou Ana Romo. But Steve to be honest with you
that the Bengals always leak oil somewhere. It's not so
much their offensive line right now. I would worry about

(01:05:30):
their defense where they're going to get a pass rush
quite frankly, other than Hendrickson.

Speaker 3 (01:05:37):
All right, well, I'll tell you what we could go
all day with this.

Speaker 8 (01:05:40):
No, I would love to do two segments.

Speaker 4 (01:05:41):
We could do.

Speaker 2 (01:05:43):
Were already crept into our second. Yeah here, I love
to you know, I know it, but we'll cut it
off here. Great stuff is so much and we'll talk
to you down the road. The great Adam kaplan joining
us right there are NFL insider.

Speaker 4 (01:05:57):
These are all great subjects.

Speaker 3 (01:05:58):
I mean you could do an hour in each one
of That's the whole point.

Speaker 4 (01:06:01):
I mean, never stops.

Speaker 3 (01:06:03):
It never stopped.

Speaker 5 (01:06:04):
So Shamar Stewart Bengals thing that's really fascinating to me
because wow, it such a self afflicted wound.

Speaker 3 (01:06:11):
Yeah, yeah, exactly.

Speaker 2 (01:06:13):
You know, on the other side, I want to ask
you a little bit more about that division, because you
know that is a strong division, but it's a hard
division to read. But first let's find out what is
trendy as we welcome Martin back with his don't call
it a Dodger cap, It's an LA cap.

Speaker 4 (01:06:33):
I'm just trying.

Speaker 7 (01:06:33):
Look, the rivalry has intensified up and down I five recently.
I just want to make sure I'm not misrepresenting myself here.

Speaker 3 (01:06:40):
No, it's it's heated up. Are you an LA guy?
I've lived here like eight nine years now. That wasn't
my question. My question is are you an LA guy?
You lived here, That's one thing, But are you an
LA guy?

Speaker 4 (01:06:55):
If you didn't answer yes right away, he's not, which
is fine.

Speaker 3 (01:06:57):
I mean, we know it's Michigan roots, but I mean,
are you in LA guy?

Speaker 2 (01:07:01):
No Michigan by the way, Oh really, wow, Mary Max
is fake Michigan runs.

Speaker 7 (01:07:07):
Well. The thing is as as as I'm sure that
Jeff can relate to in terms of being somebody really
rides for the Alma mater.

Speaker 3 (01:07:15):
You know that also matters. Yeah, like that also matters.

Speaker 4 (01:07:19):
Like I like New Orleans so much. Man, the food
is like, oh, the super Bowl for six days, Go ahead, Jeff.
It's just so, it's so. It's one of my favorite cities.

Speaker 7 (01:07:28):
I think it's one of the few cities that you
can travel to in the United States and get a
feeling that you would also get in a foreign country.

Speaker 3 (01:07:35):
I agree, it's it's that's so unique there. There is
only one New Orleans correct period now.

Speaker 7 (01:07:41):
Brandon Nemo with a home run, the Nick Castianos with
a double and an RBI so far in the bottom
of the first inning between the Phillies and the Mets.

Speaker 3 (01:07:49):
One one to score. That game is on Fox.

Speaker 7 (01:07:51):
Depending on where you are, if you're out here on
the West Coast, you'll probably get this Kansas City and
San Diego game, top of the second scoreless thus far.

Speaker 3 (01:07:59):
Early today, we had a whole bunch of Major League baseball.

Speaker 7 (01:08:02):
Actually in the Rays, one of the hottest teams in
baseball right now, twenty two in their last thirty have
been wins. They got one today beating the Tigers eight
to three. The Yankees had a perfect I'm sorry not
a perfect game, no hitter. Fort starting pitcher Clucks Clark
Schmidt threw seven innings but ended up getting pulled. Yankees
only gave up one hit, and the offense that have
been struggling recently got nine runs today for four solo homers.

(01:08:25):
Brewers with nine to nothing win over the Twins. Cardinals
beat the Reds in extras six to five. Mariners with
a ten to seven win over the Cubs, but Kyle
Riley did hit his thirtieth home run that sets a
record for home runs for a switch hitter. Before the
All Star Break, Blue Jays pound the White Sox seven
and seven to one. I mean, don't discount them. They

(01:08:47):
got one run Rangers with a three to two win
over the Pirates. The Giants after Raphael Devers two run
homer beat the Red Sox three to two, Devers getting
some revenge on his whole team, and the Braves beat
the Maran seven and nothing. Bad news for the Braves though,
they're sending Chris Sale to the injury list. He's got
a fractured left ribcage. He'll be on a fifteen day il.

(01:09:08):
That's the raining and ol Cy Young winner.

Speaker 3 (01:09:10):
Yes, back to you guys, yeah, no, unbelievable. Comeback here.

Speaker 2 (01:09:13):
Last year, Chris Sale, most of you thought he was
done and then he has a triple crown year leading
the National League and win strikeouts in the RARA to
win that Cy Young Award. Thank you very much, As
always Martin. Once again, we're live from the Fox Sports
Radio studios. Don't forget after the show. The podcast is
going up. So if you miss any of today's show,
check out the podcast at search Fox Sports Radio wherever
you get your podcast, follow, review, and well rate the podcast.

(01:09:37):
Give it five stars. Again, just search Fox Sports Radio
wherever you get your podcasts. You'll see today's show posted
right after we get off the air. By the way,
I can't I get so bothered. This Schmidt guy had
a no hitter through seven innings, right, he threw one
hundred and three pitches.

Speaker 3 (01:09:52):
They yank him. I mean, come on, I mean, I mean.

Speaker 1 (01:09:57):
You yank him.

Speaker 4 (01:09:59):
Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:09:59):
I I'm always curious about those decisions because you know,
like I guess, you never want a guy to throw
one hundred and forty in a game.

Speaker 3 (01:10:08):
But I got to throw one hundred and forty.

Speaker 4 (01:10:10):
But also to like the.

Speaker 5 (01:10:11):
First hit, you just take him out, right, So Uh,
you know, this brewer is rookie. He threw the five
innings last week, gave up no hits, and I think
he went at least six yesterday week.

Speaker 2 (01:10:22):
He's had a major league record most consecutive hitless innings
to start a major league career eleven in a row.

Speaker 3 (01:10:28):
Then he gave up a walk, and then he gave
up the home run.

Speaker 4 (01:10:30):
Yeah, so then they pulled him. He ended up with
look over here at eighty six, so not not bad. Yeah.

Speaker 5 (01:10:37):
I'm always curious about about the extension of because like
this time, you know, I was I was at a
little league game today and they had a pitcher throw
of the eighty five pitches on an All Star game,
and like, you know, it's the end of the season.
Like by now, I think, guys, nothing, that season't for
major league baseball. But you're multiple months in. I mean,
you know, I feel like you could stretch them a
little bit for special moments.

Speaker 3 (01:10:57):
Come on, you got a no hit or you know,
yate the guy. I just I it drives me nuts.

Speaker 4 (01:11:04):
Did they give up a hit right afterwards?

Speaker 3 (01:11:05):
Did they they gave up one hit?

Speaker 2 (01:11:07):
By the way, By the way, in nineteen seventy four,
Nolan Ryan, who by the way, would pitch another twenty years,
pitched a game against the Red Sox. He struck out
nineteen hitters over thirteen innings. Angels won that game in fifteen.

(01:11:27):
In that game, he threw two hundred and thirty five pitches.

Speaker 4 (01:11:31):
That's not healthy either, though, you.

Speaker 2 (01:11:32):
Know what, he was still throwing one hundred miles and
now he didn't break a sweat, and so the idea
that he was still throwing heat and throwing no hitters
fifteen twenty years later.

Speaker 3 (01:11:44):
The way they baby these guys, I mean, I'm sorry.

Speaker 5 (01:11:47):
No, no, no, no, I think it's Look, if a
guy's a one hundred pitch is still throwing hard, then
I think it's good to go, you know. But obviously
there are times I was not watching the game that
or just you know, you're clearly, you know, feeling in
some sort of way. I don't think he was. I
was looking at tweets. It seemed like he was pitching

(01:12:08):
just fine. Yeah, and they and they pulled him. But
I'm not gonna get worked up about it.

Speaker 3 (01:12:13):
All right, Let's get back to this AFC North.

Speaker 2 (01:12:17):
Okay, all right, So again, I look, I'm not a
big Aaron Rodgers fan, I much prefer if he had retired.
But I don't understand why you have a coach who's
never had a losing season is suddenly going to have
a losing season when he had an upgrade. This is
a quarterback that started seventeen games a year ago for
a bad team. The Jets a worse organization than Jets.

(01:12:41):
The Steelers are a much better organization than the Jets
can ever dream of being. Why would they take a
step back? He showed he could start every game last
year he did for a bad Jets team. You know,
it's not like the Steelers are void of talent, So
why are they going to take a step backwards?

Speaker 3 (01:12:57):
And when we look at that division, Cleveland is a
big question.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
We don't know anything about war Cleveland's going to be there,
starting with their quarterback position.

Speaker 3 (01:13:04):
The Bengals still have.

Speaker 2 (01:13:05):
To prove they can play any kind of defense, and
Mike Tomlin has owned John Harbaugh. The Steelers have the
winning record head to head against the Ravens, so why
would they fall backwards?

Speaker 3 (01:13:16):
I'm trying to figure this out.

Speaker 5 (01:13:19):
Well, I mean, Aaron Rodgers is not as bad as
people want him to be. I think that's a good
place to start here. So that certainly helps your point out.
But their schedule is UH is going to be difficult
as it always is. If the Bengals get a little
bit better, that's you know, that makes them more difficult
out And I just think their roster is aging at

(01:13:42):
certain positions, it's not great at other positions. I think
they'll just look at them and think, like the talent
is just doesn't match during nine to eight to this season,
but they do it right. They just continually find ways
to win these games that are ugly. I mean, they've
won multiple games without scoring a touchdown, which is wild,
but that's what the team has been now. It's not

(01:14:05):
bad actually, Jets, Seahawks, Patriots, Vikings, Browns, Bengals, Packers, Colts, Chargers.
I think it's just a lack of faith in their
entire UH design of the team. Like here's where I
said on the Rogers stuff, Steve is, how does this

(01:14:25):
the Steelers continually thinking the short term not the long term.
And it's okay to do both, but you can't just
and they think about the quick fix for this given season.

Speaker 3 (01:14:36):
In the first round, yeah, they.

Speaker 5 (01:14:37):
Drafted, they drafted quarterback in the first round of a
draft that wasn't good at quarterback. He was the first
one draft in that in that year, so they I
guess they tried ish, but this is the year they
should have drafted. Like I'm still stunned in draft Sherif
Anders I I Rogers gets him one year and and
maybe they win a playoff game, as there is their
max this season, and then next year they're in the

(01:14:58):
Zach same Now next year a great quarterback class coming
out of college. So maybe this is the finding of
the year that they find someone. But I think people
just look at the Steelers with a little apathy, like,
all right, well, I guess it's Rogers and they'll just
do what they normally do and at some point this
has to come to an end, though too.

Speaker 3 (01:15:15):
Well, I don't know that.

Speaker 2 (01:15:15):
I mean, what they normally do is win more games
than they lose and then go belly up first round
in the playoffs. I mean that I can understand if
you're critical Mike Tomlin, like, Okay, at some point you
got to win a playoff game, you know, just making
the playoffs or eching in and you're getting a wild
card and going down the first round is not going
to be enough. All right, We're up against it because
on the other side, I've got to get some Jeff

(01:15:36):
Schwartz picks for tomorrow's Game seven of the NBA Finals
between the Pacers and the Thunder.

Speaker 3 (01:15:42):
This is Fox Sports Saturday.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):

Speaker 2 (01:15:50):
Steve Harbin, Jeff Schwartz, Fox Sports Saturday. We're coming to
live from the Fox Sports Radio studios. I want to
thank our cre today. Martin brilliant has always given us
all the updates on another big day of sports. Mary Mac.
I love Mary Mack. She's a rising star here at
Fox Sports Radio. And speaking of stars, or show grace

(01:16:13):
today by one of the great stars of this radio.

Speaker 3 (01:16:16):
Network, the legendary elite a lap Hey Steve.

Speaker 2 (01:16:21):
From the very beginning, we knew this guy is gonna
be something special and he has proven to be just
that and beyond love you late, thanks man for hanging
out with us. Of course, he is responsible for Yeah,
two pros and a cup of Joe. That show is
not it's just not happening without you, Is that truly?

Speaker 3 (01:16:40):
Yes, some days they make it without me.

Speaker 4 (01:16:42):
I've heard that's true.

Speaker 3 (01:16:44):
Yeah, that's true. By the way.

Speaker 2 (01:16:45):
As you know or don't know, Jeff Lee is a
diehard Packers fan. Can you give a little preview what
kind of green Bay season we should expect this year?

Speaker 3 (01:16:55):
Una gonna own the North as always, Steve hear that.
What do you think, Jeff is green Bay gonna own
the North?

Speaker 4 (01:17:02):
Green Bay fascinates me.

Speaker 2 (01:17:04):
They are tough to figure them out when you're in
the same division with the Lions and the Viking.

Speaker 5 (01:17:08):
Well, so they are who they are, which is very important.
They have a way that wins and works. But I
don't know if they have enough playmakers.

Speaker 4 (01:17:19):
As a team.

Speaker 5 (01:17:20):
I'm kind of curious that they take the next step
with love and sort of the offensive piece of how
good Golden is immediately would be helpful. I'm not as
concerned about the Alexander, I will say, as much as
I don't like to give teams credit ever for cutting players,
teams typically do pretty well when they cut like the
older injured player, that player, you know, it's a premier position.

(01:17:41):
If they want to keep them and they thought he
could perform, they would.

Speaker 4 (01:17:43):
Keep them right like. That's that's so I'm not sure
that that's as big.

Speaker 5 (01:17:46):
Of a deal, But I just look at like what
I call game wreckers, right, Like, how many game wreckers
do the Packers have?

Speaker 4 (01:17:52):
I don't know if they have a ton. They play
well together. It's a team, which is important.

Speaker 5 (01:17:58):
That's I'm sort of curious, Like, are there players that
emerge a sort of these game wreckerds throughout the season?

Speaker 3 (01:18:02):
Well, I'm in their playoff caliber team.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
We know that. And then the question is, you know,
what do you do when he hits to the postseason?
All right, no more delay?

Speaker 4 (01:18:10):
All right?

Speaker 3 (01:18:10):
So I know tomorrow obviously you're going to have a
big show.

Speaker 2 (01:18:14):
You guys are going to break it it all down
as we get ready for Games seven tomorrow night at
the NBA Finals.

Speaker 3 (01:18:20):
The thing about Jeff is Jeff takes us seriously. I
know this firsthand.

Speaker 2 (01:18:25):
He breaks down the numbers. There's a lot of homework involved.
He's just not winging it. Okay, doesn't mean he's right
all the time, but there's a reason. There's a reason
why he's come to the conclusion that certain plays are
the best plays. So I don't want you to give
us everything because I want to make sure everyone's listening
tomorrow morning, but give us a sampling of things that

(01:18:47):
you like to play for tomorrow night's game.

Speaker 5 (01:18:50):
So I'm a big fan of the NBA postseason of
zig zag wagering. Right, So you know, you look at
the way a team or player played in a game,
and then the next game go the opposite direction.

Speaker 4 (01:19:01):
Right.

Speaker 5 (01:19:02):
So I'll give you two examples. One is, Oklahoma City
played their worst offensive game of the season in Game six.
I think the first quarter of Game seven they're gonna
be it might be their best quarter the bad all season, Right,
they're gonna be, correct, So I like Oklahoma City to
cover the first quarter and minus three right, to win
the quarter by three or more points. After losses, they've

(01:19:24):
been really good in the first quarter outside of one
Denver game. They've been good at home this year in
first quarters. It's a good spot to catch a team
that played really poorly in Game six.

Speaker 4 (01:19:35):
Start fast, now, why not full game? I don't know.

Speaker 5 (01:19:40):
I know again, fourth quarter, we'll see how it goes.
And then I like alx Caruso had zero points on
twenty two minutes.

Speaker 4 (01:19:48):
In Game six.

Speaker 3 (01:19:49):
Yeah, like that's coming off a twenty point game in
Game five.

Speaker 4 (01:19:53):
No, it was game before that actual four. Yeah, the
game five and six wasn't wasn't great back at home.

Speaker 5 (01:20:00):
I think over eight and a half, is it just
a good spot for some of the zig zag right
where you didn't play well in game five and six,
you're back at home. You didn't shoot the ball a
lot in those games either. I think Cruzo has a
much better game for the Thunder. All more plays tomorrow.

Speaker 4 (01:20:15):
For you guys.

Speaker 2 (01:20:16):
All right, So Haliburton, obviously he only played twenty three
minutes in game six, and apparently you know, he had
been telling his coach, look if I don't look right,
pull me, and Carlos said, you look okay to me,
and he played in twenty three minutes. Unfortunately, they had
such a blot win they didn't have to worry about that. Jeff,

(01:20:37):
it's great to catch up with you again. Be listening
to him tomorrow morning, and keep it right here. Much
more coming up on Fox Sports Radio.

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