The Fellas with Jason Fitz & Kevin Figgers talk WNBA All Star Game, College Football, if the Commanders are Frauds, & MORE!

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

Speaker 2 (00:04):
I'm gonna be honest with you. Usually I have this big,
bold proclamation when I'm starting, like to start bigg and
get everybody locked in. I'm just so damn excited to
be hanging out with Kevin figures. I'm gonna try my
best to give Anthony Gargano the love he wants. See
if I can do it. Good morning, good morning, good morning,
good morning, good morning. It's the Fellas on Fox Sports

(00:24):
Radio on Fox Sports Saturday. Figgy, how we feel it.
I haven't worked with you forever, and it's like a
fella's reuniting. This is I feel like I'm this squealing
girl in the airport that hasn't seen her friend in
a minute. Sorry, Brianna, don't mean this stereotype woman here,
but screaming girl in the in the airport, that's like,
and that's what I'm doing right now, Figgy.

Speaker 3 (00:42):
And everybody turns around and says, oh, here we go.
This is that kind of party, like we all what
do we walk into? Fits has been a minute?

Speaker 2 (00:50):
Man? How you been? This is? This is amazing to
be working with you.

Speaker 3 (00:52):
It's been man, hasn't been since New Year's day that
we did this when we watched Texas and Arizona State
play in a college football playoff game. Is that the
last time we worked again?

Speaker 2 (01:01):
It is? And now I get to ask you that
you were still happy that we have a kid. I mean,
like the guy without a kid always thinks about like
the guy with a newborn and with an infant at
this point, like, have you actually, over the course of
the last six months, have you gotten a combined six
hours of sleep?

Speaker 3 (01:15):
How we feeling, Bud? Absolutely not. But you know what,
it's been the most amazing. He's now what fourteen months
actually knocking on the door fifteen months here next week.
Most amazing fifteen months of my life. I cannot complain.
You know, it's been absolutely amazing. He just started walking
about three weeks ago. He's the happiest kid you'll ever
meet just seeing him, and I talked to Anthony about
this on the show. Yet last week, you know, every

(01:38):
little thing amazes him. He's now obsessed with ceiling, fans
and lights. He walks into a room, a light turns on,
and he points and gets excited and wants to get
closer to it. And as weird as it sounds like,
to see him get so excited over the simplest thing
makes me excited because you're seeing him, you know, be
curious and learn. It's it's really amazing to witness. So
no regrets whatsoever. It's been the most amazing thing, the

(01:59):
most it's important thing that I've ever done in my life.
And no regrets whatsoever. It's been absolutely awesome.

Speaker 2 (02:05):
That makes my heart full. And you're right, you were
working with Anthony last week. I've decided that the Fellows
this summer is kind of like the Four Horsemen, Like
there's a bunch of us. You just don't know who's
tagging in that week to be your duo. So for today,
Anthony Gargano much deserved get in the day off as
he absolutely nobody deserves it more than Nant does. So
you got me and Kevin Figures hanging out with you.

(02:26):
And I was thinking of you, brother last night. A
weird thing for grown ass man to say to another,
but I was thinking of you. I was sitting in
the bar right and I'm looking around at the TVs.
And I went to this little hole in the wall
right down from the house and sitting in the bar
grabbing a bike, and it was absolutely dead. There was
nobody in there, and this bar is usually just slammed

(02:47):
on Friday nights. And I asked the bartender who I know.
I was like, hey man, why is there nobody here?
I feel like I'm in like a weird towny bar
out a Texas chainsaw massacre right now. And he said
he's like, there's no sports going on, so there's just
nothing that anybody out to the bar for dinner. And
I looked up and I was like, the WNBA All Star,
like the three point Contest and the skills contest is

(03:08):
going on. You could put it on a TV. And
he just laughed at me and like, look, I understand
this is a polarizing conversation because people have gotten so
dug in right now. I believe there are three silos
of people in the WNBA, and for being honest, like
people that talk about the wb there's three silos. There's
a silo of people that actually watch it and actually

(03:30):
really care. There's a silo of people that absolutely hate
it and have never watched it, right, and then there's
a silo of people that will absolutely tell you how
much they love it and they've also never watched it.
It's become this weird phenomenon to be either all in
or all out, and a bunch of the people that
are yelling about the W actually don't watch it. Like

(03:50):
there are a few people that are in the middle somewhere,
but for the most part, those are your three silos.
And I was thinking about that last night because no
Caitlin Clark, even though she was there. Great, she's there,
she's interviewed, and she's on the mic, she's hanging out
with people, the cameras on her every three seconds, but
she wasn't competing in it. And it is hard. And
I think it's fair to say as someone that I
watch a lot of W and I happen to enjoy

(04:12):
some of the W, not all of that. I enjoy
some of the W. I realize it's hard for people
to say this, figgie, but I just kept watching it,
thinking like, it is okay to say that even if
you're a W fan, even if you like it, even
if you watch it without Kaitlyn Clark, people don't give it. Damn.
I just think it's okay to start admitting what's obviously true.

Speaker 3 (04:32):
Yeah. Well, and this goes into the assault on Caitlyn
Clark by some people within her league and within the
media who don't want to acknowledge the fact that she
and maybe Savior is strong. But certainly the amount of eyeballs,
the new media righte steel they signed last year, all
of this has come to a head because of Kaitlyn
Clark and her popularity. So I would think that she

(04:53):
would like to see her get a little more appreciation
for the impact that she's had on the league. And
I certainly understand players within the league who say, hey,
we've been here working copetitors were playing to I understand
that sentiment, and yeah, you know, the interesting thing is
the most popular voice that I don't hear is probably
mine when it comes to this fits And I know
you covered the w for years, so you have an
affinity to a certain degree. Like I'm not the biggest

(05:13):
fan of the WNBA, but I also don't hate it
and I'm not gonna talk trash about it just because
I don't like it. So and that's the weird kind
of nebulous opposition that I find myself in. It's like,
you know what, I'm not a big Premier league guy,
but there's people who are, and it's great and it's
popular I don't care, So I'm not gonna talk trash
about a sport simply because I don't like it. And
so now we're in this era now it's the in

(05:34):
vogue thing to say, to make to take shots at
the WNBA. It's like, if you're a fan of it, great,
if you're not, that's great too. I don't know if
it's just not hot takish enough in the society that
we live in right now to be sort of down
the middle about it. But that's kind of how I've
always felt when it comes to the WNBA.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
Well and Vigie, that makes sense, Like I cannot say
this loud enough, like I because I have watched a
lot of it, I feel pretty confident saying that sometimes
it's really a fun product to watch, Like when everybody's
shooting from the outside and you see how many people
can shoot, it looks great. Sometimes when you try and
watch everybody finish at the rim, it looks bad. And

(06:12):
the problem is you're not allowed to have that opinion anymore.
Like if I say, ooh, it looks bad at the rim,
then all of a sudden WNBA supporters is gonna say,
oh my god, I just hate women. And I hate
the sport and blah blah, and like I get lumped
into this group. I don't want to get lumped into.
And if I turn around and I say, actually, you know,
I kind of like watching, especially the way they move
the ball around the perimeter when you've got a team
that can shoot really well, it's I think it's kind

(06:33):
of fun to watch. I'm sort of into it. And
then all of a sudden that means I'm awoke whatever
that's just out here trying to you know, it's such
a weird spot to be. And like, I happen to
think that Shane Gillis's monologue was hysterical. I loved every
ounce of it. And guess what, I have covered the
league for a minute. And guess what When he said
the name in the monologue, I was like, well, I

(06:54):
guess I don't know who that is because there are
players that like, I can't sit here in front of
a microphone and promise you that I know every player
on my beloved Raiders. I don't. I'm not that guy.
So like hearing the name of somebody, I'm like, like,
I don't know who that is. I'm clapping along with
everybody else I can see why the people in the
audience felt stupid about it too, Like I can see
all sides on this. It's just it doesn't have to

(07:15):
be that serious, man, Like, why can't we just step
back and be like, hey, things, you know, like I
like it okay, or I don't like it. It's fine, Like,
it doesn't have to be this big, polarizing. Take The
thing that bothers me the most right now, Figgi is
what you just mentioned about the players that are standing
out here. And I'll go back to something Jeff Schwartz
said with me yesterday. I was on two Pros and

(07:35):
a cup of Joe. We were filling in for the guys,
and we were talking about, you know, the w and
the way they market themselves, and he said, can you
imagine because with Caitlyn out, her coach came out and said,
I think our offense actually runs better without Kaitlyn. And
his point was, could you imagine Andy Reid ever coming
out and saying, I think the Chiefs are actually better
without Patrick Mam. Could you imagine a kid showing up

(07:57):
at training camp when the Chiefs have training camp and
be like, oh my god, Patrick Mahomes, I love you
so much, I love you so much, and get up
spending all morning talking about is Patrick Mahomes the best ever?
And having a full revolt from the rest of the
NFL players who are constantly using their microphone to educate
everybody about Terry Bradshaw and Joe Montana. Like nobody gives
a damn if somebody thinks that the current player is

(08:19):
the best in the world. Just let it go. Just
just let it be that as a league, Like I
get the talking heads want to debate these things. Fine,
but the players, the coaches, the legends around it. Like
you never hear Dan Marino come out and say, I ainy,
these quarterbacks are fine, but they're not me and use
their pulpit constantly to do that. I don't understand why

(08:39):
there has to be this We're cooler than that, we're
better than that. Just embrace the fact that right now
you have a cultural phenomenon that's as significant as Taylor
Swift in some circles. Go utilize it and grow your
damn sport.

Speaker 3 (08:51):
Yes, she's elevating the floor for everybody around her. That's
only going to make people care more about college basketball,
more about the WNBA, So embrace her. Pump her up,
don't try to bring her down because you're ultimately into it.
You're hurting your own product, you're hurting their own growth
of your sport. So that part has never stood out
to me. I've never understood that. And when it comes
to Shane Gillis, comedy, at least for many years, has

(09:12):
been like the last bastion of you know, anything goes
no political correctness. People were surprised, number one, that ESPN
even picked him to be the SP's host.

Speaker 2 (09:21):
But I'm with you. I thought it was funny.

Speaker 3 (09:23):
I thought, you know, you're supposed to when it comes
to stand up comedy, you know, take the take the
gloves off a little bit. It might make some people
a little bit uncomfortable if you realize that it's all
just under the guys of comedy. I really don't have
that big of a deal, so I certainly understand it.
Some people feel like, oh, you're taking women a step back.
He took shots at a lot of people, and that's
what comics do.

Speaker 2 (09:40):
I mean.

Speaker 3 (09:41):
Look, one of the great comedy stand up comedy routines
of all time, Eddie Murphy raw years ago. There are
things he said there there's no way in hell he
could say today and people still lovet that as one
of the great stand up comedies of all time. So
I feel like that's kind of a little bit of
a protected medium when it comes to this. And to
get back to your point about the w NBA, when
it comes to like All Star weekend and all being
on Caitlin Clark, even though she's not playing one, that

(10:03):
just tells you how much of a cultural phenomenon that
she is that people are watching online clips of her
just simply you know, at a party dance and drinking
drinks and talking to people. And even if people didn't
necessarily watch the actual festivities, I know they at their
you know, skills competition at three point competition on Friday night.
There are still eyeballs that were on that that were
not even paying attention. That nobody would have even known
that WNBA had an All Star Game or an All

(10:25):
Star break as of last year or two years ago,
and that has elevated the sport in and of itself.
So even with her not participating, there are still eyeballs
on the WNBA now that were not there a couple
of years ago. And I think she needs to get
a little bit of appreciation for that from her players.

Speaker 2 (10:40):
Yeah, there is a moment here where instead of trying
to figure out why people weren't part of the cool
kids from minute one, or instead of trying to figure
out why people haven't been around the sport since the beginning,
instead of trying worrying about whether people truly understand the
mount Rushmore element of it, and instead of constantly screaming

(11:00):
about disrespect. Man, it's just at some point that you
got to welcome people in. Like every single sport I
don't care what sport we're talking about around the world,
for growth has to be a little bit like Ringling Brothers,
Barnum and Bailey. It's a circus. Welcome them into the
tent and hope that you convert fans into super fans.
And the way you do that isn't by telling people

(11:21):
from minute one that they're stupid, telling people from minute
one that they're uninformed about the past of your sport.
Let people fall in love with it and then find
the history where they may when they may, and if
they never do, who gives it damn? As long as
they're supporting it today, Like I just I cannot imagine,
you know, if I had to sit here and listen
to every band from the fifties, sixties, and seventies in

(11:43):
front of a microphone tell you that the current iteration
of music sucks. Like at some point that just gets exhausting.
I don't understand why it's happening. That being said. All
Star weekend for the WNBA leads us to the All
Star Game, but it also leads me to a thought
on this week with the All Star in general, we
all know that Figgi's at Baseball Guy. I was thinking
about him. With Major League Baseball's All Star festivities, the

(12:05):
question is who's getting it right and what type of
All Star festivity would actually make us care. I think
I have the answer. We'll break it down next to
the Fellas on Fox Sports Radio. He's Kevin Figures. I'm
Jason Fitz.

Speaker 4 (12:16):
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Speaker 4 (13:00):
WNBA All Star Britney Hicks is here.

Speaker 2 (13:01):
Give it up for Brittany.

Speaker 4 (13:02):
Everybody, I'm I'm joking around.

Speaker 2 (13:07):
That's my friend's wife.

Speaker 3 (13:08):
I knew none of you knew WNBA players.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
I mean, I still think it's funny. He's Kevin Figures
on Jason Vince where A Fellows on Fox Sports Radio.
I still think it's funny. And again I will I
will throw myself under the bus all day on that
one and acknowledge that it's somebody that's been talking about
the w since I don't know twenty seventeen. I I
there's a ton of players that I don't know. So

(13:36):
I was like, okay, I mean in my house, I
was like, oh that's cool, and then I got got.
I got caught. I can admit it's it's okay. We
can all admit that we got got and it's kind
of funny. I still think it was a hysterical moment.
Maybe not. It seemed like a lot of the jokes
didn't land in the room, but they certainly landed for
us at home. I'm I was a big fan.

Speaker 3 (13:55):
I was partial the fits eat to the waffle house
joke personally as someone who's been to the waffle house
to whose sister worked at waffle house for four years
and has stories on top of stories on top of stories.
Let's just say that we find that particularly hilarious. I'll
leave it at that.

Speaker 2 (14:09):
Look, by the way, there was a when I was
in Hendersonville, just north of Nashville for years, there was
a waffle house like right there, man, Especially like when
you're doing music business stuff, you're constantly coming home at
two in the morning. I'm telling you, waffle house is
so good. And what I can't understand. I cannot figure

(14:30):
out how they are so capable because you can walk
into a waffle house two in the morning where everybody
that's in that waffle house is so drunk they can
barely stand up, and they're all ordering different things, and
the waitress who is completely indifferent to your order and
just wants you to get out of their way. Like
the waitress is like, what do you want? Fine, they're
writing it down and then they turn around and they

(14:51):
start screaming arbitrary words at the line chef, like smothered, covered, capped,
all of these things. And they got slang for everything,
shorthand for extra crispy bake, like it's all of it.
So you're listening to English, but it sounds like a
foreign language when they're barking out these orders, and the
line chef doesn't even move their head. They just nod
and what do you know, your food comes out perfect
And you hear them bark like thirty different orders in

(15:13):
a row, and somehow they remember who got their hash
browns with you know, peppers on it, who got it
with mushrooms on it, who got it with just cheese
on it, and who got it plaine And they do
all of that from shorthand that makes no sense, Like Figgie,
I'm not sure that the waffle house chefs and waitresses
aren't actually the smartest people in America.

Speaker 3 (15:30):
Well oiled machine, are you aware by the way of
the waffle house effect? Have you heard about this? The
waffle house index? No when it comes to FEMA, so
they judge how bad a natural disaster is based on
whether or not waffle House is actually open in a
certain area, because the idea is that waffle House is
almost always open, regardless of what the situation is. So literally,

(15:52):
if there's a flood happening and the waffle house is open,
and it's like, well, you know what, can't be that serious.

Speaker 2 (15:57):
And it's actually a thing.

Speaker 3 (15:58):
It is literally a thing that FEMA uses to gauge
how bad a natural disaster is in a particular area.

Speaker 2 (16:06):
It's the most fascinating thing I've ever heard. I'm gonna
make all waffle House fans hate me now too, And
I say, did you know that you can actually order
super healthy at a waffle House? Like you can ask
you can get egg whites to do all that stuff.
You got to pay a little electrac for it, but yeah,
you can actually go to waffle House and walk out
of there like with you know, fruit and egg whites
if you want. Nobody does.

Speaker 3 (16:26):
Why would you? Why would you do that?

Speaker 2 (16:30):
You are you aren't wrong. So the WNBA All Star
Game itself is going to be today and it's sold out.
It's a big event. Good Morning America was doing a
lot of hype for it. Yesterday, rightfully, so everybody seems
to be super stoked for it, even without Caitlin Clark.
We were just having this conversation about what the w
should be doing and could be doing. And I think,

(16:52):
you know, trying to have this from a fair and
balanced like neither a lover nor a hater, just in
the middle on it, which doesn't seem to be allowed.
But you know that I have become a lifelong die
hard baseball fanatics since last October a year. Yeah, I'm
less than a year in, but I'd like to say
that I might be the chef's kiss because I have

(17:13):
in my lifetime never watched on TV a single second
of the Major League All Star festivities ever, right, I've yeah,
like the home run derby thing has never really appealed
to me. I've never watched a second of it on TV.
It's just not my thing. But this year I'm flipping
through and I was like, oh, yeah, it's lifelong die hard,
six month, seven month baseball fan. I got to check
out the All Star Game, right. I tune in just

(17:35):
in time for the swing off, and I'm telling you
it was electric realizing that I am not the audience
because baseball guy is gonna sit here and be like, look,
it's an All Star game. I don't care give me
shootouts anytime I can get shootouts. And that's just that
that is part of I think, especially acknowledging that it's
for that. In that sense, it's casuals that are loving it.

(17:57):
Like soccer diehards will tell you the penalty kicks suck.
But people that just randomly tune into the World Cup
every few years, like who Pttley kicks the most exciting
thing you could have, right, Like hockey hockey guy of
which I am one, will tell you that. You know,
anytime you get into mentalty two shots at the end,
you're totally changing the entire scope of the game. Whatever, No,

(18:18):
it's exciting. It's an exciting way to end things. So
when I had a swing off, I was thinking, my god,
I wish they did this every game. I wish at
the end of nine innings we just had a little
mini home run derby and there we go. That's how
we're sewing. Like I think baseball should do that every
regular season game, and that then replace extra innings with
the swing off.

Speaker 3 (18:36):
You are you not alone in that as a matter
of fact, Justin Turner, he's that's been one of his
things over the last couple of years. He says that
instead of playing extra innings, you should just have a
swing off. And this is something he when he was
a Dodger years ago, something that he thought he threw
out there and a lot of people thought.

Speaker 2 (18:50):
That he was crazy.

Speaker 3 (18:51):
I'm not willing to meet you there quite yet, Fitzy,
but I will say for an all Star game, for
an exhibition to your point where you're trying to draw
in casuals and do things a little bit differently, I
thought it was amazing. As someone who is in certain
senses of baseball purists, I thought that was a perfect
way to end it. You don't have to worry about
tiring out more pitchers, adding and more players. It's just
a little bit of a difference twist. It was a

(19:12):
fun way to end it. My only gripe was that
they you didn't have star players in the actual swing off,
and we come to find out that the majority of
the star players actually left the game before the game
even ended.

Speaker 2 (19:21):
So that's fine, it's their break.

Speaker 3 (19:23):
They came in, they did their cameo in the first
two winnings or whatever, and they left. I'm not going
to take major issue with that. But overall, I think
Major League Baseball has the best All Star Game, and
it's probably by default just based on how the game
is played. It's really hard to lollygag playing baseball. You know,
you throw a pitch up there, you can't be will
and nilly about it and let a ball slip bout
of his hands because it might hit a guy in

(19:43):
the head if the ball's coming towards you. Your timing,
your rhythm, your pace. That's just how you play in basketball.
You can easily not play defense in football, you know
at the Pro Bowl when that was still the thing.
Guys cannot half ass rush the passer, you know, half
ass raise their hands on a field goal attempt.

Speaker 2 (19:58):
You just can't.

Speaker 3 (19:59):
The game of baseball doesn't lend itself to be playing
got half mass that way. So I think just naturally
the way the game is built lends itself for people
to play be more competitive in an All Star game.
I thought Fox's production around the All Star Game. I
know you came in towards the end at the swing off,
but talking to a bunch of players, having him micd
up on the field talking to a player and his
dad at the same time while he was in the game.

(20:19):
I thought was really cool. The tribute to Hank Aaron
fighting all these things around the game in and of
itself to kind of liven things up for the casual viewer,
I thought was spectacular on Major League Baseball's part. And
that's why I think they have the best All Star
Game of any of the major sports. And it's really
not even close.

Speaker 2 (20:36):
Well, and it is interesting because I will credit again.
These are things I'm always transparent with y'all sitting in
front of a microphone, Like the day that I got
hired years ago by ESPN at the time, when I
got hired by ESPN to do full time radio, I
went to the boss that was running radio at the
time and I said, look, I've never watched nine innings
of a baseball game in my life on television. I

(20:58):
am petrified sitting on radio every day because I don't
know anything about baseball. And the boss at ESPN Radio
at the time literally looked at me and said, you'll
talk more hockey than you will baseball, Like, just follow
it enough to be able to talk about the World
Series and you're fine, Like that was the advice I
got so like. And that's again, I'm just transparent with everybody,
so I'm not in a lot of ways. I don't

(21:20):
even try to pretend to anybody that I'm this baseball purist.
But I do think that they've done a beautiful job.
And I didn't really discover this until last year on
the playoff runt. I remember telling you at the time,
like my god, watching the broadcast and the ways that
they keep the game exciting now, particularly during you know,
during playoff baseball. I think they do an incredible job.

(21:40):
Fox does a great job with these broadcasts and keeping
things moving. And I still associated at the time TV
broadcasts with sort of what the old school local broadcasts were,
or radio broadcasts that I grew up on, which are
so slowly paced. That's part of what baseball fans love.
It's part of what drives me crazy. It's why I
enjoy going to baseball games live, because you have a

(22:01):
lot of stimulus while you're there. They're just things that
make you feel great. You know. I've gone to a
few Red Sox games this year. I go to a
bunch of minor league games, like I enjoy going to
the games live, just not watching it on TV. To
your point, those broadcast moments become huge when you've got
all stars that are miked up. I just think that
that makes it interesting and that's one thing that baseball

(22:23):
is doing a great job of. I will go back
to the W quickly and say, look, last year, for
my work with Yahoo, they we went to the W
people and said, hey, we'd like to send some people
to the WNBA All Star Game to cover maybe do
some fun content, me included. And the W turned around
and basically said no. They turned around and said, no,

(22:43):
we don't need people coming in now just because it's
a spectacle if we want to reward the people that
have been covering it forever. And I was like, well
I have just because you and the number of times
I could tell people that the WNBA has not given
stars to radio, they have not given stars for interviews,
and then they can plain about how often they're not covered,
and they make it very difficult. My opposite experience of

(23:05):
that the one time ESPN sent us to the Major
League Baseball All Star Game festivities in DC at the time,
and it was we were treated like golden gods, and
knowing that we didn't do a great job covering baseball.
They wanted to be like, hey, we're going to get
you to fall in love with the sport. I think
that's the opportunity with these all star games. And you're right,
like the way, even the way, even though the players

(23:27):
left early and I know that was a hubbub whatever, fine,
but you never once felt like the lead up to it,
the players were not into it.

Speaker 3 (23:34):
I think that's a key to all of this. It does,
and that your story is very disappointing. It's almost as
if and I don't want to project, and I don't
know what the motivation was. Maybe they were busy, I
don't know. You play the victim long enough that it
almost becomes your identity, so you start sabotaging the ability
for yourself to not view yourself that way. When media establishments,

(23:55):
legit media organizations come in and say, we want to
cover your sport. We want to, you know, extend your footprint,
we want to talk to your stars, and you say no,
because you weren't here before. You weren't a day one.
To your point, you mentioned this last segment, we're here now.
This is only gonna help grow your footprint and make
you more popular and make you stand out more. Why
would you say no to that? The last league on

(24:16):
this planet that should be saying no to media opportunities
to exposure is the WNBA, because I know they're having
their moment now, but the arrow is not going to
point up all the time bubbles pop eventually. I'm not
saying that that's gonna happen, but I mean take advantage
of this opportunity and grasp on to every single solitary
person that wants to show some interest in you as
you possibly can.

Speaker 2 (24:36):
Why you would turn something like that away.

Speaker 3 (24:38):
That blows my mind that they would actually tell you, no,
we're not going to give you any access. No, we're
not gonna let you talk to star players. That is
self sabotage to the nth degree. That's insane to me
that that happened to you.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
Which is again why people scream and yell all the
time about the teams in the leagues that don't get coverage,
and what so often they're not away of is you
know the times that teams and leagues simply refuse to
give you access to things, and so then if you
don't get access, you can't cover them, and then if
you turn around and loudly say it at the time,

(25:11):
then you're damaging your relationship with your partner sort of, right,
So like I can't if I'm sitting here trying to
get into it, Like I no longer care if the
WNBA is going to ever invite me to an All
Star game to cover it. By the way, I'm not
asking for comp tickets to sit out, like I'm asking
for immedia credential to cover the events. I don't care
if they If they do that anymore, I don't. I
don't really have to sit there and worry about it
one way or the other. But certainly they've never made it.

(25:34):
Even back when I was working with Sarah Spain and
in the very beginning of our show, Sarah said I
want a weekly WNBA guest, And the number of times
we went to teams and we're like, hey, national radio show,
we want to have you're a player on like the
Las Vegas Aces of whom I'm a fan. Never have
have have literally never given a player to any show

(25:54):
I've ever hosted, even when Sarah Spain was making the ask.
And we all know that if you live in this
this business, in this industry, if you were on Twitter
the other night you saw our tweets about it, Like,
Sarah's been covering women's sports better than anybody for an
incredibly long time, and when we asked for aces players,
they're like, not, we're busy. We just couldn't get them,
Like they're just so. You know, at some point when
people yell and scream about the lack of coverage, again,

(26:16):
I'll get baseball credit. I have never had that experience
with the number of times you can reach out to
a baseball team and say, hey, we'd really like to
have this superstar and they're like, hey, we'll do what
we can. At least they're trying. And that's what I
want everybody to do, is just try and grow their sport.

Speaker 3 (26:29):
And that's something that baseball has been criticized over the
years for not trying to reach out to younger demographics
to make themselves available. And Rob Manford has taken a
lot of incoming over his tenure, and I think rightfully
so the Astros thing, a lot of different things have
gone wrong, but you know, marketing the sport better, speeding
up the pace to bring in a younger audience, the
fact that the pitch clock you know, you talked about

(26:50):
how baseball was very slow. The pace has been picked
up over these last couple of years with the bigger
bases and the pitch clock, and it's drawn in a
younger audience. I mean, the viewership Internet has gone up.
They've done a lot of innovative things to try to
try to modernize.

Speaker 2 (27:04):
Their game and make it appealing.

Speaker 3 (27:06):
Keep the appeal to the old school fans, we're also
trying to appeal to a younger generation in opening things
up and making guys available. I think the baseball has
really knocked it out of the park. I guess pun
fully intended over these last couple of years, and how
someone like a league like the WNBA can't grasp onto
that and say like, look, this is an example of
what you should do, as opposed to just sitting off

(27:26):
from the corner and saying like you are with us
from day one.

Speaker 2 (27:28):
So therefore we're just going to do our own thing.
That blows my mind.

Speaker 3 (27:32):
But from just from an All Star Games situation in general,
since we have WNBA coming up this weekend in Major
League Baseball earlier this past week, I guess what is
your general taken on All Star Games? Do they still
serve the purpose that they initially intended, One to reward
the players and two to just be an all out
showcase for the league in the sport in general, the
show Hey, here's our best talent on display, all in

(27:53):
one place. I guess now that all these sports are
so global international, I get, is it really necessary anymore
to have an All Star game?

Speaker 2 (28:03):
No? And the problem is, I mean, you need to break,
you want to honor your stars, all of these things, YadA, YadA, YadA.
Last year, the NHL stumbled, and I do mean stumbled
for a league I love, they stumbled onto four nations.
Four Nations became a phenomenon for him. But let's remember
that four Nations was meant to be sort of an
Olympic teaser more than the All Star Game. Right there,

(28:24):
This is a way to get people psyched for the Olympics.
And it became this phenomenon that they should do all
the time. Four Nations should be something they do constantly.
It would be incredible that being said, let's go back
to our childhood, right The NBA All Star Game mattered
because when I was a kid, you rarely got to
see like the NBA on NBC mattered because there wasn't

(28:48):
the opportunity to get league passed. You couldn't just watch
every game every time. You were lucky, lucky. When I
was a kid, if there were maybe ten or fifteen
times a year that Michael Jordan was on now TV,
you were lucky. And so the number of times in
regular season NBA basketball that you would actually see Michael

(29:08):
or Magic or Larry Bird or Charles Barklay was it
was limited. And my god, you might see It's almost
like back then you only saw hall Cogan wrestle at WrestleMania.
The rest here he was just talking, right, So WrestleMania
was a big deal because hal Cogan was actually in
the ring. Now, WWE does a pay per view every
six weeks and you see these superstars every time, and

(29:30):
it's just I don't think it can resonate the same
way at the time when you only get the rare
opportunity to see Magic versus you know, Michael in any way,
shape or form, it matters. So the All Star Game,
my god, you're getting all of them at once. Good Lord,
like that. That has to mean something to everybody. Now,
I mean, you get these clips, you get these games,

(29:52):
you get these opportunities to see every superstar every single night.
Nothing is special in that process. So I don't know
how you make an All Star game special when you
have more access and familiarity with every single superstar than
you've ever had.

Speaker 3 (30:05):
Yeah, you summed it up perfectly, you know, as and
as someone as a kid back in the day who
didn't even have cable TV. So I didn't even get
TN t ORGASTN games back.

Speaker 2 (30:13):
In the day. So we were rich enough to have that.
Come on, figure, like, let the people know, like back
then you didn't, like you could actually just have an
antenna on your TV y'all, and you could just get
the basic stations and that was normal. That was like,
that was a noise. It wasn't that you were poor
if you did that, it was you were rich if
your family could afford cable And like, my god, if

(30:34):
you were the kid on the block that had HBO, man,
I was gonna be your friend even if I didn't
like you, just because like had HBO.

Speaker 3 (30:40):
So yeah, So to your point, you know, the chance
to see Michael Jordan or Magic, if you didn't live
in La or anywhere across the Mark, you would have
to wait for the NBA on NBC on a given
Saturday or Sunday afternoon and hope that a star player
was playing, you know, and that would be your only
opportunity to see them, and then to see all these
players face off against each other in an All Star game,
you know, if you were I don't know, I'll just

(31:02):
pull a random name out of a Tracey McGrady in
Orlando or whatever who didn't who was a great player
but didn't get a lot of national exposure. Literally, your
only time to see them might have been the All
Star game on NBC back in the day. That's how
bad it was. And so now to your point, now
that we have lead pass and things are so accessible
and highlights are uploaded after games literally seconds after games
end on YouTube or TikTok or anywhere else, it's just

(31:24):
not a novelty anymore to be able to say, oh
my god, I got a chance to see so and
so playing. It's like, yeah, I saw him play Tuesday, Thursday, Friday, Sunday,
so did I. So it's the novelty has worn off.
And so you add that on top of the fact
that the players obviously do not care anymore, and granted
there's clips from back in the eighties and nineties. Two
if there's glorified layup lines or layup drills in All
Star games here and there, but the intensity would ratchet

(31:46):
up when it matter at most. Now these guys literally
do not care. So if the players don't care, why
do the fans care? And so that's why there's a
lot of apathy towards the NBA All Star Game and
the Pro Bowl always is and always has been kind
of a bit of a joke and really was just
a way for guys to have a vacation to Hawaii,
and once they moved it, it really less than the
incentive for the players who were elected to even go anymore.

(32:07):
So now you have all these guys who are like,
I'm a pro bowler. It was like, yeah, but you
were a fifth alternate, so where you're really a pro bowler?

Speaker 2 (32:13):
So go on. That whole point though, speaks to part
of what I think maybe we've missed on load management too. Like, yeah,
in the eighties and nineties, every televised basketball game was
a special occurrence because it meant something that you were
actually on national TV. The bubblah buh blah, but basketball

(32:34):
mattered you didn't see it very often, so even for
the players, they had to get stoked for it. Now
you're on TV every single night. Everybody's ripping through every
highlight every single night. Like, none of it can feel special.
Like if you had to miss a random game because
you were hungover. In the nineties, which was real, nobody
was talking about it because it was just a random game.

(32:55):
It probably wasn't televised, and it really wasn't a conversation piece.
Now every single ounce of it is televised. How does
any of it feel special to the crowd, How does
any of it feel special to the fans, and how
does any of it really feel special to the players?
Like that that has to trickle down into We'll keep
breaking this down because this is interesting to me. Plus,
whether you go to a game or you go to

(33:15):
a concert, one thing we've all learned in the last
forty eight hours, don't take your side piece. I'll explain
what sefellas on Fox Sports Radio. Be sure to check
out the Fox Sports Radio YouTube channel. A ton of
great videos from our Fox Sports Radio shows. I can
say the word shows. Just search Fox Sports Radio on YouTube.
You'll see a whole bunch of video highlights from all
of our shows, and be sure to subscribe so you

(33:37):
always have instant access to our Fox Sports Radio videos
on YouTube. Cephellas He's Kevin Figures, I'm Jason Fitz Anthony
Gargano getting a Saturday morning off as he rightfully deserves.
In July figuring, I don't know what somebody expects when
they're at a concert, but privacy shouldn't be one of them.

(33:57):
And the Internet has been blowing up over you know,
a CEO caught. We've all seen the story at this point.
I don't know, you know what what anybody's thinking in
that situation. I don't know how how brash you have
to be to decide that you're gonna go to a
Coldplay concert and struggle with your head of HR and
think that nobody's gonna see it anywhere and a bunch

(34:18):
of other employees are around or not. There's dispute on that,
but you know, they happen to get caught on the
on the kiss cam. And here's the most important thing.
I think kiss cam should be forever now branded the
Coldplay Kiss Camp. It's good, you know, it's just a
good reminder to everybody if you're out with your side
piece at any sort of event where there are cameras,
you could get caught. What do you expect, Like, maybe

(34:40):
don't have a side piece, But then if you're not
gonna have a side if you are gonna have a
side piece, maybe don't trot out into the edge of
your suite. It's just let you know, out in the
open air snuggling with them during a Coldplay song. It's
a private event. What do you mean.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
It's not like there's thousands of people and then dozens
of cameras there. What do you mean that's a private
moment between he and his HR director And how dare
anybody put the camera on them? It's ridiculous. I can't
believe that statement. So there was a fake statement that
was floating around before his actual statement came out, and
I was still wondering if the actual statement was fake
based on how it ended, because it made absolutely no

(35:12):
sense whatsoever. It truly is amazing how seemingly smart people
can be so stupid at times, you know, and so brash,
And maybe it's not even stupidity fits he Maybe it's
just being brash and just being you know, confident that
they're not going to show us it doesn't matter. And
if he did, if he indeed was up there with
a bunch of other co workers, that speaks to just
a culture issue within the comp company that goes beyond,

(35:36):
you know, any sort of just the basics of an affair.

Speaker 2 (35:39):
But it was it.

Speaker 3 (35:40):
Not only has it blown up, the internet is undefeated
because there have been meme after meme that have popped
up of different people, and in this position between the
two of them, there's like Patrick Mahomes hugging a referee.
There's a lot of really good memes out there floating
out there. If you're on Instagram or if you're on
X that's pretty funny taking advantage of this. But yes,
be the best thing they could have happened for Coldplay,

(36:01):
because now they wanted to slap their name. One is, Hey,
you want to be sponsored by Coalplay? Sponsored by our
next concert tour? Why not? I mean, I think it's
I think it'd be a genius on their part if
they could do it.

Speaker 2 (36:11):
It's they should sell a branded ticket. Now that's in
the uh no camera section for all the people looking
for infidelity at a concert. I don't know, man, Like,
it's just the entire thing. And I read that statement too,
and I thought his actual statements came out. For anyone
that didn't see it, it came out and essentially at the
end blamed society as a whole for or not respecting

(36:33):
privacy and you know, having a private moment blasted all
over and it's like, well, what did what did you expect? Dude?
Like you are a person in a position of power
that was doing something that's absolutely asinine and you did
it in a way that you know you got caught.
And I just think there is it. We live in
such a forgiving second chance society. We live in a
society that is desperate to give ninety nine percent of

(36:56):
people a random second chance, even if they don't deserve it.
So the number of times you can come out and
be like, you know what, guys, I'm really sorry, I
screwed up and I'm really sorry, and people will flock
to try and forgive you and give you a second chance.
And if you if you don't get that, then everybody
flocks to the he's getting canceled. Do that right? Like
so like that's the world we live in. Now. All
you had to do is come out and say you

(37:16):
know what I did a terrible thing. I embarrass myself,
I embarrass my family. I gotta figure out how to
get this right. I gotta figure out how to get
my life in order. And to everybody that has trusted me,
I'm sorry, Boom and this dog, that's all you gotta say,
like and then then just disappear, don't say another damn
thing for the next six months in any way that
you don't have to, and that that, to me is

(37:37):
the logical way to do this and instead coming out
and essentially, you know, blaming Coldplay for putting you on
camera is like, God, how how stupid are you? For
a smart person? Like there's a difference. My brother used
to always say, like, you know, there's a difference between
book smart and street smart always and you know, there's
this point for me where I this is such a living, eating,

(37:58):
breathing proof of that inside, which a loud, tangible way
like you just be be some combination of intelligent enough
that you don't step on your own you know what,
even more, which you did. And I'm it's a phenomenon
to me that's not gonna go away, Like he's going
to be memed forever. I feel bad for his wife
and kids. He's going to be memed forever. He will.

Speaker 3 (38:19):
But I mean he or he earned it, deserves it,
whatever you want to call it, I mean for fraternizing.
And by the way, that the ultimate no knows is
that you don't date somebody within your own office, someone
that that reports to you one and especially as someone
who's an HR director. This is like something out of
a TV show. To be honest with you, it almost
doesn't even seem real.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (38:37):
But to your point, you can't be in a public
form and say that your private that your privacy uh
was impinged upon when you're at an actual stadium with
thousands of people. That's the part that people, Hey, look,
you talk about people being a forgiving society. We've seen
this happen multiple times. People that fall on the sword,
people that say, like, you know what I screwed up?

Speaker 2 (38:56):
And what was it?

Speaker 3 (38:57):
Was it a Jason Giambi who said I did steroids
whatever like and people forgave them two weeks later, wasn't
a story anymore. But people who deny, deny, deny, deny,
end up getting ostracized because they know that you're lying
about it and you're doubling down on it.

Speaker 2 (39:10):
So if you if you had just.

Speaker 3 (39:11):
Stuck with this apology and left out the privacy portion
of it, everybody would forget. Maybe you'd have to step
down as CEO, but he'd stay on as a member
of the board, and maybe he can be a CEO
of another company a couple of years from now. Now
that you double down on something like that, who wants
to associate themselves with you?

Speaker 2 (39:26):
I don't know if anybody would ever wants to it
is it's wild to see how fast things move. And look,
I've got a couple of friends now that have the metaglasses,
the ray band Meta glasses. I don't know if you've
seen these, but for anyone that hasn't, they're just they're
regular ray band sunglasses and they also record, and they're

(39:46):
awesome because, like, if you're out doing something fun, it's
a great way to record it. You get great footage.
But it's also a reminder that pressing literally a tiny
button on the side of your sunglasses turns your sunglasses
into a recording device. Like we you have have to
assume now everywhere you go that you're on camera, whether
you want to be or not. You're on camera everywhere.
So if you're going to be a Karen in the

(40:07):
Starbucks or you're going to be out with your side
piece at coldplay, you're likely going to get caught doing it.

Speaker 3 (40:13):
Thousand percent. Your privacy is gone as soon as you
set foot outside of your front door. You know, that's
advice that I've given to my little cousins over the
past couple of years. Assume that everything you do outside
of your house is viewable to the public in some way,
shape or form. You're always you're always on tape. You
live your life that way, You'll be okay.

Speaker 2 (40:31):
One hundred percent. Like also, just don't have a side piece,
all right. College football changing, but we'll figure out exactly
how and what it means next the fellas on Fox
Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (40:42):
You're listening to Fox Sports Radio Radio.

Speaker 2 (40:45):
The only constant in college football right now is change,
and that's a constant that scares the college football fan base.
But the question is, when all the dust settles, who's
going to figure out what it looks like? How's it
going to look and there's everybody still going to be
madly in love with it. It's a complicated issue with
a lot of different variables that we're trying to figure

(41:07):
out it's fellas on Fox Sports Radio. He's Kevin Figures.
I'm Jason Fitz coming at you from the Fox Sports studios,
and look, Figury, you and I both share a love
of college football, and you and I both have I
think over the course of the last couple of years,
talked a lot about the changes that are coming. And
the wild part about it is, this is a frustrating
thing to me. We're barely in the first change before

(41:30):
we're already obsessed with the next change. And you know,
as SEC media days, we saw Eli Drinkwich, the head
coach of Missouri, suggests a thirty team college football player,
like everybody has some theory on what it should look like,
and half the people listening are going to send some
wild like people do this all the time. They start tweeting,
they're like, oh, oh, you know, actually, like this is

(41:50):
what they should do. Okay, I realize everybody has an opinion.
The number one thing that I want college football to
figure out is what the hell are you doing? And
how do we just rip the band off to get
us to whatever the new normal is so we can
start to live in the new normal instead of just
getting to the new normal, only to worry about what
next change is coming. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
See, that's the problem because to your point, it's such
a multi layered process and there's so many hurdles to
jump through, you know, financial, legal, all that, it's not
going to get sussed out over the course of a
handful of years. We're probably talking about the next decade
of how this situation is going to evolve. Whether you're
talking about the portal or NIL or realignment and television contracts,

(42:32):
the playoff, all these things are obviously relevant and tied together,
but they're all individual battles that needs to be fought
in the giant war that is college football that we're
in right now. And that's the issue. So far as
many of these people that say I just want to
get to the game, to start playing games on the field,
out to a certain degree, I'm with that too, But
the business aspect of it can't be discounted because it
affects so many different things.

Speaker 2 (42:54):
I mean, there's a lot of layers to it.

Speaker 3 (42:55):
So as frustrating as it is, it's a necessary battle
because the way things were going was untenable. The BCS
was ridiculous. The fact that kids had to do, you know,
under the table handshake agreements to make a couple of
shekels while you know, these conferences were making billions of dollars.
Was ridiculous. And the issue is everything has come to
a head all at one time, as opposed to being

(43:16):
parceled out over the course of years. And that's what
makes things so complicated and difficult to grasp at this
point in time, and almost overwhelming for a lot of
people who don't follow it on a day to day basis.
So I understand the fan who just says, I don't
care about any of this stuff. I just want to
see football played on the field. I certainly understand the sentiment.

Speaker 2 (43:33):
Yeah. Well, and there's part of me here. This is. Look,
any any die hard fan of a sport hates change,
but particularly when you start talking about you know, old school.
This is this is the fandom that's been ingrained to
me for generations. I think major League Baseball and college
football share that, like this is a this is what
I always refer to as a great grandpa sport, Like

(43:55):
my great grandpa is a fan, and my grandpa's a fan,
and my dad's a fan, and I'm a fan. And
like it just keeps going generation in a generation thatcherup
hates change, and college football fans have always hated change.
So even though change is inevitable in the sport, at
some point you just gotta you gotta realize if you're
gonna make your fan base uncomfortable, then do it once
and get everybody back on solid footing. The problem is

(44:17):
because there was never a college footballs are and because
nobody can really figure out what that looks like, how
do you how do you come up with the new
standard in practice? Like how do you have a new
standard operating procedure? When the SEC wants one thing, the
Big ten wants another thing, and everybody else sitting around
has to realize at some point that what they want

(44:38):
is insignificant, Like what what the you know, existing Mountain
West teams and you know, even what the Big twelve
teams want today doesn't matter because if the SEC and
the Big Ten decide that they're going to take the
ball and go play in their own sandbox, everybody else
is screwed. And that that's a harsh reality that I
think certain fan bases continue to not accept at this point.

(45:01):
Guess what the SEC and the Big Ten own you,
and they own college football. They're gonna do what they want,
and if you choose not to participate in that, you're
just gonna be left behind like that.

Speaker 3 (45:11):
That's just real for everybody. Yeah, and it's to your point.
It's a hard reality to have to accept. And I
certainly understand people want to stand on their own merit
and feel that they can compete, but unfortunately the reality
is you can. You know, those are the best teams,
those are the teams that are dominating in multiple sports.
By the way, it's not just football. I know that's
the king, but we're talking basketball, we're talking baseball. The

(45:33):
SEC just won a national championship and does almost routinely
on a year in, year out basis. That's just how
the world is controlled at this point in time. And
so unless and until and I think their TV contracts
are up in twenty thirty or twenty thirty three something
like that, you know, that's really where everything's gonna come
to a head. But the issue is things are changing
and evolving so quickly. Before that, there's gonna be revisions
and revisions to the revisions. That's why you know, we

(45:56):
had Greg Senki at the SEC media days talking about like, well,
you know what, we can stick with the two team playoff,
when the entire discussion for the past year, since the
last year's twelve team playoff came in, was that this
might last for a year, possibly two. We're going to sixteen.
It's gonna happen inevitably, and now we're saying we're not
so sure. And it's this standoff. I can't even say
it's a cold war standoff between the Big ten and
the SEC. It's pretty well explicit. Tony Petiti in the

(46:17):
Big ten and one one thing, the SEC wants another.
And to your point, Big twelve, ACC Pack two or
PAC twelve, if that's what's gonna end up being again,
we're all just kind of sitting waiting in the wings,
waiting to say, like, all right, just make sure we
have a seat at the table. It might scream as unfair,
but that's the unfortunate reality. As college football specifically goes,
or I should say, as the Big Ten and the
SEC goes, so does the future of college football.

Speaker 2 (46:40):
Well, and I mean, I don't think that's wrong. I
keep saying this, and I got in a little bit
of heat on two pros earlier this week from Fantasy.
Didn't like to hear this, but like, the sad reality
at this point is that there are a ton of
college football programs that to the masses don't and won't matter,
Like I just as much as people right now want

(47:03):
to screen. There's certain things we were talking earlier about,
you know, WNBA becoming almost like a virtues stealing thing,
Like there are certain things that people are like, oh,
what does it mean for all of the other athletes,
but you you don't really care about that. Like I
helped at the time several years ago try and fight
to save swimming and diving at Michigan State and quickly
realized that my efforts were futile because nobody gives a damn.

(47:25):
They just don't right, So, and people don't like to
admit that. It's hard to say, but the grand scheme
of things, most people are not going to sit here
and say, well, football needs to be limited because we
got to save swimming and diving. They don't care, right
And at some level I realize that people like to
watch football every night of the week. Sure, the Utah
States of the world and the Connecticuts of the world,
Like there's a place for those football programs. It's just

(47:48):
if it's not with the big boys. At the end
of the day, not a lot of people are going
to lose sleep. Like, if you're a Connecticut football fan,
then if Connecticut ends up being essentially Division III, then
that's fine. You'll be fine. You'll enjoy it. It'll be good. Like, Hey,
people out there love University Wisconsin Whitewater, Like, the same
thing is gonna happen. There's gonna be a haves and
have nots, and there's gonna be a lot of teams

(48:10):
left behind. But this is at some point, this is
all about money. It's a doggy dog survival world. Like
you either make it or you don't. And if you
don't make it, if you can't raise the money to
consistently compete, it's not up to everybody else to throttle
it back to try and keep giving you the illusion
that your favorite team can compete. It's up to you
to figure out if you can rise to the cream,
and if you can't, then figure out your own sandbox

(48:31):
to go play it.

Speaker 3 (48:32):
I certainly understand the issues that a lot of these
schools that were haves and all of a sudden no
our have nots are are facing because this is a
professional sports where you can be a downtroden franchise and
just here's a billion dollar owner that can come in
and buy. They're not gonna come in and buy Oregon
State and make them into a giant, relevant college football
program and make sure everybody wants to come to Corvallis.

(48:52):
And it just doesn't work that way in college sports.
So Oregon State was relevant when they were in the
Pac twelve slash Pack ten, and that that's no longer
a Power five conference. They're going to get knocked down
a pig and they're not gonna necessarily have the chance
to compete on a high level like they used to,
which means fewer good recruits, you know, which means fewer
good games, which means probably fewer less less money coming

(49:14):
into your call fers from a TV contract standpoint. So
I certainly can sympathize with you know, those are empathized,
I guess with with those sort of schools that are
losing out on something knowing that there's no way they're
ever going to be able to get it back. Now
to your point, people around the country don't necessarily care
because they never cared about Washington State or Oregon State
or UNLV or any of these other schools anyway. But

(49:34):
for those sective fan bases, that was part of the
community to have that ray of hope that hey, once
every seven years we might have a chance to jump
up and actually do something special that gets stolen from them.
So I can certainly understand the feeling of loss when
it comes to that we were once part of the
big boy table and now all of a sudden, we
no longer are. So that's a tough pill to swallow

(49:55):
for a lot of these schools.

Speaker 2 (49:57):
I get that, But like, that's it's just part of
what happens in so many businesses, Like you know, certainly
how many tech startups are left behind, and how many
companies that you know, make widgets are eventually left behind,
and it stinks for all the people that worked really
hard for it. Like you know, how many music acts
are a headliner in the nineties and then all of

(50:19):
a sudden, fifteen years later, they're playing yacht rock cruises
because nobody cares anymore. Like that's just that's what happens.
Like it's a harsh reality, and that's why I keep saying,
like Oregon State's a perfect example of a place that,
you know what, football is not going to go away
for them. If they don't want it to. They just
may not play the Alabamas of the world anymore. They
may be relegated into their own different subsect of people

(50:41):
that choose not to or can't. It doesn't have to
be a choice. You just can't compete at that, you know,
two hundred and fifty million dollars a year. Whatever it's
eventually going to get to like the college football I
think is going to end up looking like the NFL.
And when it does, the nice thing is that you
control it. I'll explain what I mean, Like, at the
end of the day, we're all trying to figure out

(51:03):
how to save something when in reality there are a
ton of these programs that can save it themselves. I'll
explain what I mean. Next. Coming up, he's Kevin Figures.
I'm Jason Fitzworth Fellas hanging out on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 4 (51:14):
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Speaker 5 (51:26):
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Speaker 6 (51:29):
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Speaker 7 (51:45):
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Speaker 2 (51:57):
So Fellas on Fox Sports Radio, Kevin Figures, Jason, Anthony
Gargano getting Saturday off. See, this is a perfect example.
It's a perfect example. It's you gon to lead us
right into college football. Backstreet Boys are playing right now,
by the way. Got to get to the sphere. Got
to get to this, fear My buddy Michael Junior went
last night. I am incredibly jealous, Figgy. Here's the thing.

(52:17):
Backstreet Boys can go in and they can sell out
the sphere. Believe me, they have. The ticket prices are atrocious, right.
They can go out and they can sell that out
every single night. And because they can sell that out,
they can charge an arm and a leg and they
can make it absolutely unaffordable. And they can tell everybody.
They got to fly to Vegas, and everybody will flock
to do it, and they will spend the money for
the hotel rooms, and they will spend the money for
the sphere tickets upwards of one thousand dollars a ticket

(52:40):
on the aftermarket. The fans will go in all whites,
and they will do everything. They will go to the
after party at the Venetian like, they will have a
blast doing this whole thing, and they will spend a
vacations worth the money go to a concert because they can.
Now if in that same sphere we put ninety eight
degrees and nobody bought tickets to it, we wouldn't be

(53:00):
sitting here saying, oh my god, what are we gonna do?
How are we gonna save ninety eight degrees? Like, at
the end of the day, you are what your popularity
allows you to be in so many situations. And while
I sit here and lament for the future of college football,
for certain programs I also kind of don't like. For years,
it's been accepted that there are certain programs that are

(53:21):
more popular than others. It's been accepted there are certain
programs that simply start every year knowing that they don't
have a wild chance in hell at a national championship,
and they still have something to play for. They'll still
have something to play for. You can still go see
ninety eight degrees at your local community theater for a
few thousand people, right, Like, you can figure out a
way to do that. If you're one of the dozens

(53:43):
of die hard fans of some of these college football
programs that are smaller, then you just find something else
to do. But this concept that we have to save everybody, Like,
the thing to me is that college football right now
is presenting a college sports are presenting a tremendous save
yourself opportunity. If you really want to compete, raise the
money to do it, and you can't raise the money

(54:05):
to do it, then that's not my problem to save you. Like,
it sucks for some of those fans, and it breaks
my heart for some of those fans, but it is
not the job of everybody else to throttle back college
football to try and save the teams that realistically didn't
have a shot at a national championship from the outset
of the season. Anyway.

Speaker 3 (54:24):
Yeah, well, never die. I guess that Nickolas, she will
be taking strays on the show this morning. But that's
where we are. That's number one. But it's quite all
right as far as the college fall situation goes. But
you're you're right though. You know that the business continues
to grow, Things move on, and unfortunately sometimes it just
outgrows you to a certain degree and there's really nothing
you can do about it. You can complain. I certainly

(54:46):
understand the gripe. But as the business gets bigger and
bigger and bigger, this is what happens. This is what
happens in professional sports. On a different level. You know,
there are rumors that the ownership group for the Oklahoma
City Thunder are looking to sell the franchise pretty soon
because they just can't keep up with the escalating salaries.
Shaygildis Alexander makes the seventy million dollars a year individually
as a player. Like thirty years ago, the salary cap

(55:07):
was seventy million dollars. It's just a different world that
we live in. The world is going to evolve. Money's
going to get bigger and bigger, and unfortunately, certain people
are going to feel the squeeze when it comes to that.
It's just going to evolve. To your point, I think
what's probably going to end up happening is you have
some sort of super league with the Big ten and
the SEC and maybe the Big twelve and ACC get
roped in there, and you're probably going to have the

(55:29):
rest of the FBS just gets kind of sucked under
into a lesser division and maybe they have their own
version of a national Championship that's still FBS, that's still
Division one. Is just not the cream of the crop.
And there's not necessarily anything wrong with that, And there's
going to be money and there's going to be interest
for that sort of situation too, So there's a way
for everybody to win. Some are going to win bigger
than others. But it's not as if these lower programs

(55:50):
are going to necessarily necessarily die. They don't have to.
They just have to reimagine what college football and college
sports looks like in their purview.

Speaker 2 (55:58):
Right, And that's the this, Like, I just don't understand
why it's the job of everybody around college football to
save college football for every program when the fact is
the times change, right, Like, nobody sits here today and says,
oh my god, how are we gonna save every single
restaurant and look, it's harder than ever with food costs

(56:20):
being what they are, and you know, with the economy
being what it is, it's harder than ever to have
a food truck. For example, I know a couple of
buddies that own food trucks and they talk all the
time about just simply the cost of ingredients. All of
a sudden, the food truck, you know, five years ago,
where you could sell a ten dollars sandwich, now has
to sell in some parts of the country, like Connecticut,
a twenty five dollars sandwich. And people don't want to

(56:40):
spend twenty five bucks on a sandwich. So, like, how
do you continue to manage that food truck? It sucks,
it does, and it's heartbreaking. But it's not the job
of everybody to sit down and say, well, now we're
losing food trucks. I mean that's these are livelihoods. Yes,
these are absolutely ways that people support their bills. Yes,
like you and I work in a medium radio that

(57:02):
is not doing particularly what it did ten years ago.
I think most people know that at this point, right,
Like we live on a podcast society, who is clamoring
to sit around and say, well, you know what, man
radio hosts aren't making what they used to make, and boy,
everybody's going to be left by the wayside. Gotta figure
out how to save them. Like that's just not the
way society works at any other business, But we want

(57:25):
that in college sports because we're sitting here under the
guise of a competition, which college football never really had
true competition up and down, or under the guys of
saving the sport, like just to it is what it is.
For whatever reason, people just don't want these kids to
get paid, but it's literally been determined that it's unconstitutional

(57:47):
to block them from it. So like, guess what the
courts have spoken and what you're asking for is unconstitutional.
So now you got to figure out how you're going
to live in this world or you're just going to
be left behind.

Speaker 3 (57:58):
By the way. I haven't maybe maybe you have. I
haven't seen anybody in recent years argue against the fact
that kids should be compensated who still fall on the
side of they're getting a scholarship and a good education
and room and board, as if that's enough when these
these you know, conferences are making billions of dollars and
you're telling me that these guys being able to get free,
you know, of lunch and dinner at the student union

(58:20):
is certainly worth worth that. I think the narrative nationally
has sort of changed on that front. I don't know
if I hear a lot of people still saying that
it's unfair that kids are able to get compensated for
na image of likeness and for competing at a high
level in college football.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
The South man really okay, the South is like SEC
Country is still in the middle of like these entitled kids,
and you know, I don't want my game to change,
like it's all like there's still I still hear plenty
of it down in SEC Country, And in fairness, I
don't know if it exists. I don't I have I
don't spend as much time interacting with audiences in Ohio

(58:54):
and Michigan in places like that where college football is
equally important. But certainly, you know, and now you've got
the president signing an executive order, and let's acknowledge that
an executive order, it's just a president's way of saying,
you know, I really think we should take a look
at this. There's my pinnacle, right, but the executive order
that you know, they need to take a look at
nil basically, And okay, I mean, if you think the

(59:18):
government's going to step in and save college football, I
just again you're asking a I don't know how many
things ever run in general better when the government gets
involved to fix it. And that's just a general take
no matter who's in office, by the way, don't at me.
And then there's the b of it, Like, so we
think that you can get Congress in the House that

(59:39):
everybody involved to actually agree on what the future of
college football looks like. Like Let's remember many of these
senators represent constituents that also have varying ideas of what
the college football Playoff committee should look like and how
this entire process should look like. So I cannot imagine
being a representative in the state of Alabama and taking
the risk on election, getting elected by being part of

(01:00:02):
a playoff proposal that you know your constituents may not like.
And also the same thing can be said for somebody
representing his audience in Michigan that wants a very different thing.
So I think it's oversimplification. I think the government's just
going to step in and come up with the new standard.

Speaker 3 (01:00:17):
Yeah, I think one thing that they can do if
it makes it through. Is determining whether or not athletes
can actually start a union and unionize as employees, which
I think is the big deal with the executive order
is to ensure, along with the nc double A, that
they can put regulations in place to make sure that,
under no circumstances can college kids find a way to
start a labor union and negotiate CBA talks with schools,

(01:00:40):
because then that opens up a whole nother, you know,
set of Pandora's box. As far as you know, now,
schools have to pay for benefits and designate them as employees,
and that's something that I think then I know for
a fact the NCAA doesn't want to do I think
a lot of schools, obviously most of the schools don't
want to do that. And so that's why there's been
a lot of meetings between Trump and the new president
of the into Cuba about these sort of matters, and

(01:01:03):
that they think that that's the reason why Congress needs
to get involved. I don't know if they necessarily do.
I don't think I would have no issue whatsoever with
these guys being employees. They probably should, but that's what
they're trying to protect against. They're trying to protect the
schools from having to designate these players as employees. So
if they can get that to be an Act of
Congress and write it and actually get it in writing
legally nationwide, that's something that they don't have to fight against,

(01:01:24):
which is I honestly think that they should be considered employees.
How is a quarterback for a football team any different
than someone who works at the student union's getting a
check from the school, especially now that schools can actually
directly compensate you. I'm paying ex quarterback five, you know,
five million dollars. Granted he's making a lot more than
this kid at the student union, But how is it?
How is that kid an employee but my quarterback not?

(01:01:46):
That doesn't make any sense to me.

Speaker 2 (01:01:48):
Well, and by the way, for everybody that's sitting here
wringing their hands and just screaming, oh my god, we
can't let them unionize, we can't let this become that. Like,
if you want the simplest solution, it doesn't sound simple
right now when I say this, But if you want conformity,
and you want everybody to have one standard that they're
going to live through and you want everybody to have

(01:02:09):
one fair level playing ground. The only way to really
accomplish that is to have all of the schools banded
together and become essentially owners, which eventually will also allow
private equity groups to come in and start buying these
college football programs. I think it's inevitable, absolutely, And then
allow the players to unionize and form their own collective

(01:02:29):
bargaining agreement, and guess what, then you will have a
union deal just like you have in every other major sport.
If we're going to sit here every week and say
college football is the second biggest sport in America, let's
acknowledge that at this point it needs to be treated
like a business. And if you're gonna do that, then
the really if you're somebody that's screaming what I want

(01:02:50):
is a level playing field, the only honest, open, easy
way to get a level playing field is exactly what
we're talking about. But that's the stay audience. It then
it turns around is like wait, wait, wait, wait, wait,
Like no, we don't want that. I don't want I
don't want players as employees. We don't want to unionized.
We don't want these kids getting in a union and
stopping football like all that. Okay, so what do you want, Like,

(01:03:12):
you want conformity without any legal process in the like,
let's stop playing like we're in make Believe Land.

Speaker 3 (01:03:18):
Yeah, because what we have now. The problem is the
issue we have now is we're in the wild West
and people are complaining about I can't keep up with
college basketball or even football to a degree because these
kids are transferring in and out every single year. It's like, well, yeah,
there's no regulations in place, and you can be pro
or anti regulation in general, that's a different subject. But
when it comes to this, when you're talking about player

(01:03:39):
movement and the amount of money that's involved and whether
or not people are being compensated, all that stuff, you
know it matters and that's going to affect you know,
your favorite football team positively or negatively. So to your point,
it's not simple when it comes to unionizing, especially when
you're talking about literally thousands of athletes.

Speaker 2 (01:03:55):
Is what this is going to end up being.

Speaker 3 (01:03:57):
Uh, But that's the It's it's kind of implicated, but
it's also simple, and I think it's the most practical
way for them to do it, and for them to say, like,
we can't afford to do that. We can't afford to
make these guys employees. To your point, private equity money
is floating out there left and right, and the last
thing that we know is a major profit profit getter
in professional sports is live sports, and college football is

(01:04:19):
right behind the NFL as far as popularity goes. So
you're telling me that there won't be private equity groups
that are willing to sign on as a sponsor even
if you are a mid level if you're Purdue or something.
This is no disrespect to our friends at Purdue in Indiana,
but every other Big ten school is getting gobbled up
by somebody. Well, you're still a Big ten school. You're
telling me there's not going to be somebody who's willing
to throw hundreds of millions of dollars at your program
to say that this is Purdue boiler Maker football brought

(01:04:41):
to you by whatever. Every single time their name is
brought up, it's untapped potential. But they have to get
their heads out of their assets for lack of a
better term, when it comes to this, and just realize
what the big business is of college sports and not
try to hide behind this veil of amateurism while there's
billions of dollars being made on the other side.

Speaker 2 (01:05:00):
You can't have it both ways. I also think what's
interesting in the entire save college football debate, right, I'm
going to stereotype for a second, many of the people
that are screaming about saving college football and saving all
of these programs, and well, this program can afford can't

(01:05:20):
afford this in this program, you know, we can't. We
can't have it be this, We can't have it be that.
Like many of the people that are screaming that that
you know, we need help mantra are the same people
that when the w NBA players are talking about wanting
to get their fair share and percentages from their collective
bargaining agreement, will turn around and say, your league's not
making enough money, and if you're not making enough money,

(01:05:41):
stop asking for more, Like you don't deserve this. We
can't have it both ways. Like at some point it
is up to the produce. And I've used Purdue a
few times as an example, and like you know, I
get a handful of tweets every time because the couple
of Purdue fans that are out that are super passionate
about it will will clap back at me.

Speaker 3 (01:05:59):
Okay, we all feel as bad now is using produe
as an example, Yes, I'm jumping on the train apparently.

Speaker 2 (01:06:04):
But there's a real there's a like I think Purdue
is a really strong example of Look, most years, ninety
nine out of one hundred years, Purdue is not going
to sit out here and contend with you know, Michigan, Ohio, State, Alabama, Georgia. Like,
we're not talking about a national championship contender, So what
are you talking about? Once in a blue moon, you

(01:06:24):
have this moment in time where you're like, oh, yeah,
things are great. Okay, Well, if Purdue wants to figure
out creative ways to raise the money to be competitive
at that level, they could do it. I mean, certainly
Indiana football has found a way to be competitive in
a new market. Right. That's a living, eating, breathing example
of it. You know, it's it's that there are there
are ways that you can certainly climb through the resources

(01:06:47):
you need. And yeah, of course, if it's like it's
it's Indiana football, and it doesn't matter if it's you know,
if it's into it Texas football presented by Indiana, I
don't care how what order they put it in. If
it allows you to be six and you can watch
your favorite team go out there and win, then great.
But like the concept of you know what the real
solution is, we're not gonna get players anymore. We're gonna

(01:07:09):
make sure they don't they don't make anything like again,
because that's been challenged so many times and defeated so
many times constitutionally, we're at a spot now where like,
if that is the hill you're dying on, if you're
walking and planting a flag on any hill that limits
the availability of cash to players, every time you've been
challenged on it, you've lost. So now what are we

(01:07:31):
talking about? So now you really just got to step
back and be like, Okay, if this is the new
world for West Virginia football, then we need to figure
out how to be competitive in West Virginia football. And
I think it's there and it's attainable for fifty sixty
programs maybe, and for the other fifty or sixty then
you know, you figure out something else, and then for

(01:07:52):
the fifties to sixty we end up with awesome, How
badass would it be? Like Anthony has said before, what
if we end up with essentially like the NFL and
AFC and NF. We end up with you know, whatever
you call the Big Ten, whatever you call the SEC,
they both super conference. You end up with twenty teams
in each conference, and you have forty, you know, forty
teams out here in different divisions trying to make a
college football playoff.

Speaker 1 (01:08:12):
I'm in.

Speaker 2 (01:08:12):
I'm in. I just want to see great college football
programs battle it out. I don't really care what the
process looks like to get me there, and I'm actually in.

Speaker 3 (01:08:20):
And I don't think schools would do this because I
guess they wild affect your prestige and recruiting to a
certain degree. I like the promotion relegation idea that Anthony's
thrown out there too. The fact that if you do
split off an at the SEC and the Big Ten
become an AFC NFC model, you know, you can still
have the Big Twelve or the ACC or the MAC
and the WHACK and the you know whoever else, and
you can have basically playing games at the end of

(01:08:41):
the regular season for the worst teams in the Big
Ten and SEC and the best teams and those other
conferences to see who can play their way in and
play their way out. I mean those are essentially playoff games.
Those will be huge games. They'll be get massive TV numbers.
It'd be huge for the teams that are going going up,
and obviously huge for the teams who'll be going down.
I just don't know if willing teams will be willing
to do that to lose their prestige and say that,

(01:09:02):
oh we're not we got relegated to you know, the
MAC after falling out of the SEC or whatever they're
going to end up being called. But I do think
that's probably one of the best ideas I've heard to
try to figure out a way to bridge the gap
between keeping the other schools relevant while also making sure
you separate the great schools and keeping them together as
one super league.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Yeah. I mean that would give the opportunity for you know,
the University of Cincinnatis in the world to figure out,
like what do they want to be, how do they
want to compete? And if you want to make a run,
you can make a run. I think there's some value
to it. I cannot imagine the reaction of you know,
Florida if they have a bad year and all of
a sudden they get relegated.

Speaker 3 (01:09:43):
Correct.

Speaker 2 (01:09:43):
I love the drama of it. I cannot imagine just
watching it and look, this is what certainly soccer fans
feel this to their core. I cannot imagine the way
it would shock a fan base like Tennessee went through
a spot where the balls just weren't very good for
several years. Thinking that that would suddenly put them in
a lower level of football is wild. But then also

(01:10:08):
thinking about the relegation element and what it would mean
for that team to try and come in and win
their league the next year. Suddenly that Tennessee Vandy game
takes down a lot more heat if you know the
winner is going back up to the BIGS. That's a
wild world to even think of living in. It really is.

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
But I think it'd be fun. I think it'd be different.
I think it's it's in line with the changing of
the times, even though you're I guess you're going back
to something that soccer has done for literally hundreds of years.
But it's a way to keep competitive juices flowing for
every single FBS school to say that, hey, we have
a chance to get ourselves to play our way into
the big dance. If we're not already up there. You know,
if we're good at get ourselves good enough on the

(01:10:44):
lower level, we can find our way to fight our
way in to getting ourselves in the conversation to the
big dance. I think that's probably the best way to
be able to serve everybody, serve all the big teams
and also serving the little guy and giving them much,
giving them a shot to actually compete on a year in,
year out basis. So will it ever happen, I highly
doubt it, but I do think that's one of the
best ideas of a model that I've ever heard.

Speaker 2 (01:11:05):
So now we sit in world where there are twelve
playoff teams about to go. I think we all presume
it's going to go to sixteen, right like, so.

Speaker 3 (01:11:15):
I know Greg, thank you through fourteen out there two
as a possibility. So that's what is There's which is
just wild to me. But I think we're headed towards
you know.

Speaker 2 (01:11:25):
The sweet sixteen essentially most likely, and I think that
all makes sense. The hardest part is how do you
get the big ten in the SEC to agree on
what that sixteen team playoff format looks like? Because again
I cannot stress this enough. This is Thanksgiving and we
all hate to be it at the kid table at Thanksgiving.
Let's be very clear, the Big Twelve, the ACC, the
Group of five, and everybody else like, congratulations, you're at

(01:11:47):
the kid table and you'll get to come in and
party with the grown ups when the grown ups decide
it's time. So the grownups have to decide what sixteen
teams are because the rest of the college football community
is powerless. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:11:58):
Absolutely, and but again that's the world that we live in.
So and I look, I understand the grip on both sides,
and maybe we can get to get into this on
the other side, why the Big ten wants the model
that they want, why the SEC wants the model that
they want, And I certainly understand the other little guys
saying like, hey, just make sure that we get ourselves
a seat at the table too. So everybody has a
legitimate gripe. But I think that's something we should get

(01:12:20):
into in the next segment and talk about exactly what
the impasse is between the Big twelve or excuse me,
the Big ten and the SEC and what the format
might look like.

Speaker 2 (01:12:28):
We'll do that next. These Kevin figures on Jason Fitz
we're figuring out figure figures out exactly what they want
and more importantly, what we think is real, actually honestly
going to happen. We'll figure that out. What's college football
going to look like? We'll do that Next to Fellas
on Fox Sports Radio's Fellas on Fox Sports Radio, Kevin
Figures Chasing Fitz hanging out with you all morning long

(01:12:52):
for the best pregame show every weekend, be sure to
tune into Fox Sports Radios Countdown presented by Bett MGN
every Saturday and Sunday morn from nine am to noon
Eastern six to nine am Pacific, count you down to
all of the biggest games. Tune into Countdown presented by
bet MGM every Saturday and Sunday morning right here on
Fox Sports Radio and the iHeart Radio app. We're figuring

(01:13:13):
out how what's actually real? This this is the hardest part,
Figui of the college football conversation right now is I
feel like, you know, there's this burden in life when
you are a man at a grill, more woman at
a grill, I don't know you are when you make
a steak in the world. I've decided that no matter

(01:13:34):
what the steak is, you you could make what you
think is the best steak has ever been grilled in
the history of mankind. Take a picture of that steak
and send it to your friends, and inevitably, if you
send it to twenty friends, you will then get twenty
opinions on what you could have done differently with your steak,
and none of it matters because you're just trying to
enjoy your damn piece of meat, no doubt. Like that
is like every single I cannot tell you how many
people I know that are at best mediocre cooks that

(01:13:58):
will go into a fancy steakhouse and they're like, I
don't know, could have been better seared on the outside,
Like you know what the hell you're talking about? What
you're doing? That's what college football is right now. Like
I could walk in with the perfect stick, the perfect solution,
and twenty people around me are going to be like, actually,
and that's a little under Oh no, it's a little over. No,
we got to make sure that that piece is thicker.

(01:14:20):
Now that piece are like, you picked the wrong stack
of me. You know what, your grill was too hot
in the beginning, that's problem. Did you have pans?

Speaker 5 (01:14:25):
Hear that?

Speaker 2 (01:14:25):
They're like what like the number of questions around college.
It's obnoxious. So I will acquiesce here that what we're
trying to do is figure out what could happen that
actually could happen, not sitting down and saying, okay, can
we live in this world where Vultron and Transformers come together.
I'm trying to speak in real terms. Okay. So inevitably

(01:14:47):
I think we are headed towards a sixteen team playoff.
We agree on that. The question is what does that
look like? Because the Big Ten and the SEC have
different concepts of what they want.

Speaker 3 (01:14:58):
Yeah, so the SCC, because first of all, the contention
from the Big Ten towards the SEC, as you guys
don't play nine conference games all the other major conferences do.
The SEC says we can't play nine conference games because
that means we're gonna have extra losses on our record
and that's gonna hurt us when it comes to rankings.
So the Big Ten is in favor of this. You
know a model where there's automatic qualifiers for themselves. So

(01:15:21):
there's four automatic bids for themselves, four automatic bids for
the SEC, two bids for the ACC and the Big
twelve each, and then you have three open positions that
were at larges, the SEC wants a five plus eleven
five conference champions, the four power champions, four power conferences
plus you know one you know group of five and
then eleven open bids for whoever else because they feel

(01:15:44):
like you know, as the SEC, we have a tougher schedule,
we have better teams. We have a chance of getting
more teams in the field if we do that. I
understand the sentiment from both sides, I think, and I
want to get your opinion on this fits for me.
I like the big ten model. Better to be honest
with you, because of the pieces both major conferences with
guaranteed bids, you still give the other power four conferences

(01:16:05):
an opportunity to get in along with a group of
five team.

Speaker 2 (01:16:09):
And then the other at largest.

Speaker 3 (01:16:10):
If the SEC is good enough and you feel you're
based on your marriage, should get more teams in with
those final three automatic qualifiers, you have a chance to
do that. So that one makes the most sense to me.

Speaker 2 (01:16:19):
What do you think I mean in a perfect agreement.
I think what we would see is, frankly is conference
champions go in, group of five goes in, and all
remaining bids are simply put out to at larges and
may the best eleven at that point get in. And

(01:16:41):
if that's eleven SEC teams one year, if that's eleven
Big ten teams one year, I think part of me
thinks that that's the most realistic solution as well, because frankly,
it doesn't give any bias. Like what I don't want
to end up with is an automatic big goes to
A you know, not to pick on the Big ten,
so we'll pick on the SEC. What I don't want

(01:17:02):
to do is let's say it's the fourth best team
in the SEC one year, is you know, Tennessee, but
they're not all that great, And all of a sudden
we're like, well, no, this this this Tennessee team is
they're going in because they're number four. Like that's one
of the things about bowl games. It always makes me
laugh when we're sitting there looking at it. Man, you know,
the Music City Bowl gets this SEC team versus this

(01:17:22):
Big ten team, and man, they both kind of stink.
I don't really want a I don't want the fourth
best team to be automatic into anything because I'm fearful
that there'll be a year where that team isn't very
good yet.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
What if you run into the NFL dilemma where every
now and then you'll have a team that has and
this probably happens almost routinely every year, a division winner,
you know, hosts the game, but they have a nine
and nine and you know, a nine win there, nine
win team facing an eleven win team that was a wildcard,
and that isn't necessarily fair. And even there have been
times where you've had teams who've had winning records and
depending on how the playoffs shakeout, they don't make it

(01:17:55):
at all because of the automatic qualifier. But one thing
that Eli drink Win's brought up, and I thought it
was an interesting point. At the SEC, you want to
take as much out of the committee's hands as possible
because there's subjectivity that comes into ranking teams. And so
if you tay if you have automatic qualify, he didn't
say this, but I'm adding this part. And if you
do at the automatic qualifier in there, it takes a

(01:18:16):
lot of the bias out of the selection. The selection
essentially is already made for you. There's pros and cons
on both sides, but the subjectivity of who gets in
and who gets out gets squeezed a lot more when
you take it out of the Committee's hands are determining
who gets in and who doesn't if there's automatic qualifiers involved.
So that's why I fall for more on that side.

Speaker 2 (01:18:34):
That is fair. But one thing I've always loved about
the Committee, by the way, I don't think the Committee
gets as wrong as most people want to yell every year.
One thing I love about the Committee is that every
Tuesday we have an argument during the season about, you know,
whether or not the committee got it right? What's the
committee get of value? And I've hosted a lot of
those shows over the years and laughed about the fact that, well,
it's going to be the same ranking as it was

(01:18:55):
last year, So how are we making the next hour interesting? Right?

Speaker 4 (01:18:58):
Like?

Speaker 2 (01:18:58):
We've had that, But people will yell and scream about it.
And one thing that I personally fear is that if
everything's auto bitted out except for a handful of that
largest So if you end up with you know, three
teams that you're really talking about, will that create a
conversation like will anybody care? On Tuesday? Maybe maybe the
fight for the fourth overall spot becomes so interesting that

(01:19:20):
it usurps that. But man, I don't know, Like, plus,
if it's a truly wide open world. I love the
thought of like, man, we woke up this year and
suddenly the Big twelve was way better than we expected,
and now we got four Big twelve teams in the
college football playoffs. Like I think that the truly you know,
fares where a pig gets a ribbon. But I think
the truly fair way to do it is to leave

(01:19:42):
it open because that subjectiveness. While while I understand what
what you know is being said when it's subjective, I
also think that allows opportunity for oh my god, we
didn't think that there'd be six great teams in the
ACC stop laughing. So you know, there we go. We're
gonna We're gonna let them all in the college football playoffs.

Speaker 3 (01:20:01):
Yeah, and you're right to a certain degree, I did
for if we live in the realistic world, what are
the chances of that really happening? Considering and especially now
that there's the chasm in college football is growing even
more so, it's not like if it's crunching in and
the Big twelve and the SEC are kind of raising
their level and catching up to the Big Ten and
the SEC. I would maybe have an argument for that,

(01:20:22):
but it's getting wider. You know, the SEC and the
Big ten are getting better, and I don't know if
the ACC and Big twelve are necessarily catching up and
keeping up with that. So maybe you'll have an anomaly
in a couple of years, maybe once every five six
years when that happens. I just don't know if it
will happen often enough for that to be for that
model to be necessary.

Speaker 2 (01:20:38):
Yeah, you're you're not wrong. And lost in all of
this too, is that the ACC, the Big Twelve, like
a lot of these schools are just gonna end up
becoming feeders that they're just going to be developmental programs,
just like a lot of stakes to developmental program for
the for the NFL. I don't think we're that far
off from half of the teams at college football simply
being feeder programs for the real team that we're actually

(01:21:01):
watching weekend and week out. It's it's gonna be interesting
to see. Will the NFL season actually be interesting to see?
We'll break it down next to Fellas on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (01:21:11):

Speaker 2 (01:21:14):
It's a Fellas on Fox Sports Radio. I'm Jason Fits
hanging out with longtime fellow Kevin Figures, Figuring and I
back together feels it just feels so good. It's re united,
and it feels like I feel like, you know, we
started off with a little bit of a slow dance.
Now we're at the like the drink table, just having
a good time. You know. It's it's it's like two
old friends that I haven't seen each other in too long,

(01:21:36):
my friend, it's it's it's fun to get to hang out.
And Anthony Gargano getting a Saturday off, which he wildly
deserves absolutely, God knows. I mean I say Saturday off.
I'm sure he's doing three thousand things with this family,
as he always does. But we keep the fellows going
here strong every single Saturday. So I got to ask
you a question, Figgi, Is this the year? Is this

(01:21:59):
final the year where we are allowed to loudly doubt
the Kansas City Chiefs because I gotta be honest. You know,
Let's go back to the way things felt in January,
shall we We'll go back to the end of the
end of football season, which I always maintain is when
we have the most honest perspective on what our teams

(01:22:20):
look like. We understand at the end of January, we
understand the end of Super Bowl. What's real and then
our mind clouds everything. Well, what was real last year
is that for the second consecutive year, none of it
looked easy. It didn't look right. People thought it was
all done. The Chiefs didn't have sort of Chiefs magic
whatever people were gonna say. But we ended up with

(01:22:40):
the Chiefs in the Super Bowl. Now, they got slaughtered
in the super Bowl. That is, that is absolutely real.
But I'm not sure I'm willing to take that Super
Bowl slaughter and suddenly turn that into a reason to
doubt a Kansas City Chiefs team again this year. And look,
there's always controversy around it. There's always players that are
gonna have issues. And I'm not sure the teams any
better than it was, and certainly they're not younger than

(01:23:02):
they were. All these things were gonna say. But my god,
it gets exhausting every year trying to figure out where
the demise of the Chiefs is. Just to watch them
continually find weird ways to win games, which is part
of their identity, and then just get their way right
back to the Super Bowl.

Speaker 3 (01:23:16):
Yeah, you felt like if it was ever gonna happen.
It was last year and we were kind of waiting
for it to collapse. It is like all you guys
are winning by the skin of your teeth every single
solitary week, and it's all going to come to a
head when it matters most now. It did in the
Super Bowl, but there was a lot of people who
didn't think they'd even make it that far, considering how
they performed during the season, especially offensively with you know,
arguably the best offensive player in the league right now,

(01:23:36):
and yet they still found a way. I am I
guess we will say talk about the demise of the Chiefs.
I'm guessing you mean they're dominance in the AFC West
as opposed to whether or not they'll be a playoff team,
because I don't think there's any question that they're there
gonna be a wildcard unless you're actually questioning whether that's
even a possibility.

Speaker 2 (01:23:53):
Missed the postseason, and look the demise. If Kansas City
wins eleven games, people are gonna flock to the it were.
They're on the wrong side of all of it. Their
window is closed, Like these are the stupid narratives that
are gonna happen if they win eleven games. So the
demise of the Chiefs is still like the worst of
Kansas City this year is still gonna be best, far
better than the best of my beloved Raiders. Like, let's

(01:24:14):
just be honest about where demise is.

Speaker 3 (01:24:16):
Yeah, very true, very true. But if you're saying that
a team like Denver or a team that the Chargers
can legitimately push them for the AFC West Crown, I
can absolutely see that happening. I've been talking about the
Charges for the last I think two years, saying that
they have a legit opportunity to win it, and now
year two under Harball, I actually set this on the
record a couple of weeks ago on my local show
that I thought the Chargers were gonna win the AFC West.

(01:24:38):
So I've certainly put myself myself out there, and if
it doesn't happen, oh well, they win it for the
fifteenth straight year, you know so. But at a certain point,
you can only lose so much before it ends up
affecting you. They've lost a decent amount Defensively. They did
improve on the offensive line obviously, you know, lock locking
up their censer, drafting an offensive tackle which is which

(01:24:59):
was a big eat this offseason, you think is Xavier
Worthy's going to be a year better for Shee. Rice
has had some legal issues obviously, but once he does
get back, that's another weapon for them, and you expect
the running game to be a little bit better. So
there's elements of potentially the Chiefs offense can actually be
better this season than it was last season. Now that
doesn't say much from a regular season standpoint, but you
consider how good they were defensively. If they take a

(01:25:20):
half step back on defense but take a half step
forward on offense, I mean, they could be right back
where they were last year this coming season. So as
much as we and I say we probably as Raider
fans and a lot of people who might have Chiefs
fatigue or Taylor's witht fatigue or whatever you want to
call it, as much as we want to wish that
they go away, maybe they take a step back and
become a wild card team, but they're certainly not falling

(01:25:42):
off of the map, and I think they have just
as much of a stake to the AFC West this
year as they have in years past.

Speaker 2 (01:25:48):
I genuinely do not believe that the Kansas City Chiefs
are going to take a step back. I genuinely believe
the Kansas City Chiefs are going to win the AFC West,
and I believe that the Kansas City Chiefs are still
at the top of the list of teams. Like you know,
me always put everything on shelves like it's a liquor
top shelf. In the AFC, nothing's changed on the top shelf.

(01:26:09):
It's still going to be Baltimore, Buffalo and Kansas City. Now,
maybe this is finally going to be some way that
the Bills can trip them up and tick them down.
But I just I feel like it's exhausting every year
just sitting here trying to find reasons why the Chiefs
aren't as good as we think they are instead of
just admitting that they are. Like it, at some point

(01:26:32):
you look at the way that they win games and
it looks ugly, and it's like, okay, well, let's just
accept that that's part of who this team is. But
as you and I have talked about for years and
I think needs a reminder, Patrick Mahomes record in one
score games is absolutely insane, and the only way you
beat Kansas City is to blow them out. That hasn't changed.
I just don't see teams coming in and suddenly beating

(01:26:53):
Kansas City by two scores. So to me, it's just
the thing that we need to accept this point. We
are Charlie Brown running up to the football and then
being shocked when the football gets moved. I'm not gonna
get shocked anymore. I'm not going to betting against Kansas
City and Patrick Mahomes right now is his feudal is
betting against Brady Belichick and the Patriots was for a generation.

Speaker 3 (01:27:14):
Yep, that was the exact parallel I was gonna draw.
It got to a point where you just said, you
know what, I'm just gonna pick the Patriots until they
don't win. And even if you just take any football
analysis out of it is like, you know, they've done
this every which way. The Kansas City Chiefs have won
and dominated the league while blowing people out by twenty
and they've won and dominated the league by winning games
by three points the entire way, and the constant has

(01:27:36):
been Andy Reid and Patrick Mahomes the entire way through.
And for the Patriots during their dynasty, it was Bill
Belichick and Tom Brady tied at the hip all the
way through, and they found a way to dominate for
twenty years. So I, to your point, don't really see
an end in sight for the Kansas City And I'm
certainly not gonna be the one to pick him and
look badly, I did say the charges that win the division.
That being said, I don't doubt that Kansas City has

(01:27:57):
a wildcard team can go on the road and win
three straight games, go to the Super Bowl and win
a championship.

Speaker 2 (01:28:01):
Why not? Like I wouldn't, I can't doubt them.

Speaker 3 (01:28:03):
And when it comes to that, so it is a futile,
to your point, exercise to try to determine if and
when the Kansas City Chiefs are gonna fall off of
a cliff.

Speaker 2 (01:28:12):
It hasn't happened yet, so why would you think that
it would.

Speaker 3 (01:28:15):
And by the way, and again, Patrick Mahomes is in
the prime of his career at this point in time,
So even in the midst of having offensive issues, with
offensive line problems and injuries to receivers, he still has
that magic in him to be able to make things
happen when it matters most, which is to your point,
if you're gonna beat Kansas City and Patrick Mahomes, you
better blow them out. Because if it's a one score
game and he has the ball in his hands with
three minutes left, it's game over for you almost every

(01:28:37):
single time.

Speaker 2 (01:28:38):
Yeah. Also, not for nothing, the Eagles didn't really unveil
a new blueprint on how to beat Kansas City. Now.
You need a defensive line that you can absolutely attack
and get through their offensive line, which is always an issue.
You need to hit Mahomes a bunch of times. I mean,
these are all things that we knew, we saw and
nobody else can do. Why do you think every AFC

(01:28:58):
West team constantly is looking at ways to build their
defense up, because like you're just hoping and praying that
you can shut them down. Like the Broncos this year
are gonna let's see what Botnox looks like two in
year two. I was wrong about year one first to
admit that. But the Broncos they're not gonna liver or
die by boat Nicks. They're gonna liver or die by
the fact that their defense last year was absolutely incredible, right, Like,

(01:29:20):
the Broncos were so far ahead of schedule to most
people's expectations, in part because their defense was just elite
in ways that nobody saw coming that's what everybody's trying
to do. Like, but the method on beating Mahomes, well,
you just gotta have a you know, you gotta have
a defense. It's on par with the Eagles. Okay, yeah,
that's easy to do. Cool, Like, good luck with that.

(01:29:42):
And then even if you have the offense it's on
par with the Eagles, you also need to get a
defense that's on par with the Eagles. You need to
have an offense. It's on par with Saquan and aj
and like all of the weapons that they had in
the Super Bowl, Like this is it's not as simple
as oh man, the book is open. Now, we standing
out to beat Kansas City. Like I just think sometimes

(01:30:03):
we get so bored that we want to make boring
things interesting, and instead I want to appreciate that it's boring.
I appreciate the fact that the Chiefs are so stinking
good right now that just year in and year out.
Like to me, it will be interesting if the Chiefs
take a step back, because I just don't expect it anymore.
If they don't take a step back, I'm just gonna

(01:30:24):
step back, and I'm gonna appreciate the greatness of what
I'm seeing like this is this is legendary stuff that
we're seeing from this triumvirent of greatness with Kansas City,
with their offensive mindset, with the coach, with with Patrick Mahomes,
with Spags the defensive coordinator. We talk about it all
the time, like, I just think there's brilliance happening out
of Kansas City, and knowing full well that they're a

(01:30:45):
team I hate rooting for. I'm never going to root
for the Chiefs. I gotta respect it because every year
it's good.

Speaker 3 (01:30:51):
You know, it's a healthy perspective to have because and
you know, we talked about this and if you're if
you live in a local market that has that bur
baseball is a big deal. There's a certain you know,
fan bases might live and die with every single game.
And there's an appreciation that I have for that because
in today's society and sports in general, we always want
to rush to the end and who gets in the
championship and who's in the playoff, and there's an element

(01:31:13):
of like not being able to stop and smell the
roses and appreciate what you're witnessing. That's what's right in
front of you present day. You know, the Kansas City chief,
the dynasty coming off of the newly and Patriots rolling
into Kansas City. Just realize, these things just don't happen.
And really, in any sport, maybe in international soccer, you know,
in the Premier League or something, teams that Man City
will have a run or something like that. But generally speaking,

(01:31:34):
because the sport is built on parody and built for
everybody to basically finish, you know, five hundred or a
game over, and the cream of the rises to the
top with the best, the best run organizations, it is
exceedingly rare to have a team have this run of dominance.
And it's really incredible to see one of the best
players in the history of the sport. And that's not
hyperbole to say that about Patrick Mahomes right now, you know,

(01:31:55):
with one of the great coaches in the history of
the sport, Andy Reid, following the footsteps of what Belichick
and Tom Brady did for its twenty year run, I
think it's really difficult for people to stop and appreciate
what they're seeing when it's greatness in front of him,
as opposed to saying I'm tired of seeing the same
team in the Super Bowl every single year. There's an
element of that too, but there's also an element of
appreciating greatness when you see it in front of you.

(01:32:15):
And I think in today's society, we're so quick to
get to the end and talk about the next hot
thing that we don't appreciate greatness when we're witnessing it.

Speaker 2 (01:32:23):
The Chiefs are giving us greatness, but there's a lot
of the league that might be giving us the exact opposite.
My biggest concern for this NFL season, I'll tell you
what it is next. It's the Fellas of Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 4 (01:32:37):
the nation. Catch all of our shows at foxsports Radio
listen live.

Speaker 2 (01:32:50):
So Fellas on Fox Sports Radio Kevin figures Jason Fitz
hanging out with you. You can stream the show and
all our Fox Sports Radio shows live twenty four to
seven and the new and improved Heart Radio app. Just
search Fox Sports Radio in the app to stream us live.
And one of the newest features in the app that
you will absolutely love is you can select Fox Sports
Radio is one of your presets, just like the presets

(01:33:12):
on a radio dial, so be sure to preset Fox
Sports Radio in the iHeartRadio app. It'll always pop up
at the top of your screen. Don't want to miss that.
I've got a concern, Figuri, and we are at that
spot right now where I'll take any football. I'll take
bad football. I'll take flag football. I was watching flag
football on the NFL network the other day.

Speaker 3 (01:33:31):
Ill kids, the kids out there playing flag football.

Speaker 2 (01:33:34):
Yeah, I'm starved for it. Right like, I'll take any
football you want to give me. And right now I
just want to bottle this up like it and remember
it because certainly in the third or fourth week of
the college football season, when we have cupcakes, we're going
to be complaining about it. And in I don't know,
mid November, when we're stuck with a random Titans Jags

(01:33:54):
game that sucks, we're going to complain about it. And
I'm not because right now I miss it so much.
It's just a reminder that I'll take bad football over
no football at all. I just am left to wonder
if we're gonna have a lot of bad football again
this year, because when you look back at last year,
and we forget that last year, I think it was
a dozen teams had double digit losses off the top

(01:34:15):
of my ten or twelve teams had double digit losses
last year. Double digit losses, like there was a battle
for the first overall pick from a bunch of teams
that won three or four games. Like you're just talking
about a level of wretched football. And I'm thinking about
this because you certainly Mike Jones at the Athletic did
his foremost over and underrated teams coming into the season,

(01:34:38):
And as I was looking at the article and thinking
about who were obsessed with, I just sat here and thought, Man,
can we really be sure? Can we really be sure
right now that a bunch of these teams that were
terrible last year aren't going to be terrible again? And
are we ready for a reality where it's not tanking.
It's not like, hey, these teams are trying to lose.
Teams weren't tanking last year. There was just a lot

(01:34:59):
of bad football teams last year. And I'm not sure
I'm ready to accept this new reality that the NFL
could be a wild group of have and have nots
throughout the course of this season.

Speaker 3 (01:35:10):
Thirteen teams last year had double digit losses. Thirteen out
of a thirty team league. That's pretty damn bad. That
is as bad as it possibly gets. And to your point, yeah,
it's not like there's a bunch of teams that are
out there taking now. There are teams that had expectations
last year that just underperformed for whatever reason. I look
at a team like Chicago, which should be better this
year with a new head coach, new offense, all that,
so I'm more optimistic about this season. But that's mainly

(01:35:33):
I don't really have anything to tie to it other
than it can't be as bad as it was it
was last year. Right, That's what I'm hanging it on.
You can't have this many bad teams in the professional
at the professional ranks, it's unbelievable. I mean, I'll look
at the Giants at three wins, the Bears had five,
Carolina and New Orleans and the same division, both at five.
The forty nine ers lost eleven. It's really incredible. Raiders

(01:35:56):
were four and thirteen. There's the amount of bad football.
Injuries has a lot to do with it too. I
think we had one of those years where there are
a lot of you know, major injuries to really big
contributing players. But that happens on a year in, year
out basis two and usually find a way to combat it.
I just I can't believe that this year we're gonna
have forty percent of the league end up with double
digit losses again, if for no other reason, I think

(01:36:18):
it was just an anomaly that happened this past year,
because that's unwell.

Speaker 2 (01:36:22):
I want to agree with you, I truly I hope
you're right, because my god, I need you to be right,
like it was painful last year. But you know me,
I like to apply universal benefit of the doubts or
universal doubts. So it's pretty easy for me if I'm
just taking all fandom of anything aside. And this is
what we all do this as Raiders fans. We do

(01:36:43):
this all right. You got Geno, right, you got Ashton Genty,
Chip Kelly calling the offense, Pete Carroll just being in
the room. He's going to make things better. So all
of a sudden we buy all those positives. And then
as fans we turn around and say, and by the way,
the Chiefs offensive line not going to be any better.
Bo Nix was a one year wonder. Justin Herbert still
doesn't have any weapons and the Chiefs can't, the Chargers

(01:37:03):
can't stay healthy. Like it is so easy for us
to prop our favorite team up and then presume that
everything's going to go right with those offseason acquisitions, while
then presuming everything's going to go wrong with our rivals
offseason acquisitions. That's what we do. I try not to
do that, which is why I don't freak out as
much when by the end of the year certain teams
are really bad, because I just kind of presume that

(01:37:23):
mid level with everything. If you do that, I mean,
just going through some of the teams last year that
were bad, it's easy to see why the Giants are
going to be bad again. It's easy to see, like
the Vegas loves the Patriots based on what like I don't,
we have no idea. I would not be surprised at
all if the Patriots again win five games. I just wouldn't.

(01:37:45):
As much as I love Rabel, they could be a
five win team. Are the Titans really that much better
with cam Wardan nothing else around him right now to
make me think that they're not still a five or
six win team? Like I can find the Yeah, but
that keeps a lot of these double digit lost teams
in double digit Like, what if Pete Carroll is just
old Jim Kelly doesn't really have an NFL offense in

(01:38:06):
Gino's not all that great. That gets the Raiders right
back to five wins, Like it's pretty easy to five
win all of the five win teams. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:38:15):
One thing the NFL does a great job is is
it sales hope to everyone. Because we've seen worse to
first happen multiple times over. We saw I go if
you go all the way back twenty plus years, I
remember the Greatest show on turf rams. They won what
four or five games the year before. Nobody had them
on their radar of being a team that can make
a deep run into the postseason. Everybody feels that they
can go worse to first, that they can have that

(01:38:35):
magical season. So and if you make any move of
any significance that raises your ceiling in a lot of
people's minds. So you mentioned the Patriots with Mike Rabel,
you know, by all accounts, a really good head coach,
and you know you have Drake May in year two
when you bring in Stepan Diggs, how impactful obe No
one really knows, to be honest with you, But there's
hope for a team like New England for a lot

(01:38:55):
of people, as much hope as Vegas has given up.
No Cleveland, are they going to be as bad as
they were last year? Their roster talent is good, but
their quarterback position was was weak. You're gonna have a
rookie at some point, most likely going to be the
starting quarterback in that situation, but there's optimism there. So
even with Tennessee with a first overall pick, I don't
think anyone has any designs that cam Ward is gonna
come in and light the world on fire.

Speaker 2 (01:39:16):
But he might.

Speaker 3 (01:39:17):
So the selling point that the league wants everybody to
believe is, you know, there's new hope, you have that
new quarterback, you have a new head coach, it's a
new season.

Speaker 2 (01:39:25):
Anybody can go from worse to first.

Speaker 3 (01:39:27):
There was a run there. I think it might have
been the NFC South where there was a new division
winner for like seven straight years or something, and it
just cycled through.

Speaker 2 (01:39:35):
So that's the hope that they sell you on. Does
that realistic every single year?

Speaker 4 (01:39:39):
No?

Speaker 3 (01:39:40):
But I do think there's a chance that of these
teams at all lost double digit that had double digit
losses of the thirteen of them, is it unrealistic to
say that five of them not only rise above double
digit losses, but get somewhere around five hundred or above
and compete for a playoff spot. I don't think that's unreasonable,
just considering how the NFL is built.

Speaker 2 (01:39:58):
Yeah, you're right. I just so a couple of things
that scared me. I think we talk about all the time,
there aren't thirty two starting left tackles in the NFL.
I mean, there are thirty two starters, but they're not
thirty two starting caliber left tackles in the NFL. So
I worry about offensive line depth across the league. And
I think that the more we get into longer seasons,

(01:40:19):
like you mentioned, the injuries seventeen games, just results and
more injuries. It's just to us so bodies break down
more and more and more. So I think injuries are
becoming a bigger and bigger part of the story moving forward,
kind of like we have to accept the fact that
achilles are now a high risk in the NBA. I
just I think depth is a bigger concern in the

(01:40:39):
NFL for most teams. So I'm worried about depth. I'm
worried about quarterback play for a lot of these teams.
I'm worried about offensive line play for a lot of
these teams. And that's how you just sort of suddenly
do the math because you're right. I use the Patriots
is a great example. You got Rabel May all of
the things you mentioned, okay, But I also turn around

(01:41:00):
and say, oh, all right, Josh McDaniels is notorious for
a very difficult offense. We know this as fans, But
I remember talking to a former Patriot. He played in
the league for over a decade, and he played very
shortly for New England, and I asked him, when Josh
McDaniels was hired as a Raiders head coach, how difficult
is that offensive language to learn? And he flat out

(01:41:21):
told me no, no, did not mince words. Said it
was the toughest offense he was ever around, and it
was like learning a foreign language, even after a decade
in the league. So what if Josh McDaniels just doesn't
assimilate into that offensive language, or what if Drake May
doesn't assimilate into that offensive language. Well, like, those are
the things that I think right now, we just we

(01:41:42):
don't know so like I hear you, I feel you
all the way to my core that the NFL has
sold us on this bill of hey, every year things
are going to be better. But man, I still feel
like Buffalo, there are consistent teams in the AFC, particular,
Buffalo is consistently very good. Buffalo, it's going to be
great this year. Baltimore it's gonna be great this year.

(01:42:03):
The Chiefs I think are going to be great this year.
Like these are all easy equations to have, so when
you clearly can see who the great's going to be,
makes it really tough for me to also agree that
the hanging chad can sort of fly its way up.
Like I think the Browns quarterback position is just so
absolutely dreadful that that team is just up against it.

(01:42:24):
I don't know why I should believe in Cleveland at all.
Like it's just I feel like there are glaring doubts
for so many teams in the AFC this year.

Speaker 3 (01:42:32):
Yeah, well, especially in that division, you know, with with
Pittsburgh and with you know, Cincinnati obviously, although they need
to get their defense fixed, so they're probably gonna be
right back where they were last season. Yeah, it's it
does make it difficult for someone to rise from the
bottom when you pretty much have stal warts at the
very top of the conference on a year in, year
out basis. And look, there are teams who were decent
last year that might take a step back. I mean,

(01:42:53):
Miami won eight games last year. I could see them
easily winning fewer than that. You know, they can take
a step back. Cincinnati if they don't get their defensive
issues fixed. They you know, they won, they were nine
to eight last year. They could potentially take a half
step back. The South outside of Houston, I don't know,
that's probably gonna end up stacking it the way that
is stacked up last year. And then I think the
West is kind of the class of the of the

(01:43:14):
entire conference when you have i think three top notch
teams with the Kansas City, Los Angeles and Denver. And
we'll see what kind of prior rest the Raiders make.
So yeah, there's something to be said for, you know,
having your stalwarts at the top and everybody else kind
of coming in behind. But one thing, and I think
that's a big reason why why we like the NFL
every single year, is because it's the great unknown. Because
teams generally do come out of nowhere and end up

(01:43:37):
surprising you and who that's gonna end up being this year,
I don't really know. Again, I do think people are
kind of sleeping on the charges and to a certain degree,
I think Denver are two teams that can take giant
steps up this season, but again, they're not coming from
the doldrums to which goes back to your point. Those
are two teams that are on the cup anyway, They're
not the Titans who won three games, have a rookie quarterback,
and people expect to be you know, the second coming

(01:43:58):
of Patrick Mahomes is gonna jump them up to twelve
win team. I don't think anybody necessarily expects that to happen.
So to your point, I do think if you look
at it objectively, it's really difficult to look at it
at teams that struggled mightily last season and seeing where
their way out and getting up into the class of
being a competitive team. You know, it's difficult to envision

(01:44:18):
where that comes from. I'll give you that.

Speaker 2 (01:44:21):
Where are you right now on the Bengals going into
the season again, historic offensive last year, just Joe Burrow
was incredible last year, and that defense was just hot Grmage,
So I don't know what to make of a team
that has absolutely no balance.

Speaker 3 (01:44:37):
Yeah, I mean it's more of the same. And look,
they tried to they attempted to fix their defense and
with their first round pick, and that's an entire mess
which we can get into where we can now get
into if you want I do it.

Speaker 2 (01:44:47):
Eventually he's gonna sign. I highly doubt that he's gonna,
say Samar Stewart's sign, Like at some point you just
feel like he's all of this. He's going back to
Texas A and m like that, and he's not going
back to Texas. We all know, no, Like he's going
to sign, right, Yeah, that's definitely gonna happen. Trey Henderson
is he maybe set out training camp, maybe he drags
it on and misses a game or two into the season,
but he's not gonna miss out on the money that

(01:45:07):
he is making.

Speaker 3 (01:45:09):
Just to make a point with Cincinnati. So those might
be your two best defensive players, obviously, I think Hendrickson
is the easy one. But they were so bad on
defense and really didn't do a whole lot this offseason,
at least when it comes to major you know, moves
of note to improve it. So it's still gonna be
a lot of forty to thirty eight final scores going
into next season, and that's a high wire Iraq to

(01:45:31):
have to play under. So quite honestly, I could see
this year inning just the same way last year did
for them. They're gonna be a team that's, you know,
really exciting to watch, but probably hovering a game or
above or below five hundred for the majority of the
season if they get in depending on the matchup. If
they're good enough offensively, they can win a shootout. But
outside of that, I just don't see them being a

(01:45:51):
legitimate title contender because they just haven't improved enough defensively.

Speaker 2 (01:45:55):
And that is such a like I feel like we
are watching a model misuse of the quarterback position that
is very reminiscent of the Dolphins with Dan Marino when
I was a kid. Like you just you know that
Joe Burrow is gonna go out and put out astronomical
numbers and he's gonna just do everything he could possibly
do for what And that's a frustrating part for all

(01:46:18):
of us that are fans of teams that struggle to
figure out the quarterback position. Then you have the Bengals
who have clearly figured out the quarterback position, but can't
figure out anything else. Like they've figured out the quarterback position,
the wide receiver position, come on, like they've got talent
all over the offensive side of the ball. And it's
just for what it's so frustrating to me. And I
think it's just because my sheer jealousy that my favorite

(01:46:39):
team doesn't have a Joe Burrow that I watch them.
It's like watching your buddy that you know is in
the dream relationship with the most beautiful, incredible woman of
all time and he mistreats her and you're like, what
are you doing? I would kill to have that? Like
that is what we are all watching the Cincinnati Bengals
due to Joe Burrow.

Speaker 3 (01:46:53):
Well, and they're just notoriously cheap and they Nicolin dime
you left and right.

Speaker 2 (01:46:57):
This is why so many unnamed all the record.

Speaker 3 (01:47:00):
Bengal players have sided with the Shamar Stewart in his
dispute with the team, because they're trying to Nicholan Diamm
on offset language in his contract which is already slotted
as a first round pick. And so I mean, Joe Burrow,
you know had you know his negotiation, We know what
happened with Jamar Chase and T Higgins. So it's really
just a misallocation of resources. Because look, if you're telling
me that you don't have enough money to play Trey

(01:47:21):
Henderson and don't have enough money to pay you know
other guys, maybe you have to bite the bullet and say,
you know what, we got Jamar Chase, we can't afford
to keep T Higgins. We need to do that to
upgrade our defense. It might have set you, Joe, but Joe,
we're trying to feel the team here. But instead, you know,
you'd go for the flashy names, but you don't actually
build on the foundation, which is your offensive and defensive line,
which is ultimately what's going to make the difference in

(01:47:42):
whether or not you win. The reason they won that
playoff game in the snow in Buffalo is not because
Joe Burrow threw for four hundred yards. They grinded them down,
They won the line of scrimmage on both sides of
the ball. And how they could be so far only
a couple of years removed from that, but not acknowledge
that and how their team is built is an indictment
on that organization.

Speaker 2 (01:47:59):
It really so.

Speaker 3 (01:48:00):
I think more than anything, if resources are an issue
for a franchise like the Bengals and we just don't
have enough money to pay all these guys, fine, you
need to be more savvy and either how you scout
and bring guys in or how you allocate those resources
across the roster. But right now, the way that they're
operating is not a recipe for for winning. Paying Joe Burrow,
Jamar Chase and te Higgins all the money and filling
in the holes everywhere else is just not a recipe

(01:48:22):
for success.

Speaker 2 (01:48:23):
It's not. Yeah, and it's such a disaster because it
just feels like the Bengals are sort of the opposite
of the Browns in so many ways, Like the Browns
have built a roster that I still believe can be
very competitive. You know, I've been high in that roster
for years. But their quarterback position is just it. It's
out of control, and I don't believe. I'm not one

(01:48:46):
that believes that the shouldo is going to come in
and be a day one starter. I think the more
I talk Yahoo Supports to all of our insiders and
reporters that cover it, the more or they're around the team,
the more it becomes very clear that they want to
sort of slow play it, and the more it becomes
clear that they are so far happy with Dylan Gabriel's
ability to process information quicker. So I don't think that

(01:49:07):
the Browns are gonna be quick to admit that they
wasted a third round draft pick. I don't think you
door is going to be on the field, is a
quick answer. And the Browns have a brutal schedule. So
I feel for Browns fans who are looking at this brutal,
awful start that they're going to go through, where they're
taking on all of these really difficult teams while they
just get hit in the mouth over and over again
with no answer at the quarterback position, but the rest
of a roster did you feel pretty good about? And

(01:49:29):
then you're looking straight over at Cincinnati that has like
I wish I could morph these two teams into one.
If I could, just if I could just voltron the
Browns and the Bengals together, I get you a super Bowl.

Speaker 3 (01:49:40):
You know, it's so funny what the Browns are a
commentary on. You know, one of those famous lines is
you can't out you can't outrun bat ownership because if
you look at the roster that just the sixty men
roster for the Cleveland Browns, and it's excellent. Their defense
is really good, really talented, with a mix of veterans
and young guys. Offensively, they have a world of talent

(01:50:01):
at the receiver position, David n Jok who they brought in.
They have talent. But the one glaring issue that the
one thing where ownership and everybody has to be aligned
on as the quarterback position. And when they went out
and gave to Shaun Wattson all that guaranteed money, thinking
that that gave him the Godfather offer, thinking that was
going to save them, it has absolutely crippled them for
the last four years, absolutely crippled them because even if

(01:50:22):
you had just a replacement level starter at the quarterback
position that wasn't taking up that much money to a
point where you feel like you're obligated to play him
even though he's just been dreadful healthy or not. Their
playoff team. Maybe they don't win a Super Bowl, but
they're certainly in the conversation and they're not in a
position like they were last year where they're winning three
four games at a time. But when it comes to
the biggest decision that needs to be made, which is
the quarterback position. At the NFL level, the decisions of

(01:50:45):
the ownership the non football people can have a trickle
down effect and absolutely affect the success of your franchise
as a whole. Because the general manager, the head coach
Tefanski have done a phenomenal job putting together the roster,
but because the one most important position has been bungled
for the last four seasons, that's why they sit where
they currently sit.

Speaker 2 (01:51:03):
Well, And I mean, you want to talk about quarterback
problems and part of the reason that I'm so wishy
washy on so much of the league. I mean, look
at the Colts, who last year had a better year
than I think most of us realize. Record wise, the
Colts weren't the abject disaster that we remember them being.
The problem is their quarterback position is. And so now
all of a sudden, Daniel Jones comes in and man,

(01:51:25):
I don't know, like a year ago, we weren't sitting
here saying Sam Darnold's going to be the answer for
the Vikings. So like Shane Steichen is a really good
offensive mind that knows how to get a lot out
of a mobile quarterback, and he's got one that we've
seen good times from like part of me since here
and says that I think maybe we're under selling Indianapolis
a little bit because if they can get look, I
believe Daniel Jones is the day once started.

Speaker 4 (01:51:47):
Though.

Speaker 2 (01:51:47):
If they can get even mediocre quarterback play from Daniel Jones,
that's a step up from the absolute horrific you know
what show that we had to watch from Anthony Richardson
for the last year one thousand percent.

Speaker 3 (01:51:59):
And Jonathan Taylor, as weird as it might sound, is
still I think one of the more underrated players in
the league, and maybe that's because he's played in Indianapolis
and they haven't been you know, the bastion of success
that they were in their heyday with Peyton Manning and
all those guys. But yeah, like Daniel Jones has shown
like he's obviously the epitome of a game manager, but
in the right system Ensteiching system where it's a very
run heavy quarterback option using his athleticism to your point,

(01:52:22):
I think he's a perfect fit and he's easily going
to be the Day one starter.

Speaker 2 (01:52:25):
I don't know what the situation is with Anthony Richardson.

Speaker 3 (01:52:27):
There's a report this week that I guess his shoulder
is better and he's going to be ready for training camp,
but obviously had he still had a ways to go
when he did start from day one, So I think
it's fairly obvious that Daniel Jones is going to be
the day one starter. And to your point, I don't
know exactly how difficult Indianapolis's schedule is this year, but
if things break their way, I can now I can

(01:52:47):
see them being a potentially a playoff team and a
team that jumps up and might might jump Houston for
that division, depending on how things shake out this year.

Speaker 2 (01:52:56):
It's just it's it's crazy because again this time of
the year, it's so easy to find the good and
so easy to find the bad, and we've done that.
Now that being said, everybody in the world is telling
you that the NFC North is going to be the
best division in football next year. I don't agree. I'll
tell you why. Next it's the Fellas. I'm Fox Sports
Radio's Fellas. I'm Fox Sports Radio. He's Kevin Figures. I'm

(01:53:18):
Jason fitz hanging out with you. This morning, Figgy, everybody's
in love with the NFC North. Yeah, and I'm scared.
I'm scared, brother. I think there is a real reason
to doubt a ton of that division. And it's not
that I think all these teams are going to suck,
like there's there's some line between all that. But I
just look at the Lions for example. Yep, replacing an

(01:53:39):
offensive coordinator, a defensive coordinator and basically every coach along
the way. When you do that. We saw that work
really well for Philly last year, but we saw it
work really poorly the year before that. Right, Like, are
we really sure Dan Campbell can just restock the cupboard
and suddenly there's no drop off of Plus, if Ben
Johnson is such an incredible coach that he's the savior
of the Chicago Bears, you can't just hire an offensive coordinator.

(01:54:02):
You got to hire somebody that's as good as Ben Johnson,
And apparently that's almost impossible to do the same with
the thing with Aaron Glenn, Like he becomes a defensive
minded head coach for the Jets, You're not just replacing
a guy. You're replacing a guy that's so good that
he was coveted in head coaching conversations, like, you can't
just sort of nail these hires. You got to get
every single one of them absolutely right. For a team

(01:54:22):
that's in the middle of their Super Bowl window, and
I could create a yeah, but for basically every.

Speaker 3 (01:54:27):
Team in this division. Yeah, I wanted to stick with Detroit.
Not to mention the loss of Frank Ragnow, who's one
of the best sinners in the entire league, on a
team that prides itself on being physical and being one
of the most physical team in the NFL and beating
you up up front, and they're going off of the
run game, and you know, heaven forbid that run game
takes a half step back this year, and now you
have to put games in the hands of Jared Goff,

(01:54:48):
who put up great numbers last season. Sure, but again
that was under the guys of having a run game
behind him.

Speaker 2 (01:54:53):
I agree with you.

Speaker 3 (01:54:54):
I'm not as bullish on Detroit as a lot of
people are. First of all, they're going to take a
step back by default because they went fifteen to two
las year year, So asking them to replicate that sort
of record is just impossible to begin with. But yeah,
I losing all of your coordinators, I think is being
discounted by a lot of people. There's something to be
said for continuity and keeping the same verbiage and all
that stuff, but that only takes you so far.

Speaker 2 (01:55:16):
There's managing a game. It's not just calling plays.

Speaker 3 (01:55:19):
There's a nuance in the coordinator position that I think
it's lost for a lot of people. I was talking
to bre about this doing one of the commercial breaks,
because she told me about the over under for Minnesota
this year being at eight and a half, and I
really vacillated with it because I like Minnesota's roster, I
just don't know what I'm getting from JJ McCarthy, and
their schedule is just way too difficult for me to
put as lofty of an expectation as them being a

(01:55:41):
nine or ten win team again this year.

Speaker 2 (01:55:42):
That's the hardest part, you know, when you look at Minnesota,
that one's easy to sit there and say, okay, so
we trust a quarterback that has had two procedures on
his knee lost such a staggering amount of weight during
the process of that that people were worried. Now he
started to put it back on, but also didn't play
any meaningful football last year. So there's gonna be some rust.
And let's go back to when he was drafted. It's

(01:56:04):
not like we saw him absolutely. I mean I understand
that film junkies found in individual plays and said, no,
this is the sign. This is a sign. But like
JJ is the farthest thing from a absolute. We have
this massive body of work that he's going to just thrive.
I talked to Justin Jefferson for Yahoo the last week,
and you know, Justin even said I want him to

(01:56:26):
be as a confident in himself as I am in him.
And I don't think it's an accident that you say
something like that. I just don't think anybody knows right now.
So you know, I think eight and a half is
a like the Vikings feel like just a money making opportunity.
Eight and a half would be a big drop off
for fourteen wins. Yeah, yeah, that feels staggering. But I

(01:56:46):
do think I could see him getting their way down
to ten, you know, And that's such a and the
same with Chicago, Like I know, Bears fans are super excited.
I would be too. You got a great head coach. Everybody,
it looks great, But my god, I mean we don't know,
oh that Caleb Williams and Josh Josh mcdanni's good guy,
Ben Johnson are going to be a good fit. We
don't know that that Ben Johnson it's first time being

(01:57:07):
an NFL head coach, Like, we have no idea what
that actually looks like. Remember when Dan Campbell was hired,
everybody thought it was going to be a disaster. He
was the lowest ranked of all of the coaching hires
that year by ESPN, and he's turned out to be
wildly successful. We don't know what coaching guys like. It's
such a different world. I can't sit here and tell
you with any level of confidence that Ben Johnson and

(01:57:28):
Caleb suddenly click. Everything aligns. The offense is great, the
offensive line editions work, the coaching turnover turns out to
be this big boom, and all of a sudden, the
Bears win ten games. Like, I just think that's being
really generous. It's generous.

Speaker 3 (01:57:42):
I am a little bullish on the Bears because they
have a lot of things working in their favor. The
fact that Ben Johnson had as much success as he
did with a player like Jared Golf has been as
inconsistent as he has been throughout his entire career. We
see the roll talent that Caleb Williams has. His pocket
discipline could be improved, obvious, But if he's going to
be in a Ben Johnson offense that's primarily you know,

(01:58:03):
behind center and a lot of play action and allow
of rollouts to taking advantage of his physical abilities, I
think it's easy to envision and see. Based on Ben
Johnson's experience and based on Caleb Williams's talents, along with
the other talent on the roster that they've added offensively,
I think it's easier to see them being able to
take a bit of a leap this season. Look, I'm

(01:58:23):
fairly confident in saying that, barring injury, they're not going
to be as bad as they were last year. They're
going to be better than a five to win football team. Now,
I'm not saying that they're going to win fifteen games
or fourteen games or anything like that. But I'm more
bullished in on Chicago individually as a team that I
think that I think you might be well.

Speaker 2 (01:58:38):
Last year, I thought the Bears were going to make
this big leap into the playoff conversation, and that didn't happen.
So I'm sort of in wait and see mode. And
I don't think that that means. This comes back to
the way we started this whole show when we were
talking about the w Like, I think that there's a
we don't always have to bang our fists and say
this team sucks, that this team's great, right. I think
that there are some real question marks about the Bears.

(01:58:59):
I think there's some real question marks for the Vikings
at the quarterback position. I think there's some real question
marks with the with the coaching in Detroit, and Frankly,
as you well know, I'm not sitting here and planning
the flag for Jordan Love. Like I don't know if
Jordan Love is really great. So like I think there's
a question mark around Green Bay. If Jordan Love turns
out to take this big ascension forward in year three

(01:59:20):
as the starter, then hell yeah, like the Packers are
going to be great. If he doesn't, then the Packers
are going to be mid. And like, all of this
leads me to the NFC North just being kind of mid,
not not not what people want it to be right now.

Speaker 3 (01:59:33):
Yeah, I certainly echo the sentiment because there's just a
lot of unknowns throughout all of those teams, and I
think that the general assumption is, well, Detroit was great
last year, they're going to be great again. Minnesota was great,
Green Bay is going to be great. In Chicago's only
going to be better. But I don't think you can
just kind of look at it in a in a
macro vacuum like that, And when you pick apart each
team individually, there certainly are question marks for all of them.

(01:59:55):
And I think you can pretty much say that about
every team in every division. But because to your point,
the MC North has been lauded as the best division
in all of football, so granted it was last season,
but these things are all cyclical. It doesn't necessarily mean
it's going to hold up, especially when you have such
major variables that have changed. A major coach is leaving
and all pro players leaving, and a coach a new
head coaching higher in Chicago and losing a quarterback in Minnesota.

(02:00:18):
There's some major turnover and major changes that will affect
how that division plays out. So I don't think it's
as easy as e quoting what happened last seasons of
this year, because there have been just way so many
variables that have changed.

Speaker 2 (02:00:29):
And that's where it reminds me of a few years
ago when everybody was ready to anoint the AFC West
long before the season started, and then was surprised that
the West didn't rise to that occasion. I think the
NFC North is a very good division. I'm just not
sure that I can stand here today and say that
the NFC North is going to be this juggernaut that
absolutely can't be taken down. I think there's plenty of

(02:00:50):
reason to think that all of these teams normalize into
a much more mediocre version of the division. In the meantime,
one team could take a massive step back, and I'll
tell you who that is next, The Fellas on Fox
Sports Radio.

Speaker 1 (02:01:04):

Speaker 2 (02:01:07):
I don't, as a sports fan, typically feel jealousy. In fact,
I feel hope. So when I see a terrible franchise
turn it around, I don't sit there and think, why
can't my favorite team do that? I turn around instead
and say, there is the path. There is hope, because
if they can do it, we can do it. There's
reason to love it. So when a bad team turns

(02:01:28):
things around, I love it. I love it for second
of it. So it pains my heart to then have
to say that a bad team that has turned it
around might be a second year pullback. And that's exactly
what I think the Washington Commanders are gonna be this year.
It's the Fellas on Fox Sports Radio. He's Kevin Figures,
I'm Jason Fitz. We'll get to the Commanders in a second,
but first it's tie for the Tyrack Play of the Day.

(02:01:50):
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Speaker 8 (02:02:08):
Many Swings hits it in a year to de blaft Field,
what is going back?

Speaker 5 (02:02:12):
He Looksten, It's gonna go.

Speaker 8 (02:02:14):
Manny Machado hits the Padres first Grand Slam of twenty
twenty five, and it's a big one against Kyle fit
again here in the ninth inning as the Padres break
it open, Hey go ahead seventy two.

Speaker 2 (02:02:29):
Padres Radio Network on the call, Manny Machado with the
Grand Slam Kevin figures, I don't know how I feel
about them playing a Padres highlight. I mean, there's a
lifelong diehard Dodgers fan, like I've been for a few months.
I think pri like Bri. I don't know, Brie, you
couldn't find anything other than a Padres highlight to get
me there. I have been a diehard fan for like
seven minutes, and you you hit me with the Padres Highlight.

(02:02:50):
I think Grand Slam. That's awesome.

Speaker 1 (02:02:52):
It's a good call.

Speaker 3 (02:02:53):
Got a troll fits like that breathe it's messed up.

Speaker 2 (02:02:55):
Oh my gosh, guys, I were wissed. When I think
Grand Slam, I think like everybody. I think Denny's. Okay,
that's what I think of the Denny's Grand Slam breakfast, which,
by the way, could give waffle Like moons over my
Hammy at Denny's could give waffle House a run for
their money. Figie, I'm just saying for fact, Moon's up
for my Hammi could give waffle House a run.

Speaker 3 (02:03:14):
So this goes back to the discussion we had in
the first hour talking about waffle House and going back
to the WNBA and all that stuff. But so you
are a Denny's versus waffle House because I was gonna
ask you about I Hop versus waffle House because I
feel like that's more that's usually the bigger debate. But
maybe not because Denny's I've always associated, at least in
recent years, more of like that's where your grandma goes,
you know, in the morning, gets her senior discount, does

(02:03:36):
her thing, you know. But I Hop versus waffle House
is really like, all right, now, you came home after
a concert or something. It's late at night, nothing else
is open. And now if Denny's or if waffle House
is on one side of the street and I Hop
is on the other side of the street, and you're
sitting there and have a giant dilemma, what side of
the street are you going on?

Speaker 2 (02:03:54):
No, I'm always going the waffle House side of the street,
there is no doubt. But if I you know, been
a long time since I was drunk, But if I
was drunk, I would absolutely like there is something about
moons over my Hammi that just hits It hits different.
It is a beautiful thing. There's no doubt about it.
I Hop, I don't know. I had a buddy years
ago that we all went to I Hop and this

(02:04:17):
is like twenty years ago. We're all sitting there. I
ordered chocolate chit pancakes, like the adult I am, and
he ordered a country fried chicken or chicken fried chick whatever.

Speaker 3 (02:04:26):
Yeah, chicken fried steak whatever, country fried steak it.

Speaker 2 (02:04:29):
Yeah, it was country fried chicken, though it was a
country fried chicken version of us. Yeah, and so I'll
never forget, you know. I looked over at him and
I said, hey, man, how's your how's your chicken? And
he just looked up with the the just blankest look ever,
and he said, there's a reason they don't call this
place international house a country fried chicken. And I'll never
forget that, you know. So whenever I go to I Hop,
I only order pancakes because it's yeah, that's all.

Speaker 3 (02:04:51):
This goes back to the WA files discussion earlier. It's like, yeah,
they have healthy options, but why would I order that?
When I go there, I was it's like, yeah, you
know what, I'm gonna go to McDonald's, which I never do.
But I go to McDonald's, I'm gonna get a salad shaker.
I was like, no, if you're going to McDonalds, you're
getting yourself a you know, a big Mac or something
and and and loads of fries and and a shake.

(02:05:12):
Like I'm not gonna I'm not gonna go to one
of the bastions of you know, things that take that
tastes great but it's awful for you. And then try
to get the healthiest thing.

Speaker 2 (02:05:19):
On the menu.

Speaker 3 (02:05:20):
If that's the case, go to Whole Foods. Why am
I gonna go to McDonalds to try to eat healthy?
Why am I gonna go to Iye Hop and get
a country fried chicken as opposed to you know, a
stack of flapjacks.

Speaker 2 (02:05:32):
You know, a stack of Flapjacks is a great band name.
By the way, Stack of Flapjacks. I just that is?
That is all right, Bree. Are you team waffle House,
Team I Hop or team Denny's. You gotta pick one.

Speaker 1 (02:05:42):
So I just like waffle House.

Speaker 9 (02:05:43):
We don't really have out here, so that is true.
That's kind of hard to say. I mean, we have
Roscoes can I Did I throw that in there?

Speaker 2 (02:05:51):
Absolutely?

Speaker 9 (02:05:51):
Yeah, Okay, I'm gonna go I Hop because I love pancakes,
So I'll go I hog for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:05:58):
That's fair. That's fair. You know, I just want one
super like everybody. I was working with somebody a few
years ago that was saying, I just want one service
that will combine all of my streaming things into one
guide so I can just pick what I want to watch.
I'm describing cable.

Speaker 3 (02:06:13):
You're just exactly.

Speaker 2 (02:06:15):
Thank you so much. You have admitted you want Cable.
There is a part of me that I want to
be able to walk into like a restaurant at some point,
you know, like they have the especially New England does
this beautiful. They do their like rest stop sort of
gas station things, like these travel plazas better than anybody.
They're like, you don't have to get off the highway.
It's like on the side, it's like a rest stop.

(02:06:36):
You pull in, there's one hundred gas stations and then
a bunch of restaurants in this one thing. They have
them all over the place. So great. I want one
of those like concepts that's just breakfast places so I
can walk in and I can kiosk myself, you know,
a mix of give me like the pancakes from Ihob
moons over Miami from Denny's, a waffle from and cheesy eggs.

(02:07:00):
Let's not be of course, not limit them from waffle House.
And then you know, put all that together, you can
have the McDonald's in there too, in case you're feeling
the egg McMuffin. Like that is what I need, all
of those places to be in one combined restaurant where
I can kiosk exactly what I want from me? Can
we add one more bob Evans oh.

Speaker 3 (02:07:19):
Down on the farm, baby, Okay, I know of bob Evans,
but I've never been there. Mark, Okay, so what am
I missing at bob Evans?

Speaker 2 (02:07:25):
Guys? What do you got? It's just to sit down,
you know, another brand name, but just just their way
of doing things. Okay, So I will give you your
random bob Evans fun factor you didn't need because even
for years, I've attempted, you know, sort of to be healthy.
We'll update that in a minute, but I've attempted sort
of over the years. And there was a period because

(02:07:46):
they had bob Evans everywhere around Nashville in the South
for years, and I would go in and I get
the grilled chicken, right, and I was like, I'm eating
grilled chicken and Bob Evans it's fine. I'm being healthy.
And then a buddy of mine actually showed me the
nutritional info on the Bob Evans grilled chicken. And the
funny thing is they soak it in a butter bath
before they make it, which is why their chicken is
so dang good when you get their grilled chicken. But

(02:08:06):
it also means when you look at the nutritional content
on it, it's terrible for you.

Speaker 4 (02:08:10):
It is.

Speaker 2 (02:08:11):
It's the one place that you eat grilled chicken and
you're like, man, I'm not I shouldn't eat this. Bob
Evans down on the farm, baby, they but mighty Mark,
You're right. Everything in Bob it's like just a good
old country restaurant. It just tastes great.

Speaker 3 (02:08:22):
I'm looking at the website right now. Their food looks amazing.
And by the way, nothing speaks healthy Southern food. And
chicken breads smothered in butter. That's that's right there. That's
dirty South good eating right there.

Speaker 2 (02:08:33):
I love it. Oh, giant biscuit on theer plate somewhere too,
you know, so all that stuff goes into cracker barrel
biscuits too. Like I'm hungry now, y'all, Like, right, Barrel
biscuits and apple butter oh man, like when Cracker Barrel
started serving alcohol recently. They just told you right there.
They're like, hey, oh, we understand what this is about now,
and we're gonna make sure that you get what you need.

Speaker 3 (02:08:51):
We have an update. I didn't realize that was a thing.
I've been to a cracker barrow one time when I
once my sister wents to Tuskegee University in Alabama. So
we went to a cracker Barrel not too far from
there and got shrimp and grits, which I thought was
a weird concept initially, but I was like, ah, I'm
down here, it's something different.

Speaker 2 (02:09:06):
I'll try it. To this day.

Speaker 3 (02:09:07):
One of the greatest things I've ever eaten in my life.
And that's and that says a lot I like to
think of. I'm decently well traveled. I've been around the world,
different countries and all that stuff. Cracker barrel shrimp and
grits one of the best things I've ever eaten. And
I don't know why. Yeah, there is a backlash, and
I don't know if if you guys have noticed this.
People are taking a lot of shots at Cracker Barrel
for whatever reason, and I don't understand why.

Speaker 2 (02:09:28):
Oh man, if you're on a road trip, you can
just like swing into cracker barrel and you can ask
for a side of biscuits and apple butter, and they
will give you that you can take with you for
the car, just a huge, heaping container full of delicious
biscuits that are warm with apple butter. And then you
just start, you know, dipping and like stuff in your

(02:09:49):
face while you're driving. Oh god, it's so good, so
good man.

Speaker 3 (02:09:54):
I gotta I gotta get to another cracker barrel sometime
someday soon.

Speaker 9 (02:09:57):
Can I ask you about shrimp and grits?

Speaker 4 (02:10:00):
What is that.

Speaker 2 (02:10:02):
Grits? Is this Southern thing? Like you know shrimp and grits? Yet,
like I don't know.

Speaker 9 (02:10:06):
I'm from not southern area.

Speaker 2 (02:10:09):
I mean in the South, they'll put anything with grits.

Speaker 1 (02:10:11):
Like.

Speaker 2 (02:10:12):
So the funny thing is like there when I moved
to Nashville a long time ago, is late nineties, all
the restaurants there were meat and threes is what they
call them. So like you walk in and you pick
your country meat and your three veggies. But when they
say three veggies, they don't actually mean a real vegetable.
It's like fried okra, mac and cheese and mashed potatoes,

(02:10:32):
like none of it is actual. So like in the
South forever, they've been like, hey, let's take a basic
protein and stack it on something that's gonna make it
taste better. That's the basic concept shrimp and grits right
right down the middle on that, Like grits. Grits are everywhere.
I'm not a big gritsky, but grits are everywhere. So
you put some, you pop some shrimp on there, and
all of a sudden, bam, you got to you got
the equivalent of a air quotes healthy meal in the South.

Speaker 3 (02:10:54):
Yeah, grits by themselves are not much of anything. It
all depends on the presentation. How your flavor it up.
Some people like to put shrimp in it, cheese people.
Some people put sugar in it. And I'm never a
big big fan of sugar in the grits, but that
that's that's all it's about. So basically, Uh, there was
like a spicy sauce I don't remember exactly what it
was at the time along in there along with the shrimp,

(02:11:15):
and it's all mixed together and it was simple but
spectacular is the way.

Speaker 9 (02:11:18):
That I I just googled a picture of my I've
never heard I didn't know that they made shrimp and grits.

Speaker 2 (02:11:23):
I know they made what's what's it called biscuits.

Speaker 5 (02:11:27):
I love.

Speaker 2 (02:11:29):
You say shrimp and grits with such like disdain.

Speaker 9 (02:11:33):
For the combinations sound delicious. So I'm just I've never
heard of it. I guess I'm kind of surprised. Like
my heart rate went up a little bit, like, oh,
what is this?

Speaker 2 (02:11:42):
Should I travel? I mean that your heart rate goes
up and then all of a sudden, your cholesterol goes up,
pressure grows up and goes up. Yeah.

Speaker 9 (02:11:50):
Yeah, A six hundred pound life is my goal. So
we'll see.

Speaker 2 (02:11:53):
I mean, you spend a year in the South, you'll
get there. I get there very easily. Imagine. Okay, I'm
out on the commanders. Not out on the commanders. The
commanders are going to take a step back this year.
I'll tell you why. I promise we'll get to it.
It's sefellas. We're hanging out with the Kevin Figures, Jason
Fitz and the crew on Fox Sports Radio.

Speaker 4 (02:12:15):
the nation. Catch all of our shows at Foxsports Radio
dot com and within the iHeartRadio app. Search FSR to listen.

Speaker 2 (02:12:26):
Live Sefellas on Fox Sports Radio. Jason Fitz hanging out
with the incredible Kevin Figures, having a good time this morning,
as we always do, even though it's the middle of
you know, we're almost through it, yo, like we are
almost through the dolgeums of the summer. Shortly after the show,
our podcast goes up. You don't want to miss it.
If you missed any of today's show, be sure to

(02:12:48):
check out the pod. Just search Fox Sports Radio wherever
you get your podcasts, and be sure to follow and
rate and review the podcast. Give it five stars. Just
search Fox Sports Radio wherever you get your pod. You'll
see today's show. Post it right after we get off
the air. We did some WNBA this morning, talking about
the All Star talked about All Star games in general,
talked a lot of football, some college football with that.
A hell of a stacked morning, but we were just

(02:13:09):
talking about truly important things figgie, like which breakfast place
you would choose between all of the chains, and it
did have me. I wanted to give you an update.
It's been a minute. I know, we haven't been together.
Everybody knows how much to talk about it, but I
thought I might give it a little cheat code here.
I figured something out on my fitness journey. Are you
ready for a fitness update?

Speaker 3 (02:13:30):
Let's do it.

Speaker 1 (02:13:31):
Let's go fitcy Fitness the Journey Update.

Speaker 2 (02:13:37):
I love that. That just makes me feel an immaculate
So for anyone that's brand new to this thing and
hasn't listened to me for three seconds, because it's all
I talk about in half the time of my life,
I'm worse than a vegan. Now all I do is
tell everybody that I work out. I acknowledge it. But yeah,
I've been on this journey and through this process I
ended up. I lost like forty five pounds and then

(02:13:59):
put on and now I'm up to almost fifteen pounds
of muscle that I put on on this So I
completely transformed my body, can cut my body fat. It's
been a wild journey. But part of this is counting macros, right,
and so I've got a trainer that does everything in
an app. He tells me, you know what macros to
hit and what to work out. All of this is
done in an app. So I pay him and he

(02:14:19):
works it out. Every week or two we adjust something.
So he comes in and tells me how many calories
to eat, how much fat, how much carbs, all that stuff,
which is overwhelming, right, like it's terrible. This is the
this is the update that everybody needs to know. I
went in to chat cheapt, right, we all use AI
now in this world. It's like it's blown up the
chat GPT, and I said, here are my macros every

(02:14:42):
day and can you help me? And I had a
dietician friend that I was going to hire, and I
went to and I said, I want, I want you
to just tell me exactly what to eat so I
don't have to think. And she said, you know what,
you don't need to pay me, just go to chat chepet.
So she gave me the idea. So I went to
chat chepet. Let me tell you brother, like I told
chat GPT, the foods I like the foods. I don't
like what. I just don't like to eat. Like I

(02:15:04):
don't like bananas. I'm the one guy, the guy in
the world. I hate the taste of bananas. So wow,
immediately when I was making this up, I was like,
I don't like bananas, Okay, So it eliminated all of
these things from the list. Then I told it where
I live, and it was able to separate it literally
for me, and I was like, I want to eat
as cost effectively as possible with this little waste, but
stay within these macros. Exactly. It broke down my shopping

(02:15:25):
list and it said, Okay, here's stop and shop the
local sort of you know, normal grocery store. Here's what
you need to buy from stopping shop this week, broken
down by asle in the store of the most of
the closest store to your home, so that you have
the easiest shopping list. Here's what you need to buy
from Costco this week, broken down by isle of the
map of the one closest to your home, so you
know how to shop this week. It tracked all of it,

(02:15:47):
and then literally every morning I just go in, like today,
when we finish the show, I'll open that file on
chat GPT and I'll type in today's a medium calorie day,
So what am I having for breakfast? And it gives
me exactly what to measure out of a exactly the
foods I like. And then later in the day, like
it set up calendar reminders to tell me when I
need to eat. If I forget, it will tell me

(02:16:07):
and then I can just chat in And even remarkably,
I went to eat a sushi yesterday with some buddies,
right I took a picture. I just took a picture
of my food, and I uploaded it into chatch ept
and it read the macros from the picture and updated myself.

Speaker 3 (02:16:21):
Stop seriously, next level ridiculous.

Speaker 2 (02:16:25):
It's wid like I for anyone that's ever sat there
and said, I don't want to track my food, like
I literally don't. I was in the grocery store and
I wanted to get some halo top, like some ice
cream of some sort. I don't have that very often,
but I wanted it. So I just took a picture
of the entire, the entire shelf of ice cream that
they had at the grocery store, and I said, I
want to add this this week, but only if I

(02:16:46):
can eat the entire carton which one can I have?
And it broke down which one it told me was
one to buy. And then yesterday when I'm going through
my meals, I was like, it's time for the next meal,
and it came back and it was like, hey man,
you're crushing it today, the ice cream would work out
perfectly if you want to eat the full carton right now,
I'm like, I do want to eat the full carton
of chatch ept. Yes, I want my full carton a

(02:17:06):
halo top Like it is that intuitive?

Speaker 3 (02:17:08):
Now, that is insane. And obviously with people talk about
the AI revolution and AI taking over and taking away jobs,
I mean you're talking about you know, trainers. I mean
you type in, here's my weight, here's what I want away.
Here are the things that I'm willing to do. I
got a bad knee, so I can't do this. What
are the things that I can do? And instantaneously it'll
tell you sets, reps, days, rest periods, all that stuff

(02:17:31):
to break. For you to be able to take a
photo of an entire wall of food basically and for
it to tell you exactly what you're looking for out
of a particular item on that wall is next level.
It's scary, but it's also super cool, Like it's amazing.
It makes things so much easier for you to you
basically have a personal assistant that you really don't have
to lift a finger, or I guess you literally do

(02:17:51):
have to lift a couple of fingers just to type
and outside of that, you're done. That's next level incredible
and your journey, you know, losing forty five pounds and
reshaping your body that way in short order, because this
is only this has been this start at what last
right before the start of last football season, right if
I remember correct, it.

Speaker 2 (02:18:07):
Was last summer last, so it's been in here right
right at a year.

Speaker 3 (02:18:11):
Yeah, that's incredible. So and major props to you, brother,
that's that's amazing as someone who you know, who weighed
about you know, the way like the amount of an elephant,
you know, some years ago. Then I lost a lot
and then put a little bit back on. I'm trying
to get back on your journey. So knowing that I
don't have to hire a trainer or hire a nutritionist
and I can do all this at the you know,
basically at the click of a couple of keys on
a keyboard is absolutely amazing.

Speaker 2 (02:18:33):
So you're an inspirational figure.

Speaker 3 (02:18:34):
For me for sure.

Speaker 2 (02:18:35):
It's it's crazy. Well thank you, but it is crazy,
and I only I want to tell everyon I'm going
to make a video about it for social media too,
about the chat JPT thing, because I think charting what
you eat gets super overwhelming, and I have found myself
even over the course of this journey, like once I
didn't want to eat the same things at the same
times every day, I wanted to mix it up. And
once I started trying to mix it up, the number

(02:18:56):
of times I'm sitting there at the end of the
night and I'm like, well, I have forty ams and
carbs I'm supposed to eat and I don't even know
where to get that, but not be over Like it's
too much thinking and it's so overwhelming. So to just
be able to, you know, type in, hey, it's time
for meal five, and it's like, hey, here's three different
options based on what we know you have on hand
because we helped you buy the groceries and we know
what you like to eat. And it's like, oh, okay,

(02:19:17):
I'll take option one. Great, And then you know, I
know exactly what to measure and exactly what to make.
It takes all the thought out of it, which I
think is for most people. The most daunting part of
these sorts of journeys isn't just the self control. It's
also just man, You're constantly thinking about what you're eating
and what you're doing and what you're extra Like you're
constantly thinking and it just gets overwhelming. So it takes
all the thinking away, which is you're right, Like there's

(02:19:40):
a there's a broader AI conversation about what it means
for future employment, you know, for all of us. Like
people keep asking me about music AI, Like I believe
AI is going to take over music in the next decade.
Like it's just I think it's inevitable that there will
be there will be real music people for people that
want real music. But just like college football is and
have two separate categories, they'll be a real music category

(02:20:02):
and a bunch of people that just want to listen
to you know whatever. This next generation's One Direction or
Backstreet Boy or Bitney Spears is gonna be. That's gonna
be AI generated pop in in five years and no
one's gonna care. Yeah, we definitely are. Our palettes are
gonna have to change to a certain degree.

Speaker 3 (02:20:21):
Well from just from a work standpoint, you know, a
certain jobs that were available even five years ago that
five years from now are no longer going to exist,
and you're gonna have to try to find a way
to get your way into the AI space and you're
the person that used to actually do that work. Now
you're the person that has to program the computer that
does that work or something something like that.

Speaker 2 (02:20:39):
You know, well, it's even in our business, Like there
are companies right now that are literally working on the
technology to allow play by play in games to be
AI generated, and I think that's inevitability. So in a
few years, when you're listening to a college football game
on a Saturday, there's a chance that you'll be listening
to kind of like all the Instagram videos have that

(02:21:01):
fake voice on it, You'll be listening to that voice
basically tell you what's happening in the game. And because
the game can be tracked real time and the computer
can just simply tell you what you're seeing. So like,
these are inevitabilities of just where it's going. I don't
know how to stop that train. I don't think you
do stop that train. And it will save people, you know,
save companies millions of dollars to not have to pay

(02:21:24):
people to do that, So they're gonna do it.

Speaker 3 (02:21:27):
Yeah, it makes sense. Look, we all know in the
society we live in, the almighty dollar rules rules over everything.
It's the reason why we're talking about college football expansion
and haves and have nots and people being left behind
because the money is just getting bigger and bigger and bigger,
and you know, I forget exactly where our hearts is before.
But rich people don't get rich by spending money, you know,

(02:21:47):
so they find ways to save as much as they
possibly can around the margins. And if it has to
sacrifice something like when it comes to Playboy play you know,
so be it one thing that gets lost and you know,
I know we'll get We'll get into the Commanders here
in a little bit. And all that going a bit
of a tangent, and it's not necessarily sports, but it
goes back to sports.

Speaker 2 (02:22:04):
Because you want thing you don't want to get lost.

Speaker 3 (02:22:05):
One thing that makes things like college football so special
the NFL, all of our connections to our local franchisees,
is the even the implied relationship that you have with
people who are writers or more specifically team broadcasters. And
the more and more we get into AI based, if
we get to a point where there's actually games being
called by computers and there's no actual person that you

(02:22:26):
can reach out in touch, whether you can actually physically
do it or not, you're run into them when they're
coming out of the press box or something, or whether
you just feel a connection to them that something like
that will end up getting lost and can't be replaced
once you start ramping up AI more and more and more.
And I just wonder if we're heading down a road
where if there's going to be a disconnect between the community,

(02:22:47):
connection between specifically college football and local broadcasters and local
media people and fans, if everything is just going to
be AI driven at a certain point, and if something
about the sport, the magic of it is going to
get lost in there somewhere.

Speaker 2 (02:22:59):
Well, there are certainly maybe a lot of people don't
realize this, but the recaps that you used to read
or that people do read about, you know games, what
happened last night in the you know Lakers MAVs game.
Those recaps that you see written so often were written
by a person, and then they were written by one

(02:23:19):
person at the Associated Press for a long time and
pulled out to all these different resources, so you know,
a limited number of writers we're writing recaps on games.
Most sites now are using an AI generated writing path
that writes the recap of the game. So already even
just the here's what happened in last night. Like, if
all you're doing is the here's what happened without basis

(02:23:41):
of opinion, it's hard for AI right now to form
a conversation with a lot of opinion because all they
can do is form the information they're given to give
you the best guess on what the facts are. Right,
So it's hard for them to form opinion. But we're
already seeing this, and you know, we're seeing AI generated commercials,
and we're seeing AI generated you know, long form or

(02:24:03):
YouTube shorts, and so AI generated animation is everywhere, and
so you just have to wonder at some point what
what I mean we we are in this really weird again,
this is deep philosophical stuff. But this what we do
on the fellow sometimes of course, like the first fully
robotic McDonald's is open that has no human employees in it.

(02:24:24):
So like at some point, I do wonder what everybody's
gonna do us included for jobs, Like how can anybody
make money if there are no jobs? And how are
companies making money if there aren't opportunities to charge for things?
So I don't, you know, I just don't know the answer.
I'm not smart to figure any of that out.

Speaker 3 (02:24:44):
Yeah, I'm right there with you. I mean I have
heard somebody to bring up at one point in time,
it was like, is Madden gonna turn into the NFL?

Speaker 2 (02:24:51):
I mean there's already.

Speaker 3 (02:24:53):
I mean Twitch has been so big over the last
fifteen years or so, and now these gamers, there's giants,
you know, multi million dollar tournaments of people playing video games,
and these guys are making so much money. He's like,
We're ever gonna have a time where the actual product
on the field is literally just a simulation. Is literally
it's not even real people anymore, or if it is
real people, it's real people controlling you know, uh, the

(02:25:15):
animated figures, it's video games. I was like, I doubt
that it will get to that point, but based on
how things are going, I can't. I guess I can't
necessarily rule something.

Speaker 2 (02:25:23):
Like that out. I can't rule out a time where
eventually robots are playing all of our sports. I just,
you know, like we just keep seeing all of this.
I know that's a wild, crazy thought. Like I'm not
a person, as you will know, I'm not a conspiracy theorist.
Like I don't care y'all can't scream this loud enough.
I don't care if we've never landed on the Moon.
It's not going to change my Saturday. I don't care

(02:25:45):
if if the NASA Space program is fraudulent. I don't
care most things in the world. I just don't care.
Like I frankly, I'm just if you want to tell
me one plus one equals three. Keanu Reeves famously said
this recently. Then like, fine, I'm done arguing. I don't
even care enough to argue. It's like, okay, cool, you're right,

(02:26:07):
I'm wrong. I don't care. So I'm really oblivious to
ninety nine percent of this. But there are points where
you have to look around and just say, okay, what
does all of this mean for the I don't think
robots are going to take over the world. I think
people that can control robots might have a better shot
at taking over the world. Yeah, Like, you know, if
you're smart enough to figure out how to build a

(02:26:28):
football team a smart of robots, then you're probably going
to be successful in thirty forty years. I don't know
what all of that looks like, but it feels like
all of these things are pretty inevitable at this point. Yeah. Well,
you know.

Speaker 3 (02:26:40):
The good thing is if we know bet on robots,
you know, I guess there's a little chance of them
taking money under the table and tanking games and being
embroiled in controversies or anything like. There's no Terry Rogier
situation happening within automaton, you know what.

Speaker 2 (02:26:52):
I mean, at least you wouldn't think.

Speaker 3 (02:26:54):
So I can go in there and I reprogram their
the motherboard or something or whatever that's supposed to mean.

Speaker 2 (02:26:59):
I don't know who knows well robots can be consistent.
I'm not sure actual NFL teams can look at that
segue and you're a radio professional or something. Thank you
so much. I think the Washington Commanders stand out to
me as a team that you know, we said earlier.
I don't think that all of a sudden, you know,
I'm not talking about Washington winning seven games, But when
you look at the advanced metrics on one possession games,

(02:27:22):
and you look at the advanced metrics on fourth down
conversion rate and turnovers and games lost to injury and
all of these different things, it just feels like last year.
I don't love to say lucky, so I will say this.
Last year, the Commanders were kissed by the football gods,
and I'm not sure that they're going to get a
second makeout session. I still think that they're a very
good football team, and they have Jayden, and as long

(02:27:44):
as you have Jaden, I think you have a chance
to absolutely do anything you want in any situation that
can be true. I also think Commanders fans will feel
like the sky is falling if they take a bit
of a step back and only win ten games. Much
like a year ago, right now we were having these
conversations about the ceiling for the Techs, only to find
out the Texans took a little step back and have
some work to do. I think the Commanders were a

(02:28:05):
bit above their skis last year. They take a bit
step back, a bit of a step back this year,
and it doesn't mean that they're bad. It just means
I'm not ready to annoint them as the favorite in
the NFC. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (02:28:14):
Well, they had so many close games, especially down the
stretch of the season, as so many things that broke
their way. Of course, we know the crazy hell Mary
pass at the end of the year to help them win.
Usually these things correct themselves. A team that wins all
the close games one year is usually they don't necessarily
lose all of them and next that next year, but
they're definitely a little bit of a regression back to
the mean. And when it comes to young quarterbacks, I

(02:28:36):
think the Texans is a perfect example because everybody thought
that CJ.

Speaker 2 (02:28:39):
Stroud, who came on as a.

Speaker 3 (02:28:40):
Great rookie, will come on and light up the league
the next year, and what we saw was a bit
of a regression. And that happens a lot with quarterbacks.
Usually there's a little bit of a sophomore slump once
the league figures you out. That's not always the case.
Patrick Mahomes as great as a rookie, and he was
great moving forward after that. But that's Patrick Mahomes, you know,
so he's a little bit of a unicorn when it
comes to that. I don't think it's controversial of a

(02:29:02):
statement at all to say that Washington takes a bit
of a half step back this year and Jane Daniels
maybe isn't as productive as he was last season, because
that's just how things usually go for a young quarterback
and a young team that's still growing. I still think
they're a good team. I still think they'll make the postseason.
But I don't think they're going to be as good
as they were last season for the reasons you mentioned.

Speaker 2 (02:29:21):
Yeah, And you know, even people around the organization last
year were sort of telling everybody that they were surprised
they were as good as they became so quickly. And
that's just a statement to Jayden and I want to
take nothing away from Jayan Daniels. When you have a
superstar at the quarterback position, and it looks clearly like
they have a superstar at the quarterback position, you always

(02:29:41):
have a shot, right there is no doubt about it.
I think that they got the dan Quinn higher obviously
looks brilliant right now. Cliff Kingsbury did such a good
job last year of just unfolding layers of the offense
in stages to help Jayden be as competitive as he
could be throughout each stage. Like I remember a month
in some analysts were sitting there saying Jayden Daniels can't

(02:30:02):
even throw the ball downfield, like they're not letting him
throw the ball pass the line of scrimmage. This as
a joke, and it's like, what do you know. Cliff
Kingsbury knew what he was doing and was getting his
quarterback comfortable playing NFL football every Sunday. I think that's
kind of a beautiful thing. So they did so many
things really well last year, and it's such an easy
story to root for, because, as I said earlier, when
you are a fan of a team that has been

(02:30:23):
dormant for so long and just somewhere between the sea
a suck and the sea of irrelevance for so long,
and you see them jump up, it gives all of
us hope, like maybe this can be our year, Like
there is something beautiful about that. So I think it's
easy to root for the Commanders moving forward, just like
it's easy to root for CJ. Stroud and the Texans
to move forward. But let's also just remind ourselves a

(02:30:44):
year ago, the Texans were supposed to be competitive with
the Chiefs and the Ravens and the Bills, and it
turns out instead they were just in that next tier
of pretty good. I think that's kind of similar to
what could happen this year to the Commanders. While they'll
still be in the tier pretty good, I just won't
with them in the tier of elite. I'll give you that.
And since we're in a we're up against the break here.

Speaker 3 (02:31:04):
But since we're in the NFC East right now, what
are your thoughts on the Dallas Cowboys, Because there are
people out there who are very optimistic despite the fact
that I think they have suffered a major downgrade at
the head coaching position. And yes, they've upgraded at receiver
that should be better offensively and they'll get Dack back.
I am not bullish at all on the Cowboys this season.
I'm curious as to what your outlook is on them. Yeah, no,

(02:31:24):
you're one thousand percent right. By the way, go back
and look at Shotty's offenses.

Speaker 2 (02:31:28):
Like just Shoty's offensive have been bad for a long time,
and he loves to run the football, so all in
who's running the football? Right? I just it doesn't At
some point, I think we have to remember who was
calling the plays last year versus who's calling the plays
now and what any of it looks like. And frankly,
I was just harsh about first time head coach for
Ben Johnson, Okay, I got to be consistent about that.

(02:31:51):
I don't think any of us have any idea what
Shoty's going to be like as a head coach, and
I believe his offenses are better suited to power offenses
that are going to be stubborn to run the football,
and that's not what the Cowboys are. So I feel
like this is a weird match and it's going to
be a frustrating year in Dallas.

Speaker 3 (02:32:09):
It would not surprise me at all if this is
a one and done situation for Brian shot and I'm
not rooting against him. I do not want him to
fail at all. I was a fan of Marty. I
loved his father, all that stuff. I want him to
do well personally. I got nothing against Brian Schottenheimer, but
just the production level isn't there. And you talk about
the comparison to Ben Johnson. Ben Johnson had multiple teams
knocking at his door this offseason, the last two off

(02:32:29):
seasons to see if he can be a head coach.
How many people were really, you know, lining up to
sign Brian's to bring in Brian Schottenheimer for our head
coaching interview over the last few years.

Speaker 2 (02:32:37):
God, No, I mean you're right.

Speaker 3 (02:32:39):
You know what does that tell you?

Speaker 2 (02:32:41):
I mean there is, there is. If you're a Cowboys fan,
your your reason for hope is that Jerry does a
good job usually of hiring a coach that's good enough, correct,
But if your reason for hope is that Jerry finds
the coach that can get you to the super Bowl,
we know that that's not the case. So I don't
feel great about it. I do feel great about The
best pregame show every weekend, it's right Tune into Fox
Sports Radio is Countdown, presented by bet MGM every Saturday

(02:33:03):
and Sunday morning from nine am to noon Eastern at
six to nine am Pacific, will count you down to
all the biggest games. Tune into Countdown presented by bet
MGM every Saturday and Sunday morning right here on Fox
Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app. One other team in
the NFC that everybody loves and I don't haha. We'll
tell you about it next. He's Kevin Figures. I'm Jason Fitz.
It's the Fellas on Fox Sports Radio. Ah feels good.

(02:33:27):
Every Saturday after we disconnect from this show, I find
myself singing my way when I feed the dogs. That's
just a it's part of the tradition. It's a fella's
on Fox Sports Saturday, Fox Sports Radio. He's Kevin Figures.
I'm Jason Fitz. Bree and Mighty Mark doing God's work,
doing an incredible job keeping us on track. Figure. It's

(02:33:50):
been fun. It's just been fun to have it, you know,
I feel like we've got It's like playing basketball with
somebody that you'll up playing basketball with the you haven't
gotten to play within a minute. It's just it's just
been fun. Buddy. I'm glad. I'm glad we got to
do this to this. I am too.

Speaker 3 (02:34:02):
I'm glad we're able to link up and do this again.
It's been a long time. Hopefully it won't be you know,
six seven, eight months before we get a chance to
do this again. And maybe one day you, Anthony and
I can all do a show together one more time.

Speaker 2 (02:34:12):
That'd be great. I mean that would be That is
the actual dream. Anthony. Obviously getting today off, we've been
talking a lot about a bunch of different things. Can
I give you a football team right now that everybody
always wants to give benefit of the doubt something I
say too often that I don't think deserves it this season.
What do you got San Francisco? I absolutely yeah, Like

(02:34:34):
this is six and eleven team last year that we're
talking about, Like they're on the precipice of greatness, and
everybody says, well, injuries, injuries, injuries, Okay, they're also not
a particularly young roster. They were injured in key spots.
I'm not sure that we can trust Christian McCaffrey to
be healthy at this point. I have no idea. We
don't know what we're expecting. They're like, it feels like

(02:34:55):
they have less weapons. I don't know. Like I just
look at it and say, how are we going from
six eleven to Super Bowl contender just because they have
Kyle Shanahan and Brock Party got paid.

Speaker 3 (02:35:04):
I don't see it. I mean, you lose Debo. Brandon
Ayuk is not going to be there coming back from
from a serious acl MCL injury. Christian McCaffrey, I don't
know what the over under one games played for him
this year is going to be, but I'm probably gonna
put it at I'll say nine, and I might take
I'll probably take the under because unfortunately, because he's a
spectacular talent, he just can't stay healthy and has been

(02:35:25):
able to stay healthy for the last three four years.
At this point, I love I do like Party. I
do think Party is underrated. You can call him a
game manager, call him whatever you want. He's I think
for the offense that they run and what he's asked
to do within that offense, he masters it, but he's
not good enough to overcome deficiencies. And they have a
deficiency when it comes to the receiver position.

Speaker 2 (02:35:44):
Not knowing what.

Speaker 3 (02:35:44):
McCaffrey, if McCaffrey's going to be there, how long he's
going to be healthy for is an issue. And their
defense I think aged out to a degree outside of
Frett Warner and a couple of others, So they have
to retool their roster. I think John Lynch even admitted
to this in the offseason. He said, we are we
had to get younger. We had to make some cuts,
We have to make some tough decisions, have to get
younger as a roster. So if you look, if you

(02:36:04):
want to say, if all things work out and McCaffrey
plays the majority of the schedule and Party takes a
leap forward, I love Shanahan as an offensive coach and
offensive mine. I think at best maybe they went in
eleven games, but I think that's really a stretch.

Speaker 2 (02:36:19):
I really do, and not to me. The Shanahan part
of this is interesting and I'm just saying interesting because
I don't want to say overrated. But man, there's been
some really good years and there's been some really bad years.
And every time there's a bad year, there's an excuse
for why it's a bad year. And every time there's
a good year, it's because Shanahan's brilliant and they figured

(02:36:41):
it out. I just don't I don't know, man, Like,
it's just we judge not getting it done when your
window is open so harshly for so many teams. I
just wonder if it's time to have that harsh conversation
around hey, like this got screwed up like you did.
You didn't get it done. You had a window, you

(02:37:03):
had a window of greatness and you just and he
didn't get it done. And so now how are you
going to move forward? Because I do believe that there
is a there's an opportunity and maybe even a need
to simply press reset at some point for this entire
organization to figure out how to compete for the next decade.

Speaker 3 (02:37:21):
Yeah, well, here's the thing. You feel like you have
the head coach and yeah, you can say what you want,
and his game management skills and Super Bowls and Obviously,
if you want to go back to when he was
a coordinated with the Falcons, with the twenty eight to
three Super Bowl and all that we can give him that,
I have no doubt that he's a good, decent enough
talent evaluator. Their drafts the last couple of years have
left a little to be desired, but generally speaking, he

(02:37:41):
and John Lynch putting that roster together since they've been there,
I think they've done a pretty damn good job. And
you're not going to do a full scale rebuild because
you believe you have your quarterback of the future. Now, look,
maybe if there's a dearth of talent from an offensive
skill position standpoint, maybe brock Perty ends up getting exposed
because he just doesn't have the physical measurables. He's not
Patrick Mahomes who can make magic happen. He needs rhythm

(02:38:02):
and timing and needs things to happen within the offense
for him to be successful. So maybe it tanks, But
they're not going to do a full scale on tear
down from the bottom and rebuild because I believe that
they believe they have the head coach that can get
it done and they have the quarterback to get it done.
So maybe what this is fits it's a soft rebuild.
We scale back a little bit, we clean up some
of our books, we try to draft a little bit better,

(02:38:23):
and when and if some big name free agents come
available or in the trade market, we have money available
to try to retool this thing and make another run.
But I do think their window is closed to a
certain degree. But I don't think it's all the way
closed from a Shanahan standpoint. I just think they need
to retool a little bit and get back on track
here in the next couple of years.

Speaker 2 (02:38:41):
Well, and that's where it's also tough, because you're looking
at a RAMS team that just I mean, I'm sorry.
I think there's plenty of reason to be high on
the RAMS cover sure, based on the way everything went
last year. And you know, I think the DeVante Adams
edition for them is a significant one. So you know,
I'm looking at the RAMS, and as much time as
we're spending, it's almost like paying no attention to the

(02:39:03):
man behind the curtain. We spend so much time talking
about the forty nine ers in Kyle Shanahan and John
Lynch and how good that organization is. When I'm not
sure that the gold standard isn't the other team in
that division, because the Rams certainly seem like I'm never
doubting Sean McVeigh again, it just seems futile to do that,
Like he figures it out in ways that I'm not

(02:39:24):
sure we can ever give enough credit to and.

Speaker 3 (02:39:26):
See, and they're a perfect example. They're a team that's
equipped to win now but also in the future because
their defense is pretty much all young dudes. It's all
a bunch of young guys who they've drafted over the
last two or three seasons, and they got better and
better as last year went along.

Speaker 2 (02:39:40):
We all know they were knocking on the door of.

Speaker 3 (02:39:41):
Beating the Eagles on the road in the snow in
the postseason before the Eagles went on to win the
Super Bowl. So this guy's the limit for them, not
only moving forward, but also obviously this season with Matthew
Stafford still playing at a high level. So not only
for this year are the Rams a team to be
reckoned with, but I think that they're going to be
a team in the future that people are gonna have
to keep an eye on too.

Speaker 2 (02:40:01):
Yeah, I mean, and at some point with the Rams,
particularly they spent years saying FM picks right, and then
they went out and made those picks, and they made
them so well that they just they've reminded you that
they can do what's almost impossible. They can beat you
a million different ways from a front office standpoint. If
you want them to use free agency and go in
all in on vets, they can do that. If you

(02:40:23):
want them to just use young guys, they can do that.
That's a dangerous combination.

Speaker 3 (02:40:27):
Yeah, that's the mark of a great organization, great ownership,
and let's need a great general manager. They almost they're
almost built like the Dodgers to a certain degree. Yeah,
we can outspend you, but we can also get you
when it comes to drafting well and having a great
infrastructure too.

Speaker 2 (02:40:40):
It's also a mark of a great organization when top
to bottom everybody seems to be on the same page.
Everybody's doing their job efficiently, and everybody seems to be
seeing the thing the same way, Like you're keeping the
main thing the main thing, and the Rams consistently are
doing that in a way that I'm high on. I'm
always high on Kevin Figures Figuring. It's been awesome hanging
out with you my friendpreciate it. Y'all spend the entire

(02:41:01):
day hanging out with Fox Sports Radio. Thanks for listening
to the fellas. Have a great Saturday.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}The Fellas with Jason Fitz & Kevin Figgers talk WNBA All Star Game, College Football, if the Commanders are Frauds, & MORE!