Thursday 10/16/25: Preview Thursday, talking Colts and Pacers

Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
So I'm driving in today, and I thought to myself,
first and foremost, thank goodness, Thank goodness for the Java
house Wrangler energy heel in poor pods. Because I'm dragging today.
I'll admit it's a sleep deprivation Thursday, partially because I

(00:23):
was doing some stuff last night, and partially and you know,
I'm a natural insomniac, and partially because I was up
till the wee hours celebrating now as my diehard Toronto
Blue Jays fandom, the fact that the Blue Jays now
got one back against Seattle after getting beat in two
games in Toronto and now two to one in the

(00:44):
ALCS after an offensive explosion. The Bats woke up for
Toronto yesterday, which is about as much time in Indianapolis
sports talk radio as one should spend on the ALCS
when it's Toronto versus Seattle.

Speaker 2 (00:54):
But nonetheless, I got the Blue Jays hat on.

Speaker 1 (00:57):
I'm all fired up, I'm already right, and I'm driving
and all I can hear in my head, all I
can hear anywhere I go today, And the hangover is
where I think probably I was most not not literally

(01:18):
like the hangover from the big win of the Toronto
Blue Jays last night. Not the kind of hangover of like,
you know, we're still basking in the glory of the
Colts off to a five and one start. Not the
kind of hangover of Indiana football is ranked third in
the country. Not the hangover of produce the number one
team in the land. Not the hangover of the Pacers
are getting ready to start their season and that's gonna

(01:40):
be cool and they're in San Antonio tomorrow night. Not
that kind of hangover, the hangover the movie. Okay, it
was in the movie The Hangover where I kept hearing
that song in my head just live your Life. You
know the song I'm talking about Cormann of course, right
live your Life if the name of the song, And

(02:01):
I'm thinking to myself, why do I keep hearing that
song in my head? Why is it stuck in my head?
Is what is my body subtly and subliminally trying to
tell trying to tell me to live my life. I've
got a whole entire mantra squeeze the juice out of life,

(02:22):
Like I feel like I do that right and hopefully
on this radio show we do it together each and
every day for three hours where we just kick back,
we relax, we have fun, we talk sports.

Speaker 2 (02:31):
We don't take things too seriously, right, people.

Speaker 1 (02:35):
Hear enough of Bravada in your face, screaming, debating, arguing
I don't want to do that. There was a time
in my life I probably want to do it. No,
I just want to live my life. And then I
realize it's like this little birdie landed on my shoulder. Jake,

(02:55):
Live Your Life was the number one song this week
back in two thousand the number one song this week
back in two thousand and eight. And I say this
because in people I realized listening to me are like,
I don't understand the significance of why this guy is
leading a sports talk radio show in October of twenty

(03:17):
twenty six by referencing a song that now is old
enough to legally vote.

Speaker 2 (03:22):
I get it.

Speaker 1 (03:25):
And then I realized I'm living my life like two
thousand and eight. I mean, I'm not walking around wearing
Rock and Republic jeans. I'm not wearing the pointy shoes
or the Affliction T shirts like two thousand and eight.
I don't know what my hairstyle was like in two
thousand and eight, but I think I attempted to grow
a beard. I'm not living my life like that two

(03:47):
thousand and eight, but I am a little bit because
I look at the NFL standings, and I looked this
morning to see where the Colts stand, because I still
want to absorb and embrace the fact that the Indianapolis Colts.
You're Indianapolis Colts, the boys in blue. I know that's

(04:08):
the indian eleven for the shoe for the boss. The
Indianapolis Colts the best record in the AFC, and I
wanted to look at it again to make sure that
it was real. And I looked at it and I thought,
wait a minute, who were the divisional leaders in two
thousand and eight. The New England Patriots, the Pittsburgh Steelers,

(04:34):
the Indianapolis Colts. Tennessee was right there with them, by
the way, in Tennessee's awful. And the Chargers, the now
Los Angeles Chargers with Denver right behind him. And I thought,
we are living the world is circular. We are living
in two thousand and eight. I don't know who the

(04:55):
two thousand and eight college football Top twenty five was.
It certainly didn't include Indiana. But in the NFL right now,
history repeats itself, and we live in this vacuum. But
it's glorious because the thing about this Colts team, and yes,

(05:19):
it seemed to almost turn on a dime. Danny Dimes,
Daniel Jones the guy that is probably most responsible for
this turnaround. And that's maybe unfair to say to Jonathan Taylor,
and maybe that's unfair to say to Tyler Warren or

(05:39):
to Michael Pittman Jr. Who I think is the definition
of teammate, you know, Quentin Nelson, Guys that are willing
to just go out there and do what they've got
to do to help this team win.

Speaker 2 (05:50):
But it's where you are.

Speaker 1 (05:52):
Chargers now coming up and on the show today, we're
actually going to go out to Los Angeles as part
of our Thursday Roach Now, Corbyn, if you've been to LA,
I am not fabulous. I would live in LA in
a New York second. I love everything about Los Angeles.
Mostly what I love about it. You look outside right now,
seventy two degrees stunning out a cloud in the sky.

(06:14):
It's like that in Los Angeles and San Diego three
hundred and sixty three days a year. Sign me up, right.
But Los Angeles is an interesting one because you've got
two football teams.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
You have a.

Speaker 1 (06:26):
Population that is largely from elsewhere, and so you go
to and I've not been there to to Sofi Stadium
to watch a game per se, but when you watch
on television you can see, yes there's a Rams fan base,
Yes there's a Chargers fan base, but you get a
large percentage of fans that are there to.

Speaker 2 (06:47):
See the.

Speaker 1 (06:50):
Visiting team because it's a chance to go out to
LA and you have people that you know, yeah, I
grew up in the Midwest and now I live in LA.
Because I'm out here, I'm going to be a movie star.
And I'll tell you more that, but I'll just let
you know that your Alma's going to be out in
just a second right now. So i'd like to know
with this game with the Chargers, which I do think
is a challenge for the Colts. At the beginning of
the year, it was one that you probably would have

(07:12):
chalked up as a loss. And Justin Herbert is as
dangerous or can be as any quarterback in the league
when he's in rhythm. But he's easy to take off rhythm,
I think. But we're gonna go out to La on
the course of the show today and talk to the
play by play voice of the Los Angeles Chargers coming
up at one thirty and thirties.

Speaker 2 (07:33):
Told me this.

Speaker 1 (07:35):
Is perfectly fitting as a play by play voice of
an NFL franchise in Los Angeles, Southern California. Matt Smith,
who's going to join us on the show today, actually
began his career as a record representative. Like he was
the guy that would call radio stations and be like, hey,
can you be sure this week to play our new

(07:57):
artists that we've got coming out, you know, insert name
of band. But he's got literally the voice of God. Now, Cormyn,
You've got a great voice, right, but your voice wears
this guy's pajamas to bed, you know what I mean. Like,
he's got a fabulous voice. Now you talked to him
and setting up the interview. Did you notice the dulcet
tones of Matt Smith?

Speaker 3 (08:18):
Yes?

Speaker 1 (08:18):
I did. Did he happen to mention the dulcet tones
of you by any chance?

Speaker 3 (08:23):
No, we did not. Can you do me a favor, Okay.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Can you just say one time on the radio, Luke
I am your.

Speaker 3 (08:32):
Father, Okay, Mark Boyle, Luke I am your father.

Speaker 2 (08:38):
Did Mark Boyle ask you to do that?

Speaker 3 (08:40):
He calls me Darth, Oh, he does, Yes, he does.

Speaker 1 (08:43):
Okay, you have filled in as the producer for the
Pacers Radio network, right and when you're doing that, you
have talked with Pat Boyle and who's also going to
join us on the program coming up at one o'clock today,
we'll get into the Pacers and the San Antonio Spurs
in action that will be tomorrow night down in San Antonio,
pre seas and for the Pacers, and I realize it's preseason,

(09:03):
but there are there's a lot of intrigue about the
Pacers roster, and notably, I think the intrigue still is
at the center position. And I'm really curious about who
it's going to be Isaiah Jackson. I'm waiting to see
Isaiah Jackson show. And maybe it takes, you know, two months,

(09:28):
three months before we get a real feel for who
Isaiah Jackson or James Wiseman can be coming off of
that Achilles injury. Because when you come off of injury,
one of the biggest things and biggest obstacles is that
mental aspect. I've not I take that back, I've come

(09:54):
off of I guess like two, you know, I broke
my when I was in college. That's a little different,
certainly different than a ruptured Achilles. And then you know
I had a I mean, I had a stint, a
heart stint put in and had to go through a
rehab of that, and there was psychologically and I'm not

(10:19):
in any way, shape or form comparing that to that
of coming off in Achilles as an NBA player, except
for the following for a couple of probably months, I'll
say two months after I had a stint put in
from a heart attack. And I think people that have

(10:39):
had that will be able to understand what I'm saying here.
Every little blip of like a little zap feeling in
your chest or a heartburn or a moment where you
lose your breath or whatever it was, mad dignified times

(11:01):
ten because of this paranoia slash PTSD slash hyper awareness
slash hypochondria of that one area of the body that
has been compromised and has shown vulnerability. And I think
for all of us, no matter what it is you're
talking about, physically speaking, when you have something that you

(11:24):
took for granted for so long physically speaking, that then
is compromised, you feel a vulnerability about it for the
first time, and for elite level athletes, I can only
imagine you are coming off of a time where you
have been a great athlete with an abnormal leaping ability

(11:47):
and burst and all of that, and then suddenly, in
the snap of a finger, it's gone, and you've got
to recoup, and you've got to recover, and you've got
to rest and do all of those things, and while
doing it, you are wondering to yourself, will I ever
get back to what I once was? And for the

(12:08):
first and I think it's different from every athlete, but
for the first couple of weeks, months, whatever it may be,
you are constantly hesitant. And then actually it can become
problematic because without even realizing it, you are maneuvering your
body in a way, in a compromising fashion that is

(12:31):
now all of a sudden, your muscles are moving in
different pattern, different ways, whatever else, and that can compound.
And we've seen that other injuries, injuries sometimes parley into injuries.
But for Isaiah Jackson to watch as I did the
other night and watch him, I think there is without

(12:51):
him even being aware of it, there is this subtle
like Governor, that is taking place where you don't want
to push all the way because you you still are
not You do not flat out trust the body that
was vulnerable, the part of the body that was vulnerable.
And it's going to take a while to work through that.
And it's easy for me, it's easy for you, Corbyn,

(13:12):
for Mark Boyle to Pat Boylan, people listening, pacer fans,
it's any it's easy for any of us to say,
I'm waiting to see what Isaiah Jackson can do. I'm
waiting to see what James Wiseman can do. A year
from now, I'm waiting to see what Tyree's Haliburton can do.

Speaker 2 (13:28):
Guess what.

Speaker 1 (13:30):
Those three guys are in that same grouping. They're in
that same category because they too are waiting to see
what their body can do. And I don't know what
the timeframe is before you get into that and you
get rolling with that. But it's one of the things

(13:50):
that is of intrigue and that we will talk about
with Pat Boyling coming up at about one o'clock today. Corbyn,
did you do anything fun and exciting last night other
than watching the Toronto Blue.

Speaker 2 (14:00):
Jay's Late to the Seattle Mariners.

Speaker 3 (14:02):
No, Jake, it was a nice relaxing evening at home.

Speaker 1 (14:05):
I would like to know what a nice relaxing evening
at home involved. Did you watch any sports? Did you
watch television where you putty and you sat vapp? You know,
just sat in a blank room.

Speaker 3 (14:15):
Well, mostly it's just sitting on the couch with the
dog watching a little bit of TV. Okay, maybe having
a nice drink die Coke is sufficient.

Speaker 2 (14:24):
Dakky is perfectly sufficient.

Speaker 3 (14:25):
Yes, thank you, colork and uh, you know, just getting
ready for the show today.

Speaker 1 (14:28):
All right, Well, much appreciated that you were doing exactly
that and getting ready for the show today. I was
doing the same thing actually, and got to thinking about
and every once in a while this does happen where
I think. I guess my viewpoint is not overly original,
because I will think about something, you know, the the

(14:53):
Kurt Signetti Brad Stevens comparison. I was sitting there the
other day, like you, just sitting on the couch, not
a dog but a cat, sitting there watching TV or whatever.
When I had that epiphany of and I think this
was on Sunday night, and I thought to myself, I
got it.

Speaker 2 (15:13):
I got it.

Speaker 1 (15:14):
I was like Greg Brady running around when he wrote
the song I got it. I got it, and I
run out the kitchen analysis like he got what. I
don't know what he's got, but he's got something.

Speaker 2 (15:22):
And I had it.

Speaker 1 (15:22):
I was like, I got it. And what I had
was this epiphany with the Kurt Signetti coaching situation of
you know what, if Indiana is worried about Kurt Signetti
going to Penn State, then they can take peace in
the fact of thinking about and grasping why Brad Stevens

(15:47):
has never come to Indiana, Because Indiana fans from a
basketball standpoint can say to themselves, till the cows come home,
this is a top flight basketball program and the most
desirable coaching job in America. And then Brad Stevens, a
guy that grew up in Indiana, grew up a fan

(16:09):
of Indiana basketball, played basketball, went to DePaul, small school
in Indiana, and has coached at a smaller school in
Indiana in Butler. I mean, I'm not saying small program,
but at the time he got there, a smaller school
certainly by enrollment and funding than Indiana University. And now

(16:30):
we know where he is with the Boston Celtics, and
people were like, he's going to leave the Boston Celtics
to come coach Indiana. Brad Stevens is coming home. And
each time that Indiana has thrown out that offer, they
have gotten the same response. And when you really step
back and objectively look at it, you say, I get it.

Speaker 2 (16:52):
I get why.

Speaker 1 (16:54):
Why would you leave the job as the president of
the Boston Celtics to come do a rebuild program of
Indiana basketball, to bring it back to what it once
was when you were a kid. And I thought to
myself in this epiphany, you know what, that's what Kurt
Signetti is with penn State. Why would Kurt Signetti, who

(17:14):
grew up in Pennsylvania. I don't know whether he grew
up a penn State fan or not. I would say
maybe not because he went to West Virginia, not penn State,
but grew up in Pennsylvania in the height of penn
State football and its influence and it's great coach and
it's legacy in Pennsylvania. Grows up there, coached at smaller
schools in the state of Pennsylvania, and I'm sure people
in Pennsylvania are saying, see, then it's destiny he comes

(17:36):
back to coach in his hometown state. But like Brad Stevens,
if you're Kurt Signette, you look at it and you
go but why why leave a job where right now
he has Indiana at the point where Penn State hopes
to get crazy as that sounds, And why leave a
situation where you have a great job and you're very

(17:58):
high on top of the mountain for a reclamation project
of something that is trying to simply get back to
what it was in your childhood. And I thought to myself,
this is it. I'm going on the air and that's
my epiphany and there's my story. And then boom, I
come in like Monday, and everybody's like, you know, Kurt
Signetty thing actually sounds like Brad Stevens. I'm like, stole

(18:20):
my thunder. I put it out there in the global conscience.
Stole my thunder. Maybe I need to start thinking more originally.

Speaker 2 (18:28):
And then.

Speaker 1 (18:30):
Last night I'm having a conversation with somebody and we're
talking about Indiana football and they say to me, Jake,
do you think it's possible that the football in hype
that Indiana fans are now? And this is a good
question for Indiana fans. I'm not saying that Indiana University

(18:51):
is suddenly a football school, but does the enthusiasm that
you have for Indiana football, the excitement that you have
for Indiana football, the relevance of Indiana football, the fact
that we are now in mid October, we're probably a
week away from my mom telling me to be careful
on what leaves. Leaves haven't turned yet this year very

(19:14):
much a little bit starting to now, but still a
little behind pace. But as we head in towards Halloween,
this is the time of year typically when people are like, oh, man,
the Indiana basketball team that practice, this guy looks great,
this guy's struggling. I mean, here's what I'm hearing about this.
And you know, all the chatter all the coffeehouse in
bar chatter Indiana about the Indiana basketball program, and that's

(19:36):
all been usurped now of people talking about football as
it should be. But we're not used to getting this
far into the process without all kinds of hype, expectation, hope,
and prognostication about or prognostication I should say about Indiana basketball.
And I'm not saying that that enthusiasm for Indiana basketball

(19:58):
doesn't eventually come, but per do the number one team
in the country and Indiana fans of hearing about you know,
Purdue and Matt Paynter and Fletcher Lawyer and Braden Smith,
And does that in any way, shape or form, does
Indiana basketball become even a little bit more on the
back burner in the minds of Indiana fans because they
are so captivated by football. And this is the first

(20:20):
time that Indiana fans have gotten a taste of what
it's like to be a prime time national college game day,
sold out crowd. ESPN dot com lead article on a
regular basis during the college football season, and for fans
of Indiana University is a hey, this is awesome. I

(20:43):
never want to lose this and man, then I can't
wait for basketball? Or is it starting to take away
a little bit a little bit your attention on the
basketball program? And are we seeing a shift that is
the first of you know, a one percent shift download,
but are we starting to see a shift in terms

(21:04):
of that fan base and what that fan base is.
And my buddy's asking me about this yesterday and I thought,
you know, that's a great topic for the show. And
again I must have thrown it into a global conscience
because then I start seeing like columns and articles, is
Indiana suddenly a football school? And I thought, well that
was that was like I literally was about to throw

(21:27):
that out there. And then there was one more. There
was one more subject, one more question, one more area
of scrutiny that I've mentioned a couple of times on
the program.

Speaker 4 (21:47):
And.

Speaker 1 (21:51):
I feel like it is a subject matter, that is
this elephant in the room involving the Indianapolis Colts that
no one wants to address. I feel like it's this
almost taboo subject within Indianapolis when it comes to the Colts.
Because the Colts are off to this remarkable start, they're

(22:11):
having a great year. There's no reason to believe and
there's no evidence to believe that that year in any way,
shape or form, can be taken off the tracks. And
believe you me, if there's anybody that knows something about
taking it off the tracks, it's me right guilty as charged.
But there is one thing that again, I was beginning

(22:31):
to wonder as I was laying awake at night last
night on a sleep deprivation Thursday, because I didn't sleep
out last night because I was super excited about my
Blue Jays, and I just kept rethinking Alejandro Kirk home
run and all this It's all going through my head,
and I'm sitting there and I'm watching TV, and then
I try to finally go to bed, and I'm going
to bed. In two thousand and eight is dancing in
my head and I can't figure out why. And I'm

(22:53):
thinking about, like the fact that the Colts are back
in two thousand and eight as relevant again, and whoever
would have thought back in two thousand and eight that
we'd have a time where Indiana football would be usurping
Indiana basketball and all this stuff's running through my head
right And as it is, then I realize and I
think to myself, there's one other thing that I've been
weighing out, and I've thrown it out there, and I'm

(23:14):
just not certain necessarily that it's time to have the
discussion with fans.

Speaker 2 (23:20):
Of the Colts. But then I thought, what the hell,
why not? Why not?

Speaker 1 (23:24):
Everything else is like coming back, Everything else is back
in vogue again. We're partying like it's eighteen years ago
and we're all adults. So maybe it's a conversation we
need to have. It's not a bad one. It's just
an elephant in the room one about the colts, and
we'll begin the discussion next. It is going to be
by the way, it's a party like it's two thousand

(23:46):
and eight sleep Deprivation Thursday, and it's also an interactive Thursday.
One of the things that admittedly is a weakness of
mind is I want, I need to interact more right
like for example, Matt, who writes in and you can
always do so via text to the program two thirty nine,
ten seventy is the station text line. You can also
text my own phone if you would like. I do

(24:08):
enjoy when people do that after hours, and occasionally we'll
just sit there and talk a little sports if you
call me on the phone at my personal cell phone number.
But Matt says, and we mentioned this the other day,
the biggest thing working, and I use favor and that
Penn State job, is the fact that Indiana likely is
going to be playing deep into December or January. The

(24:29):
portal opens January first through the fifteenth, and they will
need players. I cannot see Signetti making that decision while
on a title run. That is a great point for Matt.
Now there's a lot of football to be played still
for Indiana, but there is no reason to believe because
one thing about this team under Kurtz Signetti is you
know they don't Michigan State this weekend. You know there

(24:51):
are teams in the past that Indiana would stub their toe.
I really do feel like that is why that Iowa
game is going to and we look back on it
be so critical because that was the game when they're
on the road, they had the late turnover and Iowa
misses that field goal and Indiana comes right back. They

(25:13):
get one last lease on it and they snatch victory
from the jaws of defeat. And that's what great teams do.
And I do feel like if there was a trap
game quote unquote or a wake up game, we may
look back. Whatever the ultimate destiny is for Indiana this season,
I think we will look back at that Iowa week

(25:35):
and say that was a boulder in the stream game
that changed their trajectory. But here's my question in regards
to the Colts that it's the quiet part that we've
kind of mentioned out loud, and it's another one that
I've been going back and forth, and I saw that

(25:58):
Greg wrote a column about this I believe to or
maybe it was yesterday in the Star, but I've mentioned
it as well, and now I think for certain we
can say it conclusively. I just I don't in any way,
shape or form, see how there's any way other than
to say this it is emphatically. And this is just

(26:24):
my speculation a year ago and I can't remember. I
believe it was, and it was so odd because I
think I was out of town. I believe it was
last season when I because it's I can't take really
vacations during the summertime because of the racing schedule. It's difficult.

(26:47):
So I try to take a vacation in the fall.
I'll be doing one here in a month, and I
am very conscientious of doing it professionally speaking around the
Colt schedule. And last year I can't remember what the
reason was during the Colts bye week when I couldn't
do a trip and take I mean I'm talking taking
like three days off or four shows off. So last
year I'm like, you know, what, which week is it

(27:09):
that is the the most innocuous to miss shows?

Speaker 5 (27:13):
What?

Speaker 1 (27:14):
And this was like in August, Okay, we're having I'm
having to look at my schedule in my life based
on what I'm predicting the culture going to do last season.
And I looked at it and I said, you know,
the game here on the schedule that looks like it's
going to be the one that I can just kind
of slide out and do the Irish goodbye on for
the week that that probably is not going to be.

(27:36):
The most noticeable will be what really is going to
happen in like late October against Minnesota. You know, I
mean the Minnesota, I mean, the Vikings aren't going to
be any good. The Colts I don't think are going
to be very good. This is going to be like
two four and six teams. It's going to be that
game that's you know, there's like a broadcast team you've
never even heard of that's doing it and you know,

(27:57):
who even knows what network will pick it up and yeah, Minneso.
So it'll be fine. So that's what we do. Well,
what happens, But Sam Darnold is last year's version of
this year's Daniel Jones And they get off and flying,
and Minnesota's now like great and the Colts have to
go in there and then lo and behold the announcement
comes like literally as I'm landing from vacation, like, Anthony

(28:18):
Richardson has been pulled as the starter. You know, Joe
Flacco will now start. And I at that time, at
that time, I sent a tweet with simply two words
and I said it's over.

Speaker 2 (28:32):
And rightly. So I caught a lot of heat for it. Rightly.

Speaker 1 (28:36):
So people jumped on me and said, that is the
most knee jerk sports talk radio absurd thing that I've
ever heard.

Speaker 2 (28:46):
Okay, And.

Speaker 1 (28:51):
I'm like, you know what, maybe that's true. Maybe in fact,
there is time for him to still turn it around.
And they did give him another opportunity, and he did
have the opportunity to to get the chance to be

(29:11):
the starter again, and they bring in Daniel Jones. And
I think we all thought that Daniel Jones was brought
in simply to push him and wake him up.

Speaker 2 (29:20):
I think we all thought that.

Speaker 1 (29:21):
I think Daniel Jones was going to be the Colt's
version of the IOWA game for Indiana, the like wake
up of Okay, if you've got it, Anthony Richardson, if
you are Indiana football, then Daniel Jones is your IOWA
And let's see how you respond. And then Daniel Jones
did what it was that Shane Stiken wanted him to do.

(29:42):
He became he was an obsessive football guy. He was
a you can't peel the playbook out of my hands guy.
He was the I'm going to be in early watching film,
doing everything, analyzing, breaking it down guy.

Speaker 2 (29:57):
Okay, And so.

Speaker 1 (30:01):
The fact that Jones came in, I still thought to myself, Okay,
I was wrong with that my two word response of
it's over, I was wrong. And Anthony Richardson now, because
there's a veteran there that's going to show him how
to do things, he is going to, in fact, finally

(30:23):
show the promise that has been that they've been waiting for.
And for whatever reason, I'm not even saying it's Anthony
Richardson's fault at this point, but for whatever reason, he
is a magnet to the bizarre and it is not
his fault. Per se that that it's not at all

(30:44):
his fault. I mean, I wasn't there, but I think
we can say that a medical device malfunction of a
band snapping and hitting him and fracturing his orbital bone
and knocking him out for four weeks one hundred percent.
That's not his fault. It's a fluke thing. However, if
I were to stop any fan of the Indianapolis Colts

(31:08):
in the middle of July and say I come from
the future in mid October, and there's one player on
the roster that is going to go on ir because
they're going to be doing an exercise with one of
those banned things that you stretch out to like a
resistance band, and it's gonna snap and the apparatus itself
is gonna come flying back and hit the player in

(31:30):
the eye and they're gonna be out for four weeks. There,
I come from the future, and I'm not going to
tell you what player it is. If I said that
to one thousand Indianapolis Colts fans, nine hundred and ninety
nine of them would say, well, it's got to be
Anthony Richardson. I'm not even saying it's his fault, but
he's he has been a magnet to the bazaar and
to the Just what that injury really like? You get

(31:52):
sacked and it dislocated, you're pinky okay consecutively and there
just seems or whatever reason, I'm not saying it's his
fault but for whatever reason, he seems to just come
like literally by the quarterback, get the drama for free.

Speaker 2 (32:13):
And now he's on IR.

Speaker 1 (32:19):
And I'm thinking to myself, this guy two years ago
was handed the keys to the franchise and now in
the middle of the year, he's being placed on an
injured reserve and most people don't even know he's on IR.
It's just like, way, I think he's out right. Didn't
he get hurt or something? And by the way, what
Daniel Jones, what do you have to say about the
Chargers defense? And he is literally he's out of sight,

(32:43):
but he's not out of mind.

Speaker 2 (32:46):
But it's over. It's over.

Speaker 1 (32:49):
And I'm curious, like, I don't think anybody wishes ill
will on the guy, and I don't think anybody knows
whether or not is he JaMarcus Russell?

Speaker 6 (32:59):
Is he?

Speaker 2 (33:02):
You know?

Speaker 1 (33:02):
There have been a million quarterbacks that the Drew lock
that like they came in and it's like, oh man,
this guy's got he's an athlete, he's got a big arm.
He's going to be a great player, he's going to
change things. And then you like Heath Schuler, he's big,
like came out of the sec played well, and then boom,
never hear from him again. And literally three years later

(33:24):
you're like, is that guy still in the league or not?
And I literally I I the quiet part out loud.
Now is it's over. The Anthony Richardson era is over.
The experiment is done, and it almost feels like now
the Colts have their reasoning to finally let us know

(33:46):
what they didn't want to let us know because it
would have been admitting their own mistake. But it's not
their own mistake anymore because now you can look at
it and say it just didn't work out there. There
were just you know, the injuries. You can't put that
on us. Hey, Jake, wasn't it the poll in the
locker room that he attached the band to that broken?

(34:06):
Not the band itself?

Speaker 2 (34:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 1 (34:09):
I think I had heard or I think those bands
don't They have like a plastic thing at the bottom
and say you put your foot down through that and
then something snapped in that plastic It was what was
attached to the band. I think that came up. I
don't know either way. All I know is whichever way
it was, it was totally bizarre. Oh my gosh, Jake,

(34:32):
you take forever to get to your points. I love
your opinions. It's just so hard to sit through the
twenty minute lead up to the actual point. I understand,
but I do appreciate that you sit through the twenty
minute lead up for the actual point.

Speaker 5 (34:43):
I do.

Speaker 1 (34:44):
I understand it, I get it, but I appreciate you
listening when we come back. There was something said yesterday
that I thought, what do you know? We played an
audio clip the other day and now all of a
sudd there's a retort, there's a response, let you know

(35:04):
about it. And Pat Boyle and Pacers Radio joins us
in eighteen. Hey, guys, remember I said interactive Thursday. That
includes those that want to be critical.

Speaker 2 (35:16):
I'm cool with it. I get it.

Speaker 1 (35:17):
I totally get it. Somebody tell Jake that Bravada is
an oldsmobile. Bravado is a bold manner or a show
of boldness intended to impress or intimidate.

Speaker 2 (35:27):
That I say Bravada.

Speaker 1 (35:28):
Maybe I was thinking linguistically and I was going with
like the feminine form. I do remember the Oldsman bil.
Bravada was that like the Achieva, Remember the old the
olds mobile Achieva. I remember a guy when I worked
at Hardwick's trying to sell me an Olds mobile Achieva.
But in terms of bravado, there's been a lot of
that from Kurt Signetti. And it is interesting to me

(35:54):
if you look at Purdue, one of the great rivalries
and traditions, I guess is probably a better word in
college football is Purdue in Notre Dame in football every year.
And Notre Dame's got a schedule that has and includes
a lot of because of course they're independent games that
are traditional rivalry games. That's why they play Navy every

(36:15):
year and obviously USC but Purdue is one of them.

Speaker 2 (36:19):
And Indiana.

Speaker 1 (36:24):
Caught a lot of heat and criticism in the last
couple of years, and notably a year ago when they
kind of made the first move on the chessboard by saying, look,
Kurt Signetti did in particular at Big ten Media Day

(36:45):
when he was saying, look, from the standpoint of scheduling,
you got to look at the way the SEC does it.
The SEC is smarter in their scheduling, because what is
to be gained by going out and playing in these
you know, big matchups right out of the box, as
opposed to playing against the max or the smaller schools

(37:10):
to and then get into conference, and you know, you
get plenty of chances in the Big Ten, no matter
who you are Indiana, Minnesota, Iowa, Michigan, State, whatever it
may be, you get plenty of chances to right the
ship over the course of the year and get quality
wins because of the league that you're in. And we

(37:33):
played the other day Paul Finbaum talking about how he
doesn't like Kurt Signetti because he thinks Kurt Signetti has
bravado or is arrogant and brash, and that probably stems
from the fact that Signetti had kind of subtly while
tipping his cap to the way the SEC does it
also kind of taking a shot at the SEC and

(37:55):
some of its teams in the way that they schedule.
And now Indiana finds itself ranked within the top five.
And while he didn't come out and say who he
was talking about, Signetti did make interesting comments recently about
just the overall aspect of the lens in which Indiana

(38:16):
is now viewed.

Speaker 7 (38:19):
And let's face it, you know, college athletics, college football
has really changed a lot, you know, in the last five, ten,
fifteen years, and there's a division, there's no doubt about
it in the media, and a lot of it's tied
into whatever TV network is covering which conference, and then
you're going to have sports writers that support those schools

(38:40):
and are against the other schools. So there is definitely
a great divide.

Speaker 1 (38:46):
And one of the things with that that comes off
of that that great divide of the perception of programs,
right and the way that they're covered. You can new
and say perhaps there is this quote unquote great divide,
and that great divide to an extent, is not just

(39:07):
the way programs are perceived and or covered, but also
the way that they are branded and marketed. And it
was this has been for Indiana, as it will be
for Purdue with Barry otom as it will be for

(39:28):
could have been and may still be for Minnesota with
PJ Fleck whatever, and in basketball, for Indiana basketball to
try to get back to where it once you know,
was and has always wanted to be back towards for
Indiana's revival here. And I know we've talked a lot
about Kurtz Signetti this week in Indiana, but I do

(39:48):
believe this is the best story in college football, and
they might be the best team in the country which
is literally still impossible to grasp. But there was the
perfect storm in favor of Indiana here because of that
divide that Signetti talks about in the way that teams
are perceived, it's because you have an old guard that

(40:11):
almost refuses to accept the possibility that the rest of
the teams in college football now are able to do
what the SEC has always done. What's the SEC always done?
The SEC has always prioritized football, and USC is in
this category as well, and the big independence prioritized football

(40:34):
and done whatever it takes to win. And you know,
I'm watching a documentary right now on USC football and
the dominant teams that they had Cocaine quarterbacks. The name
of the documentary about a guy that was a walk
on at USC, and it's talking about just the lifestyle
of USC football and the Reggie Bush, Matt Lionert, Carson Palmer,

(40:55):
Lindel White era, and it's the wild Wild West. These
guys are going around, they're glitz and glamour, and they're
red carpeting in LA and they're hanging out with Paris
Hilton and Kim Kardashian and all of it. And Will
Ferrell's on the sidelines and Denzel's on the sidelines, and
Lyndall White says in the documentary, He's like, we got
it whatever we wanted. And you think that didn't take
place at SEC schools for the last thirty years. And

(41:18):
the fact that these programs that are selling out one
hundred and five thousand seat under the lights, you know, games,
and the SEC was doing now what is legal across
the board, and that great divide in terms of the
way that college football is covered and interpreted is actually
now homogenized in the way that it is marketed and branded.

(41:41):
Because if you are Indiana, or you are for that matter,
if you want to be at Minnesota or Purdue or
Boise State or whatever school you want to think of Baylor,
you now have carte blanche essentially to do what other
programs were doing only in the dark. And with NIL

(42:03):
and the transfer portal, it's the wild wild West where
it is come one, come all, And it is hard
for traditionalists that have traditionally thought that only the Tennessee's,
the Floridas, the Alabama's, the Auburns of the world could
behave in such a way because their football matters and
their football is prioritized and they understand what it takes

(42:25):
to win, and now having to understand the fact that
what it takes to win is actually in the grasp
and in the palm of any program that wants to
do it, and Indiana is one of them. They went out,
they got a coach, they put money into facilities, they
got transfer portal, they got NIL money. They came up
with their own means and fashion of a collective before

(42:47):
nil was even announced. And here we are. So he's right,
there's a great divide in the way it's interpreted, but
there is not anymore a great divide in the way
that it's built. Pat Boylan Pacers Radio joins us. Next
Pacers in Action coming up tomorrow night, right, Corbyn is

(43:08):
the Pacers and Action in San Antonio. Have you been
to San Antonio, Corbyn? You know they got that riverwalk.
You can just go out here to the White River
and just walk up and down, or not the White River,
but the canal. Just walk coming down the canal. And
it's awesome at the Riverwalk in San Antonio. But then
after about twenty minutes you're like, I think I just
passed that restaurant for the seventh time, and you realize
that you just walk, you go over bridge, you walk

(43:28):
in before you know what you're doing laps.

Speaker 2 (43:30):
But it is very cool.

Speaker 1 (43:31):
A lot of good restaurants in San Antonio and a
team that the Pacers are gonna see for the second
time in a week. Joining us now on the Java
House Peel and Poor Guest line. He is, of course
on the radio network for the Indiana Pacers, Pat Boylan
joining us. Pat, you have or have not been to
San Antonio, I have.

Speaker 4 (43:47):
For those who don't know, I don't typically travel with
the Pacers on the road.

Speaker 8 (43:51):
I'm in the studio that you're sitting in there right now.

Speaker 4 (43:53):
My brother lives in Austin, and I did a one
day like nine to seven days in San Antonio, so
tried to knock it out in one day.

Speaker 8 (44:03):
Have done the Riverwalk.

Speaker 4 (44:04):
It is nice.

Speaker 1 (44:05):
Did you notice when you do the riverwalk that after
about twenty minutes you've passed the same spot for the
fourth time?

Speaker 5 (44:09):
Yeah?

Speaker 4 (44:10):
Yeah, And when we went it was like late July
and approximately one hundred and five degrees, so I'm not
sure that's the perfect time to take in San Antonio.
But you know, nice, smaller sized, medium city.

Speaker 1 (44:24):
It is that that is a fair way of saying it.
It is also one that is epicentered around their NBA
team in the Spurs. And I want to begin with
this before we get into the Pacers, and there's plenty
to discuss there.

Speaker 2 (44:36):
But I mentioned this after going to the game Monday.

Speaker 5 (44:39):
Pat.

Speaker 1 (44:40):
I know that we've known it, I know that we
have seen glimpses of it, and then obviously he was
hurt last year. But Victor Webbemiyama is truly the face
of positionless basketball because to see a guy that size
bring the ball up the floor and then effortlessly pull
up from twenty eight and hit a shot, I could

(45:00):
think to myself, is there's nothing you can do about this?

Speaker 2 (45:03):
Right?

Speaker 1 (45:04):
I mean it, it was pretty impressive to witness up
close and in person.

Speaker 4 (45:10):
One thing that blew my mind. And I've had the
chance to watch him a couple of times, but at
the center jump circle was Isaiah Jackson, who is maybe
a little undersize for a center, maybe just a little bit,
but in the center jump circle it looked like a
center going up against the point guard and Isaiah Jackson
is an NBA center.

Speaker 8 (45:28):
I mean, it was remarkable.

Speaker 4 (45:30):
Rick Smith's was sitting I think a little down from
where you were, and I wanted him to just go
out on the court and stand next to this guy
because Rick Smith's is seven to four and it just
feels like Victor webban Yama has three to four inches
on him.

Speaker 8 (45:45):
I don't know. I mean, it's like.

Speaker 4 (45:46):
You're so used to watching when you when you get
the good fortune of either going to NBA games regularly
or working in the NBA, You're so used to watching,
you know, unproportional body types. And then you see this
guy and he's like his own stratosphere. He's in his
own solar system in that regard, and look, the injury
thing is the only thing that I can possibly imagine

(46:09):
that keeps him from being an MVP, that keeps him
from being a champion, that keeps the Spurs from eventually
winning a title at some point over his career. I
do think it's a big, big question mark though. In fact,
I was even reading an article in the offseason about
how the Spurs front office is being a lot more
aggressive than some front offices might with a young player,

(46:31):
thinking I've got, you know, ten to fifteen years with
this guy, because you know, they're realistic that at age
thirty four thirty five. Can he be doing this? We'll
find out in ten plus years. But that said, I
mean he is just unicorn. Almost has been thrown out
there too often in sports. This guy is the true

(46:51):
definition of a unicorn. I've never seen anything like it.
And it's just amazing when he's down there in the post,
when he's got six inches on the center guarding him.

Speaker 8 (47:02):
But also he's got a great handle.

Speaker 4 (47:04):
I think the one thing about his game that you
could look at in question would just be and how
could you not for a guy who's seven to five
or maybe taller. He turned it over a lot he
did on Monday.

Speaker 2 (47:16):
I mean you can get physical with him for sure,
right yeah.

Speaker 4 (47:19):
Yeah, the physicality and then just you know, Durant figured
it out. He's seven foot not seventy five. But can
can a guy dribble at a seven five heights and
not get it swiped away all that often? But it's
nitpicking on what's going to be. I think an extraordinary
career for a player like we never really.

Speaker 1 (47:38):
Well and listen, I made the point on Tuesday. Pat
Pat Boylin is our guest Java House Peel and poor
guest line I made the point on Tuesday that it's
interesting you mentioned Rick Smitz because they you know, he
was sitting down the way they introduced him. In my
mind immediately raced to when Rick Smitz was a player,
and that seven foot four, his ability in nineteen ninety

(47:59):
eight to pop out and hit a ten to twelve
footer was almost an anomaly, you know. That was to
draw Patrick Ewing away from the low post was wow,
this is really, you know, transcendent stuff the pacers are
doing here. And yet I'm looking at it and I'm
going he would get three quarters the way down the
floor by the time Webb and Miyama was putting the

(48:20):
ball up.

Speaker 2 (48:21):
You know what I mean.

Speaker 1 (48:21):
I mean, it really is remarkable, just the evolution right
in the way that the game has gone. All right,
so let's go to the center position. I want to
focus there. Pat you mentioned it with Isaiah Jackson. Between
Isaiah Jackson obviously Jay Huff and as well James Wiseman.
I I'm still waiting, and I know it's very early

(48:41):
for one of these three to really separate themselves.

Speaker 2 (48:45):
Am I being too critical?

Speaker 9 (48:47):
No?

Speaker 4 (48:47):
I don't think you're being too critical. I think we're
all waiting, you know, for somebody to separate themselves. Albeit
you know, you come into this with a couple of
guys coming off of major injuries. So I think it's
more than fair to give them time to get their
legs underneath them.

Speaker 8 (48:59):
It is only three season games.

Speaker 4 (49:01):
This is you know, perhaps the process that could take
a few weeks with guys coming off significant injury.

Speaker 3 (49:06):
You know.

Speaker 4 (49:06):
The frustrating thing for Isaiah Jackson's last year was he
spent a lot of time, you know, as kind of
the third string center and coming in and filling in
spot minutes pretty nicely. I thought in the first couple
of years of his career, and last year was supposed
to be really the year that we saw what Isaiah
Jackson could do in a regular rotation. Spotty played five

(49:27):
games towards Achilles that never happened. I'm still fairly optimistic
for him. I think it's two early three preseason games
in to say, you know, he doesn't look like the
starting center of the Pacers need him to be. But
you know, at the end of the day, I'm not
sure necessarily the Pacers need somebody who's gonna as from
a starting center position come in and play thirty two minutes.

(49:49):
You know, I can imagine a scenario where if Isaiah Jackson,
you know, gets his gets his bounce underneath him and
kind of settles in. You know, are you getting twenty
to twenty five minutes from Jackson, maybe ten fifteen minutes
from Huff And then the other aspect at play here
in dynamic at play here is I don't think the
Pacers are going to have to have a center on
the floor for forty eight minutes. I think they can

(50:10):
play small ball as Obe topping at the five, small
ball at Pascal Siakam at the five. In fact, they
did a lot of that fairly successfully in the playoffs.
So I think we were talking on your show a
couple of weeks ago. When you look at Miles Turner
and Roy Hibbert, the Pacers for about seventeen years had
remarkable consistency in terms of you knew what your starting
center was going to be. For seventeen years, those guys

(50:33):
were the starting center for fifteen of them, and then
each of them a portion of another season where they
kind of platooned as the starting center. So this is
really hunique territory for Pacers fans to go into a
season and not be totally sure of who your starting
center is going to be. And in fact, when you
talk about Rick Smith, there's not a huge gap between
Rick Smith's days and Roy Hibbert's days. So the Pacers

(50:55):
have had remarkable consistency in that position. But I do
think it's certainly something where you're still looking for somebody
to separate themselves. And I think, you know, Rick Carlisle
goes into this with no preconceived notions about how it
should look. If that's Jay up at that Seams Wiseman,
even Tony Brady. You know, I don't think they're afraid
to mix and match for combinations there.

Speaker 1 (51:14):
Well, pat the thing to me that stands out, and
I have to keep resetting myself. I mean it's hard
because you know, I think about the loss of Miles Turner,
and we you know, at some point we're gonna have
to quit talking about the loss of Myles Turner.

Speaker 2 (51:27):
I get that, right, but we're.

Speaker 1 (51:30):
Still navigating through that and you almost forget that you're
going into a season with no Tyrese Haliburton, So you're like, okay, there,
does that allows for some flexibility of figuring things out
in other areas? Perhaps, but Miles Turner to me, and
I've made this point a lot on this show, he
was such an important part in terms of offensively being

(51:53):
kind of the center post that the ball went through,
in terms of that kind of weave offense that they run,
and then being able to obviously pop out and hit
a three if need be. Do they look for a
player or hope for a player that can replicate that
sort of style or does or do they say that's

(52:13):
what made Miles Turner unique, and we cannot rest on
trying to replicate that. We've got to reinvent the way
we're playing.

Speaker 4 (52:22):
I think it's probably a little bit of both. I
think for this season it's probably more of the latter. Now,
you're always open to potential trade talks and conversations and
things that could work. I mean, we know that from
Kevin Pritchard's perspective, he's always been an aggressive president and
general manager in terms of looking for trades and that
type of thing. But you know, I do think that

(52:42):
skill set is maybe the closest to Jay Huff. I mean,
he's a good perimeter player. I think he's a pretty
good screen setter, which actually Miles is never a great
screen setter, but you're right, he was the fulcrum of
the offense in those kind of dribble handoffs and pitches
between Hyre's Halliburt and Andrew m Hard remain stay of the offense.
Rick Carlisles talked about it a fair amount. You know,
there's an adjustment to the system around the players too.

(53:05):
It's not just forcing these players into a rigid system
and saying, Okay, well this works with Tyrese Halliburton and
Miles Turner, so we have to force it to work
with Andrew Nemhard and Isaiah Jackson. That's not what's going
to happen here. So there's tweets, there's adjustments, maybe even
some significant adjustments in that regard. You know, the flip
side of that is Miles Turner never played huge minutes.

(53:27):
He wasn't like a forty minutes per game guy, or
even a thirty five minute per game guy. So the
Pacers got used to playing plenty of minutes, especially last
year with the rash of unfortunate injuries.

Speaker 8 (53:38):
To Jackson and to Wiseman.

Speaker 4 (53:40):
You know, they got used to playing plenty of minutes
per game without Miles Turner on the floor.

Speaker 8 (53:44):
And still making it work.

Speaker 4 (53:45):
So you know, I think Jackson capable of that. I
think huff is capable of that. I haven't seen Wiseman
enough to know. And Bradley that's not his game. But look,
Tony Bradley got some NBA Finals minutes and bring some
positive to it.

Speaker 8 (54:00):
So you know, you've got four guys.

Speaker 2 (54:03):
I think they love Tony Bradley.

Speaker 1 (54:04):
Not to cut you off there, I think they love
Tony Bradley's rebounding physicality and that's I think Tony Bradley,
of those guys, is the one that is the most specified.
But he does something differently than everybody else in the
fact that he goes in and in there are games,
if there are games where they need to control glass,
that is his role and he knows that's his role,
and it is go in there and get boards and

(54:25):
d up right. I mean he he seems to me,
of the of those guys, to be the most quintessential
low block down here root player, would you agree with that,
no question.

Speaker 8 (54:36):
I mean what he is is defined.

Speaker 4 (54:38):
You know what Tony Bradley is, which is not the
guy that's going to step.

Speaker 8 (54:41):
Out and hit a couple of threes per game.

Speaker 4 (54:43):
But is those things that you just referenced, A good
rim protector, a good rebounder, And when you look at
this season coming up, when you don't have Tyry Caliburton,
you know Miles Turner is not.

Speaker 8 (54:53):
Available to you anymore. Where are areas?

Speaker 4 (54:56):
Okay, those are a couple of significant losses, sure, and
certainly in Halliburn's case, But where are areas maybe that
new players can find some advantages that maybe Halliburton and
Turner can't, and specifically Turner here. Rick Carlisle has been
quite optimistic that the Pacers are going to be a
better rebounding team. And we know that Miles Turner. I
was a big Miles Turner fan when he was here.
I thought he brought so much that he didn't always

(55:17):
get credit for, but rebounding was always a problem spot
for him. Well, I don't know if Tony Bradley is
even going to.

Speaker 8 (55:25):
Make the roster.

Speaker 4 (55:26):
I mean, it's a fascinating preseason in training camp because
of that. You know, I can't remember when things felt
this open and this fluid.

Speaker 8 (55:34):
At a couple of positions.

Speaker 4 (55:35):
But if Bradley makes this roster, I think part of
the argument is, you know, he's a. He's a good rebounder,
and this team feels like they can rebound better and probably,
you know, to be Frank is going to need to
rebound better than they did last year to make up
for some of the things that they lost. And and
there's no question that Bradley's good there and he's solid,

(55:55):
and you know what you're getting night in and night out, and.

Speaker 8 (55:58):
There's there's certain there's a certain.

Speaker 10 (56:00):
Advantage to having a player like that, no question, Pat
is it going to be tough for Indiana after this
season because I think and I know it's early again,
but clearly they are going to have offensive sets that
are going to run through Benedict mather Now, I know
that Rick Carlisle has said that Matherin is at his
best when he's kind of allowing offensive flow to dictate
his shots.

Speaker 1 (56:20):
But he is going to be a centerpiece and perhaps
even their leading scorer. I know Siakam obviously is a
big part of that as well. But then to have
to retweak that again once Halliburton comes back. How do
you see that Yin and Yang playing out?

Speaker 4 (56:38):
Yeah, I think first and foremost you're hoping for the
type of season from Benedict Matherin that when Tyree Halliburton
does come back, that you're saying, Okay, the development and
growth that Matherin got in twenty five to twenty six
without Tyree Halliburton was tough, but ultimately it perhaps led
to a level of growth, but maybe he couldn't have

(56:58):
gotten to otherwise. I mean, I think big picture here
is I zoom out on your question a little bit.
That's kind of my hope for this entire season. Look,
I'm not putting any ceiling on what the team can accomplish,
because if you would have done that each of the
last two years.

Speaker 8 (57:11):
I don't think many.

Speaker 4 (57:11):
People tall what happened happened. So I'm not doing that.
But I do think you look at the season and
you say, Okay, if the Pacers in a few years
from now down the road can have the level of
success that they're hoping to, maybe even win a championship,
can they look back at the twenty five to twenty
sixth season as a growth season.

Speaker 8 (57:30):
That helped lead to that.

Speaker 4 (57:31):
And when you take it from that premise, Benedict Matherin
to me is the guy that jumps out the most
in you know that concept, And I think I think
it's a big year for him to figure those things
out at a higher level so that when Tyrese Halliburton
comes back, it's not the adjustment that you know, if

(57:51):
it might potentially be. I think if various he's improved upon.
I think he's quicker from a decision making perspective, I
think if it's processing and trending in the right direction.
But I think he has a lot of growth there.
And I think the two way game of his will
be really important. Andrew Nemhard might not be able to
defend the best player on the floor like he did

(58:14):
this past year because they're going to need to ask
him to do a lot more offensively. So benette' matherin
then gets a much bigger spotlight on the defensive end potentially,
you know, Aarony Smith obviously will play a significant role
there too, And can he have the type of growth
defensively and then from a decision making perspective and a
ball movement perspective that makes the rest of his team work.

(58:36):
I think it's a huge storyline here for twenty five
to twenty six.

Speaker 1 (58:39):
You know, and it's interesting you mentioned the point and
you know neim Hard and running the offense and defensively,
and you know all the balance of that. TJ McConnell
comes into play there in terms of being able to
spell at that position as well. But I'm going to
make a statement and then Pat Boyl, and I want
you to critique for me how off base the statement is.
Because I'm wrong about you know, eight percent of the

(59:01):
time of things that I say. So I want you
to tell me if I'm wrong here. Okay, TJ McConnell
in coming off injury here in the preseason, you treat
it with kid gloves and you take as much time
as possible to get him back, partially because of the
fact that it is a season that you can perhaps
see what other players can do in that area, and

(59:24):
also partially because he is such a critically important piece
for them from an energy standpoint that because of his age,
you want to wait and preserve some of that for
when Halliburton comes out and not put too many miles
on it this year.

Speaker 2 (59:39):
Your thoughts, I.

Speaker 4 (59:41):
Think the general concept there is absolutely accurate. There's no
reason to try to rush TJ McConnell back until he
is one hundred percent and risk any sort of extra
injury and that's never really been, you know, something that
the Pacers have done. They've almost always been cautious in
these type of scenarios for that exact reason. I think
the two reasons you bring up are potentially valid. And

(01:00:03):
the other one, you know, for this year is that
without Tyree Halliburton, when you lose another point guard like
they currently have with TJ McConnell, he will not be
available for the season opener. And the last we've heard
from him was Rick Carlisle saying, you know, we'll talk
again November ninths, because it was October ninth when he
announced that he would be out for probably about a

(01:00:24):
month and said we'll talk again November nine. So he's
going to potentially miss, you know, upwards of ten games
with this hamstring injury. And then you look at your
point guard depth and maybe your strongest, deepest position is
now potentially a little bit in peril. You've got Andrew
nem Hart. It was as solid as they come. But

(01:00:44):
after that you're looking at you know, Cameron Payne, who's
a NBA vet and been a point guard for a
long time in this league, about ten years. You know,
you've got Quinton Jackson, although he suffered a recent injury
ray J.

Speaker 3 (01:00:56):
Dennis.

Speaker 4 (01:00:57):
You've got players in there who are potentially intrigued, maybe
even a little bit of talent Peter. But that's, you know,
from from an expectations perspective, that's very different than going
from Tyreese Halliburton to Andrew nem Hart to TJ McConnell.
So the other reason why I think that's accurate is
because you can't risk pushing him back too early and

(01:01:17):
then having him sustain a longer injury that keeps him
out this year. I think the Pacers from a depth
and a point guard perspective are just fine, but if
they start to suffer more injuries, I think the margin
for error in terms of injuries is a lot less
than it was last year. So you know, I was
on a podcast yesterday and I said, if I could

(01:01:39):
wave a magic wand and grant one Pacers player health
this year, my question is undoubtedly androinem Hart because I
think it's the most important player in terms of the
position that.

Speaker 8 (01:01:49):
They need to be healthy.

Speaker 4 (01:01:50):
If they lose him, you know, then they're really in
a challenging situation. Along those similar lines, you know, they're
going to need TJ. McConnell to be healthy for a
vast major of this season. So if he's not out
there for the first handful of games, you figure it
out in the meantime, but you get him back to
one hundred percent because it's obvious how impactful and important
he is on this team. We just saw it last year.

Speaker 1 (01:02:11):
Pat, most importantly Red Panda back this year, do we know?

Speaker 4 (01:02:15):
I thought I saw something that she is she's getting
back into the flow of things.

Speaker 8 (01:02:20):
I think that answer is yes.

Speaker 2 (01:02:21):
Okay, well, we'll look forward to it.

Speaker 1 (01:02:23):
You know how I am with the halftime shows right likewise, Yeah,
that's the gold standard with that question. All right, Pacers
and Spurs. That is going to be tomorrow night, eight o'clock.
You can hear that right here on this radio station,
Pat Boyling, along with of course Mark Boyle and the
Pacers Radio Network Eddie Gale also, I assume going to
be on that broadcast tomorrow night, right Pat, Yes, sir,

(01:02:44):
all right, we appreciate the time as always, Pat, have
a good weekend and chirp, chirp, good.

Speaker 2 (01:02:48):
Luck to your cards.

Speaker 4 (01:02:50):
He thanks you.

Speaker 1 (01:02:50):
Good to talk to you, Pat Boyle and joining us
on the progress. Speaking of this weekend. It is cults
out in LA taking on the Chargers.

Speaker 2 (01:02:58):
Corborn.

Speaker 1 (01:02:58):
I don't know if you happen to have the like
a little thing of peanuts or if you're going with
the cookies, but we are going to go ahead and
hop on a bird and take a road trip. Right,
wouldn't be a road trip. If we're in a plane,
it's a plane trip. But nonetheless, we're gonna go out
to LA. We will get the Chargers viewpoint on things.
We'll do it with the voice of the Chargers, and
we'll do it next. We'll be taking the road trip

(01:03:19):
about to Los Angeles coming up just a couple of
minutes from now. Matt money Smith is the radio play
by play voice of the LA Chargers, and we'll get
a preview of their health standpoint in addition to just
overall strengths and weaknesses of the Chargers as the Colts
get set to take on one of the better teams

(01:03:41):
in the AFC. Another good test and one that, as
I'd mentioned at the beginning of the year, you looked
at and probably thought it was a daunting task. Now
perhaps the Chargers seeing that of Indianapolis. We'll check in
just a couple of minutes from now when we board. Hey, Jake,
this from the text line in your view, this comes
from Jacob, not me, but a different guy named Jake.

(01:04:03):
Do you think the Pacers revived a once dead way
to play basketball? It seems these days it's so individualized.
Everyone is so worried about getting theirs and not enough
about every player on the team. I do think the
pace in which the Pacers played last year definitely kind
of turned the NBA on its ear. Now in terms
of positionless basketball, there was less isolation with the Pacers,

(01:04:25):
and what was interesting to me was once they acquired
Pascal Siakam. You know, I had concern at that point
that Siakam would be too much like just the ball
slowing down on the block because he is an isolation
type player. But they were able to, really I thought,
kind of masterfully balance that with moving the ball around.

(01:04:47):
The answer, Jake, to your question, I believe is yes,
I think the rest of the NBA, in terms of
the pace of ball movement, because the NBA, to your
point of individualized, became so dependent upon player isolation, and
really the Pacers only have one guy that plays within

(01:05:08):
that style, and so as a result of that. I
do think the Pacers and the rest of the league
will look at the way they played the pace and
the ball movement. I mean, I go back to their offense.
It's like that Butler used to kind of run a
similar thing, like a high weave, where they would kind
of mix the ball around and.

Speaker 2 (01:05:31):
Get things going and space things out.

Speaker 1 (01:05:34):
And yeah, I think it's entirely possible that that is
something that you'll start to see more of within the NBA.
Copycat league. All leagues are. All leagues are a copycat league. Hey, Jake,
quit talking about Anthony Richardson. You told your Magnet story
like four days in a row. It was an accident
with bad equipment. It sucks that it happened. He is

(01:05:56):
here at least until his contract is up, which is
at the end of next season. Maybe he walks. Then
I look at it now that he is, like he's
a senior in college, and I'm really glad the Colts
signed Daniel Jones. All of that's fair, totally fair. This
I disagree with. Anthony Richardson is still the Colts future.
I totally disagree with that, completely disagree with the Colt's

(01:06:18):
future part. We're having some technical difficulties in terms of
connecting with Matt money Smith. So we will try to
do that shortly here and talk with the voice of
the Rams.

Speaker 5 (01:06:34):
But the.

Speaker 2 (01:06:36):
You know is Richardson the future.

Speaker 1 (01:06:39):
We went over that earlier and I realized at this point,
I think that handwriting's on the wall. I think at
this point all you have to do is essentially listen
to Shane Steichen because he preaches the same thing over
and over, and it's almost like each time Shane's tyken

(01:07:01):
is asked, he is re emphasizing and revalidating his decision
to have gone away from Anthony Richardson and go with
Daniel Jones. Now, Corbyn, did you say that we're still
having some technical difficulties.

Speaker 3 (01:07:21):
Yes, we are, okay.

Speaker 1 (01:07:23):
And so at two nine, ten seventy I was going
because I told here's the thing. I'm convinced of this.
I'd like for the world to know I'm convinced of this.
I said today was going to be because last night
I was up till the wee hours. I'm staring at
the ceiling at three forty eight in the morning thinking
to myself, Okay, if I fall asleep right now, then

(01:07:44):
I can get you. If you're an insomniac, you know
what I'm talking about. You start racing the clock, You
start staring at the clock, and you are thinking to
yourself like, Okay, now I haven't fall asleep yet, but
if I fall, I'll get three hours if I follow
asleep starting right now. Okay, two and a half hours
if you do this all night, right well, last night,

(01:08:07):
I'm laying there and I'm just going through in my
mind the literally the joys and celebration. Every time I
start to doze off, I get hit with this jolt
of energy, this little burst of euphoria of reliving the

(01:08:29):
glorious night that was my Toronto Blue Jays, the brain
droppings happening all night, and the Toronto Blue Jays. I mean,
I've been a diehard fan now for almost seven weeks,
and I'm all in and Alejandro Kirk comes up and
hits a home run and he's running around the bases

(01:08:49):
and that alone is a joy to watch. And it
just was NonStop, right So I'm thinking. I'm sitting there
and I'm thinking to myself, I'm like, you know, I'm
really fascinated by this Indiana football story, and I'm intrigued
by the Pacers taking on San Antonio tomorrow night in
San Antonio, and I am fascinated as well by the

(01:09:17):
Colts and Daniel Jones and the way he's playing and
this literally, and we'll never know whether Jones was signed
because they really thought this was going to happen, or
simply because they thought it was in their best interest
to protect themselves from Anthony Richardsony.

Speaker 2 (01:09:37):
I don't know, or push him.

Speaker 1 (01:09:38):
Whatever, but he's playing well, He's playing at a darn
near MVP level. And through all of that, I'm thinking, Okay,
now it's it's four to two, and if I fall
asleep right now, I'll get and finally, then I eventually
start to punt. Okay, and I go and I'm watching

(01:09:58):
this cocaine quarter back documentary on Prime or one of these,
about a volleyball player at USC that then became like
a steroid dealer. And then next thing I know, he's
basically two to from blow and he's just like running
around and he's the wild Wild West in the Pete
Carroll USC football era. So as I'm watching that, and

(01:10:23):
I'm thinking to myself, Okay, now if I go to
bed now, i'll get two hours and then I thought, well,
I'll just do an interactive Thursday. Now that's not to
say it's a bailout when you do sports talk radio,
of like, maybe I should, but I get it. People
want to hear less of me. I totally get it.
More of you, less of me, I get it. But
I feel almost like it's Anthony Richardson, brace yourself here,

(01:10:50):
a magnet to the bazaar, because on an interactive Thursday,
then we have and I get it, it happens, not
a big deal technical difficulties, but we can't interact. So
that's the one challenge, right, that's certainly the one challenge.

(01:11:11):
But we'll work it out and we will see what
does happen. The most intriguing story in the NFL not
named Indianapolis when you look at it right now, the
fact that in two thousand and eight the NFL standings
essentially reflected exactly what we see currently almost exactly New England, Indianapolis,
the Chargers, and as well Pittsburgh. Those were your divisional leaders,

(01:11:35):
like on this week back in two thousand and eight,
and it is you know, history repeats itself, right, But
there are other things that are that raise your eyebrow
A little bit like, for example, who's the next coach
to be fired? One would think, And I thought they

(01:11:56):
went a little early on Callahan and Tennessee. Notably because
and it's good news, I guess for the Colts, but
notably because the.

Speaker 2 (01:12:08):
When you get a young quarterback.

Speaker 11 (01:12:11):
One of the.

Speaker 1 (01:12:14):
Underrated things that happened in this town. And I love
Chuck Pegano, love him, and Chuck Pegano is a heck
of a man and a good football coach, but he
was and I think that we oftentimes forget this. Chuck

(01:12:36):
Pegana was a rookie coach. Andrew Luck comes in and
you have everything starting from scratch, right and very early
in the tenure of Andrew Luck. And I'm not saying
Andrew Luck was a different cat. Andrew Luck was wired differently.

(01:12:57):
Andrew Luck was built differently. Andrew Luck was everything intellectually, differently, physical,
all of it. Andrew Luck was a different cat. And
when Andrew Luck, no matter where he was going to go,
Andrew Luck could have gone into literally an expansion franchise
that had nothing to be to work and he would

(01:13:18):
have been okay because he just was different. But even
with that, you still with a rookie quarterback want to
put everything around him to build up and give them
the right footing and get them going in the right direction.
And when you look, for example, at Anthony Richardson, Anthony

(01:13:41):
Richardson had a lot of growth to do and had
a lot of development to be had, but he never
got you could make the argument the right footing around
him initially here and it's just kind of been up
and down since cam Ward in Nashville, Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville,

(01:14:04):
when Andrew Luck came here, what we forget and what
is a little bit uncomfortable to mention, but its reality
is that when he started out here, Chuck Peganto got ill.
Thank goodness, and thank not only for his health standpoint
Chuck Pegano, but also the fabulous work that he has
done to impact, effect and inspire other people who have

(01:14:26):
gone through the same leukemia journey that he did. But
when that happened, it meant that now Andrew Luck suddenly
has as his head coach Bruce Arians, who had been
a quarterback whisper, who had been a coach around the
league for a long time, who had been a head coach.

(01:14:46):
Actually I can't recall at that point if he'd been
a head coach yet but was grooming to become one
for certain, But it had been Peyton Manning's first quarterback coach,
Bruce Arians, who had been around and just had this
overall confidence about him and everything. Every ball that year
bounced the way of the Colts, and it gave Andrew

(01:15:07):
luck foundation. And if you look at cam Ward and
I say this only because they're in the Colts Division,
and the Colts now not once but twice perhaps have
dodged bullets in terms of being able to get out
of the way of a team that has a number
one overall pick prospect. And cam wod may turn out

(01:15:28):
to be a fabulous player. But Trevor Lawrence in Jacksonville,
most people, myself included, thought for certain, this was the
second coming of Peyton Manning. And he had every single thing.
He had size, he had touch, he had range, he
had mobility, he had legs, he had speed.

Speaker 3 (01:15:46):
All of it.

Speaker 1 (01:15:46):
Trevor Lawrence and he comes out of college, he goes
to Jacksonville and it's a total disaster.

Speaker 2 (01:15:52):
You've got urban Meyer, You've got this.

Speaker 1 (01:15:54):
You know, he's staying back and he's not getting on
the plane and all kinds of stuff, right, and just
a disaster and Trevor Lawrence. It never got going and
still still Jacksonville is paying the price for that. So
cam Ward comes in now as a rookie and through
six games he's already got a coaching change. I was

(01:16:17):
stunned that Tennessee did that this early. There are other
coaches that you look at and you say, okay, like Miami,
and again I realize it's all cyclical. I realize that
it's one of those things that you're like, you know,
two years ago, Mike McDaniel was this genius, he was

(01:16:39):
this boy wonder right, he was Nate from Ted Lasso,
And now he's sitting there and he's struggling to hang on,
and it seems almost a certainty. Literally, the biggest race
right now is not just Miami and the Jets to
see which one finishes last in the AFC East, but
also which one's going to be looking for a new

(01:17:00):
coach first. The Jets have been terrible. I'm not saying
they have a lot of talent, but they look completely
unorganized and sloppy, and those are that's probably right now
outside of Indianapolis. The biggest question mark in terms of
what happens moving forward in the NFL, of which one's

(01:17:23):
next looking for a coach? Which ones is it going
to be. We'll try to get back with Matt Smith,
by the way, get the Charger standpoint of things. Right now,
the plane's still at the gate. That much we know
planes at the gate. They're not de icing, but they've
just called out. They've got to maintenance, got to take
a quick look at something, and then we'll get it
back going. But back into the NBA, we do it next.

(01:17:51):
Did I say Matt Smith is the voice of the Rams.
I will confuse that ten thousand times. Admittedly, Rams and
Chargers obviously know he's the voice of the Chargers. But
when I think LA, I still think RAM.

Speaker 2 (01:18:04):
Now I don't.

Speaker 1 (01:18:05):
It's weird because I don't think San Diego Chargers per se.
But when I think La, Rams is the first thing
that comes to mind right off the top of my head.
I mean, they both are blue and yellow, they both
got the yellow thing going across the helmet, they're both
in LA, and now they play in the same stadium.
I'll get this confused until the end of time. I'm

(01:18:25):
going to be completely screwed when I'm older and I'm
having like some sort of cognitive issue and they're giving
me some sort of cognitive exam and they're like, well,
just ask him the simple question of which team plays
in LA.

Speaker 2 (01:18:35):
I'm like, oh, man, which one? And I'm going to
confuse it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:38):
I'm going to be completely like as I was at
fifty three, but I'm going to confuse it, no.

Speaker 2 (01:18:42):
Question about it.

Speaker 1 (01:18:43):
Pacers in Action tonight tomorrow night, or excuse me, Pacers
and Action tomorrow night.

Speaker 2 (01:18:48):
Uh. Taking on the Spurs down in San Antonio.

Speaker 11 (01:18:52):
And the.

Speaker 2 (01:18:57):
Thing that's.

Speaker 1 (01:19:00):
Interesting to watch because it's preseason and I've never really
gotten much into preseason, but this year there is just
so much question about what they do roster wise and furthermore,
what they do stylistically. And you know, they've had already,

(01:19:22):
I think a couple of players that you look at
and it's very easy. Taylan Peter by the way, you know,
they're he has a Ben Shephard type feel about him.
Their draft pick from this year. And I don't mean
that in the fact because they both came from, you know,
a smaller school and they are guys that got a

(01:19:46):
little bit overlooked and have the ability to hit an
open shot or a knockdown three if left open, and
yet they also can defend a rebound. And you know
Cam Jones, we haven't seen yet who was their first
pick this year in the draft because of injury. But
Peter I think has played. He looks like a Ben
Shepherd player in terms of and this might be the

(01:20:09):
same situation that took place with Jerfs Walker and Ben Shephard.
You know Ben Shephard when those two came in, just
based on rotation and other such things, Ben Shephard was
getting minutes before Jerris Walker, and I think it was

(01:20:29):
hard for Jeris Walker. I think it was hard for
Jeris Walker to rotate in and to see those minutes
be taken by Ben Sheppard. But we'll see what happens
with Cam Jones now and Talon Peter, did you say
we have Matt Corman?

Speaker 2 (01:20:43):
Is that what you said?

Speaker 1 (01:20:44):
Yes, we do, joining us now on the Joba House
Peel and poor guest Line and his patients is greatly appreciated.
Matt Smith is the radio play by play voice of
the Los Angeles Chargers, and I made specific notes to
say Chargers there because I still have that block with
Argers and Rams.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
Matt. First off, man, how are you thanks for joining us?

Speaker 11 (01:21:04):
That's funny, like it's usually the opposite.

Speaker 9 (01:21:06):
It's not Chargers Rams in Los Angeles, it's San Diego,
Los Angeles. Yes, tepically right, for sure, get it wrong. Yeah,
no worry on the patients. I'm just sitting on the
one ten nightmare making my way over to Dodger Stadium.

Speaker 11 (01:21:18):
So all good.

Speaker 1 (01:21:19):
Oh listen, man, that means you've got You've gone what
probably two miles in the last forty five minutes or
something like that.

Speaker 11 (01:21:27):
It's not too bad.

Speaker 9 (01:21:29):
It's I'm coming from the Chargers facility in Elsa, Gundos,
not to get who cares about logistics, But yes, I've
just hit the log jam. I was cruising for a
while and now I'm staring at downtown and yeah, it's
gonna take a while.

Speaker 3 (01:21:40):
Yeah.

Speaker 1 (01:21:40):
Here's what's interesting. So we anticipated that the cold season
was going to look like rush hour on the one ten,
and the fact that we didn't know, you know, how
it was going to go, and yet lo and behold
the ways has been good for them because they're off
to the start that is surprising. And the Chargers is
a matchup that from the get go I thought was
going to be a challenge for them. I really like

(01:22:01):
Justin Herbert, but from the outside it seems as though
LA has had problems at times protecting him. Is that
too nuanced a statement to make?

Speaker 9 (01:22:11):
No, not at all, And they wouldn't have had any
problems protecting him had they not been dealing with these
catastrophic injuries across that front, because Zion has really turned
into a heck of a guard after struggling his first
three seasons. And they signed Mackay Beckton, who when he's
out there is fantastic. Then you got Slater an alt
on the outside, and man, you got yourself a conversation

(01:22:34):
for the best O line in the league. Unfortunately, you know,
Rashaan Slater and all Pro is gone in training camp,
Joe All you know, gets rolled up on in the
New York game. And now you're on literally tackles six
and seven. They're backups. Trey Pipkins and Jamari Sawyer were
out last week, so you're on Austin deculis, a practice
squad tackle, and Bobby Hart, who they signed the practice

(01:22:56):
squad about two weeks ago and hasn't started a game since.
Twenty twenty one, we're out there on Sunday, So that's
that's certainly what's led to it. They've had to adjust
the way, you know, this offense not looking like we
think it should look, and a lot lot of these
deep shots taken advantage of all that strength that Herbert
has in that right arm of his.

Speaker 1 (01:23:17):
You know, it's interesting when you look at, for example,
Matt the way that they distribute the ball through the
air with Justin Herbert, it seems as though from a
receiving standpoint that they've got a pretty balanced core of players.
Is that because Herbert has the ability to create extent
and go through his reads and get to a second

(01:23:38):
and third check or is it by design of Jim
Harbaugh to consistently keep defenses guessing as to where they're going.

Speaker 9 (01:23:46):
Yeah, I think it's probably a product of just the roster.
You know, last year it was pretty much Lad and
almost nothing else. And even when teams were doubling in
the playoff game, even triple teaming Lad, he's still, you know,
against Houston, even though it was a mess of a game,
put up one hundred and ninety seven yards in a touchdown.
This year is much more similar to what we've seen
in the past, like his rookie year when favorite people

(01:24:09):
in all of football, Shane Steichen was his offensive coordinator.

Speaker 11 (01:24:12):
He just threw to who was open.

Speaker 9 (01:24:14):
And even though he had Keenan Allen and Mike Williams
on the team, at the end of the year, you
look at the stats and you're like, who's Tyron Williams
And why does he have four hundred and fifty yards
and three touchdowns? Who's Jalen Dighton and why does he
have four hundred yards and three touchdowns?

Speaker 11 (01:24:27):
Like that's just the way Herbert's always been.

Speaker 9 (01:24:29):
If you're open, as long as you don't drop the
ball and you don't mess with you know, kind of
what he thinks you're supposed what you're supposed to be doing,
and where he's going to throw it, you're going to
get the ball. And I think that's like we just
saw this last week right where Tyler Conklin was getting
snaps and now arodde Gadsden, fifth round rookie out of Syracuse,
has just kind of stepped in there. He fumbles on
the first reception, turns it over to Miami, but he's,

(01:24:51):
you know, trying to get a first down and extend
the play and the guy ends up with eight more targets,
seven more catches, and seventy more yards just because Herbert's
if you're open, I'm to you.

Speaker 11 (01:25:00):
That's just kind of the way he's always operated.

Speaker 1 (01:25:01):
And that's the tight end position you speak of there,
which has become for Indianapolis. You know, Tyler Warren just
solves so many things, Matt in terms of when you
get a tight end that you can line up in
different spots, right, then you can take advantage of a
defense or stretch of defense out defensively, what will Daniel
Jones see informs of the Chargers and what is their

(01:25:25):
strength and their deficiency?

Speaker 9 (01:25:27):
Well, I think the hope is that what he sees
isn't what it is. That's sort of what jesse Minner's
secret sauce is, right. It's a lot of simulated pressures.
It's a lot of thinking what you see is what
it's going to be, and it's not the one issue
that they've had is for whatever reason this year and
it was not the case last year. Last year when

(01:25:47):
they were the best scoring defense in football seventeen to
six a game, and they were top ten.

Speaker 11 (01:25:52):
And every metric.

Speaker 9 (01:25:53):
They were sound tacklers, and they were good against the run,
really good against the run.

Speaker 11 (01:25:58):
This year, they I don't know what's.

Speaker 9 (01:26:01):
Going on, if it's injury or if for whatever it
just different personnel because some people left last year.

Speaker 11 (01:26:09):
They have had just way.

Speaker 9 (01:26:10):
Too many mistackles and that obviously is a big concern
against the Colts because of what Jonathan Taylor can do
and then how that opens up play action and especially
you know, the physicality you mentioned Tyler Warren, like, this
is a team you'd better be able to tackle or
else they're going to punish you.

Speaker 11 (01:26:25):
In terms of the.

Speaker 9 (01:26:25):
Colts, and so I think that's that's the one thing
they have to get cleaned up. Typically, the scheme is sound,
the players are usually in the right places. We've seen
a little bit more of that this year that we
didn't see last year. You know, the Darren Waller touchdown
last week is a perfect example of passing a guy
off to nobody.

Speaker 11 (01:26:42):
That hasn't happened a lot.

Speaker 9 (01:26:43):
But I think ultimately it's it probably unless the Chargers
change some things that we've seen in the last three
four games, it lines up okay for the Colts because
this run defense with the absence of Khalil Mack, with
the absence of Denzel Paraman has gotten real leaking in
a hurry. Now Paramans should be back out there. The linebacker.
I know he's not a big name, but he's a thumper.

(01:27:05):
He's exceptional at finding the right run fit and making
it happen and so and Khalil Max started practicing yesterday.
I don't think he's going to be out there. I
go a long way, long term for them to get
this thing fixed. But as far as this Sunday is concerned,
I just you know, you'd have to say, based on
what we've seen with a Chan last week with Crosskey Merat,

(01:27:27):
the week before, with Skataboo and Darth the week before,
as you know, teams have been able to run on them.

Speaker 1 (01:27:32):
Matt money Smith is our guest. He's on the Joba House,
Peel and Port Guest Line. He is the radio voice
of the Los Angeles Chargers. Matt Jim Harbaugh was very
complimentary of his time with Jim irsay. He had very
nice things to say about the Lake Colts owner. What
sort of I guess I'll use the word attitude or
just tone. Has Jim Harbaugh been able to bring to

(01:27:54):
the Chargers since becoming their head coach.

Speaker 11 (01:27:57):
Uh winn. I think that's number one and toughness and winning.

Speaker 9 (01:28:01):
You know, it's he is so good at getting players
to believe in what he's selling, and I think that's,
you know, such an underrated skill for a head coach.
It's like, Hey, I'm sending you out onto this field
in a plastic outfit and asking you to commit random

(01:28:22):
matt will not random, but designed acts of violence.

Speaker 11 (01:28:25):
Will you do it for me? And I think you know,
with coaches in the.

Speaker 9 (01:28:28):
Past, we've seen some guys are like, no, no, I
won't because I don't believe in and what you have
us doing, where the positions you're putting us in, and
that this is necessarily in our best interest.

Speaker 11 (01:28:39):
With Harbaugh, he is all about his players.

Speaker 9 (01:28:42):
He is all about like you will never hear him
say a bad word about anyone regardless of how you know,
how many challenges they make, challenges they may have had
in the game prior, but appreciate that he walks in
that door and it's like, hey, I understand that there's
a verb out there called chargering that has nothing to
do with me. Okay, I'm a winner. I win everywhere

(01:29:04):
I go. I just won a national championship at Michigan.
I went to a super Bowl in San Francisco. I
took an afterthought of a program at San Diego made
him relevant, and then I was.

Speaker 11 (01:29:14):
So good at Stanford.

Speaker 9 (01:29:15):
I ran off Pete Carroll to the NFL, like I win,
so follow my lead, and I think that's what they needed.
You know, they're so talented with Derwin James and Justin Herbert, Like,
these guys are so talented, find ways to lose games.
So I think that's more than anything what he was
able to bring to this team and just say, let's

(01:29:37):
go win games.

Speaker 11 (01:29:38):
You're plenty good enough.

Speaker 2 (01:29:40):
And he should have taken the Colts to the super Bowl.

Speaker 1 (01:29:42):
But Cordel Stewart got credit for a touchdown when he
stepped out of bounds ahead of time.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
But that's you know, been thirty years, so we can
let that go, all right.

Speaker 1 (01:29:48):
Lastly, we have a mutual friend, as you know in
my buddy track dude Michael Young, who calls turn three
the eighty five hundred or turn two, and I'm in
turn three, so Michael throws it to me. He tells
me that he knows you because back when he was
a rock DJ, you were a record label like promoter
basically for a record company. Fact or fiction In terms of.

Speaker 9 (01:30:11):
That one hundred percent fact, Em Young is one of
my absolute favorite guys on the face of the earth.
We've remained friends despite me not being in the record
business since two thousand and five, is when I made
the transition to sports. Yet we still see each other
whenever I go to Indy and I go a lot
to call Big ten tournament basketball, or whenever he comes here.

(01:30:35):
Track dude, as people know him, is just an awesome guy.
And he was a pain.

Speaker 11 (01:30:41):
I'll say it. I'll put it this way.

Speaker 9 (01:30:43):
He was a pain in my ass while also being
one of my best partners and getting my.

Speaker 11 (01:30:48):
Records play it.

Speaker 1 (01:30:49):
That's exactly correct, right, It's like.

Speaker 11 (01:30:52):
It's both sides.

Speaker 1 (01:30:53):
Imagine this. Imagine having to wait for him to have
the brevity of making a radio call in eleven second
before he drops it to you, and having him actually
get it within eleven seconds.

Speaker 11 (01:31:03):
Right.

Speaker 1 (01:31:04):
So here, let me ask you this, in your time
doing that, give me the band, give me the musical
act that when you look back on it, you most
aggressively tried to promote or get played on radio that
you were constantly selling.

Speaker 2 (01:31:17):
Which one comes to mind?

Speaker 9 (01:31:21):
I think the one I had the most belief in
was was Jimmy World. The guys were just such good dudes,
and they worked so hard, and so I wanted it
so badly for them, and I just thought the middle
and sweetness and that they were just like yeah, that
there were just like five or six hits on that record,

(01:31:41):
and I was like, there's no way we're not going
to have this work, oh, neighbor, that that was going
to be their single.

Speaker 11 (01:31:57):
It was aren't like this bundle up?

Speaker 2 (01:32:04):
Okay, I hate saying it. I appreciate the time for Matt.

Speaker 1 (01:32:07):
Unfortunately, Jimmy E World did kind of work, and then
at the very last second that our connection did not,
but certainly appreciate the time. Matt money Smith, the voice
of the Chargers, joining us here on the program. We
will take a break, we'll come back. We may or
may not have Matt Taylor bottom of the hour, but
we'll get back into in fact, a couple of key injuries,

(01:32:29):
and thank you to Matt again for a time. Couple
of key injuries for the Colts that we need to
take a look towards, including one that popped up yesterday
to miss some time that is critical and a bit
of a surprise. We'll get into it next there it
is Jimmy World the Middle. Thanks to Matt money Smith
for joining us on the program. Also, before we get

(01:32:52):
into the Colts injury report, let me give a glimpse
behind the curtain here and a tip of the cap.
So I have always said, take whatever your favorite team is, Corbyn,
give me a locally Pacers culture favorite team, which one
Colts Colts?

Speaker 2 (01:33:13):
Okay?

Speaker 1 (01:33:14):
So for the Colts, Ashton Doolan is my one of
my quariisms of the copier guy. And I know that
I've mentioned before what the copier guy means. The copier
guy is not the character from Saturday Night Live of
Rob Schneider, like hey, making copies. The copier guy is
the person in any business that you walk down the

(01:33:37):
hallway and there's the big, huge copy machine and I
don't know what's going on now with you know, I
used to it used to be great when you just
sit down a piece of paper, you get a button,
and there's your copy. Now it's like it's warming up.
Would you like to do this in PDF form? Or regular.
Are you faxing this or sending it? Are you scanning it?
Would you like this in color? How big a piece

(01:33:57):
of paper would you like? Do you want it zoomed in?
Would you like them map included? I just need a copy.
But nonetheless, you walk past the copy machine and everybody's
standing around and you're like, what's going on here? Somebodayes
I don't know the copier is not working. The copier
guy or gal is the person in any office that
someone then says, well, call them. They'll know how to

(01:34:20):
fix it because they know how to do everything. They're
like Mikey with life Cereal. They know how to do everything.
And every business needs the copier guy or gal. Ashton
Doolan is the copier guy for the colts, no matter
what they need him to do. Seemingly he's ready and willing,
and you just feel like, so long as he's on
the roster, you're in good shape. You're in good shape

(01:34:41):
because Ashton Doolan is literally it's like all State. You're
in good hands with him. You just know he's going
to deliver in whatever it is you need done. For
the pacers standpoint, the copier guy, I think probably is
aaron Ne Smith. You need somebody to come in and
hit threes to bail you out of the game in
New York, Aaron no problem. You need somebody to lock

(01:35:01):
down somebody defensively, no problem. You need a couple of
late free throws, aaron Nie Smith, no problem. Copy your guy.
Something goes wrong, where's Aaron Nee Smith. He'll probably be
able to take care of it. And today has been
one of those days.

Speaker 2 (01:35:15):
And it happens.

Speaker 1 (01:35:15):
It's not I mean, you know, it happens in any
walk of life. Where we had, we've had and continue
to have some technical difficulties behind the scenes of the
radio station, it happens. And so I'm doing I'm sitting
here and I know that we're supposed to have Matt
Money Smith on the radio voice of the Chargers, who

(01:35:36):
you just heard. Now when we have guests on this
show on the Java House Peel and poor guest line,
then obviously it's via the telephone. And this within the
building today there's some sort of an outage I don't
think having anything to do with anybody in this building
where we have a phone outage. So we all of

(01:35:57):
a sudden realize in it literally in the moment we
realize we have no phones, and when you are sitting
here and you're like, okay, so I had planned for
the fact that we have this guest and then they're
not there. Whatever I mean, it comes to the territory.
But Corbin Langenfelzer, who you hear with the voice of

(01:36:20):
Darth Vader as Mark Boyle calls him, because he fills
in on Pacer games as well and is also the
master control operator for any car radio and the producer there.
But with Eddie on vacation, Corbin's filling in Corbyn. Right then,
as I'm sitting here talking, I look over and Corbin's
like working one phone and he's emailing something, and he's
sending out a carrier pigeon and he threw a paper

(01:36:40):
airplane and he's running all over the place. But he
is stoically sitting there. And the next thing I know,
without me even knowing it, Corbin had managed to get
a hold of Matt Smith send him away for Matt
Smith to actually use a fiber line through his phone
to patch into a computer line that Corbyn can then
patch in. And Corbin, in that moment, right there, with

(01:37:02):
all hell breaking loose, has like literally calmly becomes the
copier guy, Corbyn. Right, there was the Ashton Doolan, the
Aaron N Smith of what we do here in radio.
And I hope all of you in no matter what
walk of life you're in, no matter what level of
work you're doing, no matter what kind of work you're doing,

(01:37:23):
that when all of a sudden, and it's a really
small thing, you know, no one's we ain't doing neurosurgery
in here, right, I'm aware of that, but nonetheless there
is a security blanket feeling of knowing when you're sitting
there that you've got somebody that's like, no, I've got
to keep going and coming up with on the fly

(01:37:44):
what needs to be done to get things done and
so and I very seldomly wear a cap, but I
am today. So hold on, I gotta take my heads.

Speaker 2 (01:37:52):
It's up. That's me.

Speaker 1 (01:37:53):
You see what I'm doing there, Corbyn. That's a tip
of the cap. Tip of the cap to Corbin. Ashton
Doolan in fact become important for the Colts again this Sunday,
except for that he himself is on the injury report
with a chest injury. Ashton Doolan did not practice yesterday
I don't think the injury report has been released in

(01:38:14):
terms of today. We may talk to Matt Taylor coming
up in just a little bit, and when we do,
I'll get the lowdown from him in terms of who
may be practicing. But the bigger one is this listed
as concussion and did not practice yesterday, Josh Downs. Now

(01:38:35):
you know Alec Pierce is back in the fold. He's
now listed with ankle. You know, the ankle injury is
where he's listed. But he's back in the mix. And
I think we can safely say now is one that
we're going to see each and every week unless something
else pops up. But when you don't have and I
don't know that they're not going to have either of
these two guys. But when you talk Ashton Doolan and

(01:38:58):
as well Josh Downs, Dulan is important because of the
aforementioned reasons. Downs is important because he is just such
an important part offensively of what the Colts want to
do by spacing things out.

Speaker 2 (01:39:15):
And I remember when he was first.

Speaker 1 (01:39:19):
Drafted and we had him on the show and I
was thinking to myself, this is the guy when the
Colts are late in a game and they have to
keep a drive alive and it's fourth down, and it's
fourth and five or fourth and six. He just felt
like he would be the perfect open space guy. And

(01:39:42):
I was like, you know what, it feels like we
should call him Josh fourth downs And people were like, no, moron,
He's Josh first downs because he gets you first downs,
and certainly I think any quarterback loves having and Tyler
Warren is this guy to a great extent, just your
safety bailout guy. But Josh Downs now had kind of

(01:40:06):
a lull there in like weeks two or three per se,
I think it was, But now is back in the
mix just in terms of being that constant target that
finds himself open and he runs really good routes, he
finds seams, and more so, he makes plays once the

(01:40:28):
ball is in his hands and he's in open space. Now,
that's not to say that he can't be replicated. That's
not to say he can't be replaced, but if he's
not able to go, everybody kind of slides up a spot.
Dueling then becomes important. But let's say dueling can't go,

(01:40:50):
That's where things get tricky, because guess who then becomes
even more important to come back into the mix. And
maybe it's a good thing because maybe what Adie Mitchell
needs is a game where the Colts have to say
to him, we need you, we need you, we need

(01:41:14):
you to make plays, we need you to be there,
and we're counting on you. Because I think to this
point Adie Mitchell has had the luxury and to an
extent and amusing air quotes, the enablement of Hey, you're

(01:41:35):
just going to be there for us, and we know
you're there and we're going to.

Speaker 2 (01:41:42):
Keep you in the mix.

Speaker 1 (01:41:45):
And as a young player, it doesn't make up a
bad guy, but the natural tendency of any young player,
I think is to just automatically sometimes assume that it's
always going to be there for you.

Speaker 2 (01:42:01):
And the.

Speaker 1 (01:42:06):
For Doolan, you know, he was never given I don't
think that, Hey, it's always going to be there for you,
and he's had to earn it and that's why you
see him making plays in whatever area needs to be
And for Mitchell, I think he just kind of always
thought it was going to be there for him. And
then you had the situation in the incident where he
dropped the ball. They disciplined him for that. I applaud

(01:42:30):
that and he has yet to really get I mean, yeah,
we saw him get one target and then obviously last
week we know what happened. One area where you can
be critical of Shane Steichen, and it's a fair critique,
is if you disciplined ad Mitchell for dropping the football

(01:42:54):
shy of the goal line, why didn't you do the
same discipline to Jonathan Tayaylor because the discipline or the
And maybe you could say because one player needed that
kick more than the other, but did they because Taylor
made that mistake. And you don't want the perception that

(01:43:14):
you are favoring or distributing your punishment dependent upon or
based upon the level of potential contribution from the player.
But Steichen knows better than I, better than Corbin, better
than you listening what behind the scenes and inside the building.

(01:43:35):
You know, it's it's like my dad said to me
when I was young. Look, Jake, you've got to make
a decision here. You're going to make some mistakes. But
what you need to figure out is are you a
bad kid or you a good kid that makes bad mistakes?
And I'm not saying eighty Mitchell is a bad guy,

(01:43:56):
but are you a good player who made an occasional
careless mistake, or you a careless player in general. And
I will give benefit of the doubt to Shane Steiken
and say that the reason why Mitchell had a more
severe penalty for the same infraction than did Taylor is
because of what Steichen saw not on the field, but

(01:44:19):
rather each and every practice or day within the building,
of what message needed to be sent or how urgent
it was that the message is delivered.

Speaker 2 (01:44:31):
And so I think he's earned that benefit.

Speaker 1 (01:44:37):
Has Shane Steikeen partially because of the vociferous nature in
which he told anybody that would listen that the quarterbacking
situation and decision would come down to not even necessarily
as much on the field as in the building. Because
in reality, the quarterback situation, if you look at it

(01:44:59):
and can't I don't know that you would say during
the course of training camp that there was really any separation.
You know, the same thing might be happening at Gambridge
Fieldhouse or tomorrow night in San Antonio. We are awaiting
to see who at the center position is going to
be the one to separate themselves and win that job.

(01:45:22):
We thought for sure Isaiah Jackson was the incumbent, and
that James Weisman probably was his backup, and then your
third guy that kind of alternates in and out as
Jay Huff. Now, we've gone through and watched a little
bit of repetition and sets in the preseason, and so

(01:45:44):
far in doing so, what we see is that there
is not as much the separation in terms of which
of those guys is on the court separating themselves. So
then it might come down to Rick Carlisle simply saying
it's the one that I feel like has handled their
lunch pale each day the way that I like.

Speaker 2 (01:46:06):
And that's the coach's prerogative.

Speaker 1 (01:46:08):
It's the coach's decision, right, Hey, Jay, So just like
Ashton and Aaron Nesmith, you can just tell Corbyn to go,
gadget go and he can fix anything. That from JJ
and Muncy, Actually yes, because Corbyn is a man of right.
Now he's wearing his course banquet hat, but he's a
man of many hats. Corbyn can fix anything, isn't that right?

Speaker 2 (01:46:31):
Corbyn?

Speaker 1 (01:46:31):
Didn't you tell me just the other day you were
fixing a deck, yo. That's what you do, right, You're
the fix it guy? Now, are you comfortable with me?
Calling you the fix it guy.

Speaker 3 (01:46:42):
They got no problem with it.

Speaker 1 (01:46:45):
Your new nickname is Fig. You're Newton, right, you're Fig
Newton fix it guy, Fig. Right, that's Corbyn, Corbyn the
fix it guy.

Speaker 3 (01:46:56):
I don't think that one's gonna stick.

Speaker 2 (01:46:59):
I'm just saying, how about copy your guy? You call that?

Speaker 3 (01:47:03):
Sure, we can go with copy your guy. Just don't
ask me to go grab your ten page paper off
the copy or when we get done today.

Speaker 1 (01:47:10):
Listen, if you think there's anything that I printed out
that's ten pages or done any ten page papers anytime soon,
then you know what I mean.

Speaker 2 (01:47:17):
I got some land.

Speaker 1 (01:47:17):
I'll sell you some basement land in Florida, right, hey, Jake.
The difference also between Taylor's mistake and Adie Mitchell's mistake
is after it happened with Taylor, they put in the
procedure letters and logo to keep this from happening, and
Mitchell did it anyway. That's true. You run to the
letters in the logo. So Taylor was the example. With Taylor,

(01:47:41):
I guess you could at least say, well, yeah, it
hadn't we hadn't seen that before, so what the heck?
In Mitchell's case, good point, hey, man, we already went
over this, and you'd have to assume that it's something
that they repeatedly just almost pounded in them, right, Hey, Jake,

(01:48:04):
I always loved this question. Can you ask Matt Muney
Smith when we had them on if he thinks the
Angels the Anaheim Ducks should move to Indy.

Speaker 2 (01:48:14):
I'm telling you.

Speaker 1 (01:48:17):
Major League Baseball and Indie not gonna happen a couple
of reasons. And I'm not saying I wouldn't want a
major League team here. But I love the Indians I do.
I love the Schumacher family, I love Randy Lewandowski, I
love the new imaging. I love everything about the Indianapolis Indians.
I love the fact that the name itself that when

(01:48:41):
there was speculation or discussion about whether or not they
should change the name away from Indians like Cleveland had done,
they instead sat down and said, how can we do
this as an honor to people that are Native American?
And they partnered with the Miami Nation Tribe to say,
you know, what sort of things can we do that

(01:49:03):
are paying tribute? Just even that is so classy. But
I love the new logo, of the new color scheme,
all of it's great love the Indians, but major League
Baseball in Indianapolis. Now, NHL might be a different story,
but major League Baseball in Indianapolis, I don't think ever
comes here, at least not in any sort of a

(01:49:24):
near future, because I remember vividly. It's a long time ago,
so long ago that when I saw Harry Carey, that
alone tells you it was a long time ago. Get
out of a limousine on Monument Circle right here below
where I'm sitting in nineteen eighty five, eighty four or

(01:49:47):
eighty five, I think it was eighty five, and Harry
Carey was here as part of a ground swell to
get season ticket buyers for the Indianapolis Arrows, which was
going to be a Major League expansion team, and Art
and Gotti had sold already started selling season tickets. They

(01:50:09):
had a hat designed, they had everything, the Indianapolis Arrows,
and at the literally at the eleventh hour, the Saint
Louis Cardinals, the Chicago Cubs, the Cincinnati Reds. I don't
know exactly which franchises, I'm certain those maybe the Detroit
Tigers as well are the White Sox, but several organizations
in Major League Baseball from among the Midwest got together

(01:50:32):
and said it would be too detrimental to our ticket
buying audience, and so they basically blocked Indianapolis getting an
MLB team and everything kind of vaporized from there. The
NHL is a possibility, I would think, because there is
a loyal and I love the Fuel too, and I
love going to their games and going up to the
Fishers Events Center and they've got a military night coming

(01:50:53):
up that will tell you about that's awesome. I love
going to Fuel games that there is definitely a thirst
for hockey in town that is being quenched by the
Fuel because they're great. But would NHL hockey work in
terms of sharing the interest over the course of the
winter with all of the basketball enthusiasm in this town.

(01:51:13):
And then MLS we've talked about once it got away
from I think the MLS essentially they were approached with, hey,
we have a potential overseas investor that could bring the
MLS to Indianapolis. But the MLS said, we'd be willing
to do that, but you have to go with this
ownership group and not the current ownership group of the

(01:51:37):
Indie eleven in Indianapolis, and you would need to go
with a separate stadium venture, which they have the land
for near Gamebridge, but that also has kind of gone
on the back burner a little bit, so we'll see
what happens there. If I had to say MLS or NHL,
very far out possibility also because of the MLS entry

(01:51:59):
fee expansion, but way bigger odds than ever MLB. Did
you say Corbin?

Speaker 2 (01:52:06):
Yeah or nay? I'm Matt Taylor.

Speaker 3 (01:52:08):
Yay.

Speaker 1 (01:52:09):
Matt Taylor, Voice of the Colts. Next JMV. Is it
Joe's grill in Westfield? We will throw it out to
him here in about thirty minutes or so, But before
we do so, and it has come by very specific
request that our next guest apparently and I know that

(01:52:29):
obviously Matt Taylor has done Don Fisher impersonations. I am
told on the text line, Hey, Jake, can you please
ask Matt Taylor to do his impression of JMV. It
is spot on and I have not heard it forever.
Matt Taylor, that is true or false that you do
a jamb impersonation.

Speaker 5 (01:52:46):
Here's the deal, Jake, I mean, where do you want
to start with this bad boy? We just heard the promo, right,
there from the great Rick ventury five and one offense
off the charts defense as of last year no longer
football are It is absolutely fans stink fantastic to be
on your show.

Speaker 2 (01:53:07):
By the way, is Matt Taylor there also? Just out
of curiosity.

Speaker 5 (01:53:12):
Here's the deal, Jake, I mean, where do you want
to start here? I got three hours. I got three hours.
I want you, I want me, and we are live
at whatever tavern you just said that. I am live
at here. I follow my savings, follow my voice. I
will pied Piper you down the line, admire the official
supercenter of the Ride with JMV. Here, Jake, We're gonna

(01:53:35):
have a fan stink fantastic time here for the next
three hours. I'm gonna drink, people are gonna come up
to me, I'm gonna talk on the air. It's gonna
be awesometime here three hours of the ride with JMV
on the fan bad boy, this is awesome.

Speaker 1 (01:53:50):
Now here's the thing. I will know I've arrived and
I've been here long enough when you finally have an
impersonation of me.

Speaker 2 (01:53:56):
I'll be honest with you. I don't even want to
know which words I say all the time. But I
know they're out there, right.

Speaker 5 (01:54:03):
He's listen. It's all in jest, right, it's all.

Speaker 2 (01:54:05):
Of course solid though.

Speaker 5 (01:54:07):
That's solid, right, I say it all the time, like
if that means people are paying attention to you know
what I mean? That's that's I think a high praise,
a high Uh. It's the ultimate compliment.

Speaker 1 (01:54:17):
It is, indeed, all right, Matt, let's let's talk about this.
The the ultimate compliment for the Colts is the fact
that they are right now the number one seed in
the AFC if the playoffs begin today, which guess what,
they don't. But this is one to me that's tricky
with the Chargers because at the beginning of the year
it jumped out as probably would you would say, what
one of the two or three toughest matchups on paper.

(01:54:40):
But here we are now and it's still a challenge.
But obviously the culture playing. Well, what jumps out at
you about the Chargers that maybe we didn't anticipate.

Speaker 5 (01:54:50):
Well, they're banged up and they're slowly starting to get healthy.
I mean, their offensive lines just been in shambles. They've
had some key injuries on both sides of the ball
to some skill players, you know, Quinton Johnston didn't play
last week, but I think he's trending towards having a
pretty good chance of playing on Sunday. I think they're
really deceiving because you know, right now, they're still like

(01:55:11):
look at them on offense, they're right right, they're only
scoring about twenty one points per game, but they are
top ten and just about everything, I mean, rushing and
passing third down. What's really killing them is just red zone.
They are the worst red zone team in the NFL.
So for whatever reason, they just can't finish drives. They

(01:55:33):
only have seven red zone touchdowns the entire season, so
if they were able to finish more drives off they
would be I think right there. Kind of the same
conversation with the Colts, as you know, elite offense and
really tough to game plan for. And I think they
are right. They've got three receivers over three hundred yards.

(01:55:53):
You know, they got a pretty good up and coming
tight end and Ronde Gatson. You know, the running game
has sustain even though they've had some key injuries to
their top backs, Naji Harris and Omari and Hampton. Harris
is on ir for the season. Hampton, I think has
a good chance to come back sooner than later, but
that leaves them with Hassan Haskins and Kamani Videll, and

(01:56:17):
you know, Videll last week stepped up and ran over
one hundred yards. And to me, the Chargers, Jake kind
of look like when I look at him on the surface,
they kind of look like they remind me of like
the twenty fifteen twenty sixteen Colts right where they've got
a lot of injuries and it just seems like the

(01:56:39):
quarterback is good enough to just kind of carry them,
you know what I mean, like keep them in every game.
And that's what Justin Herbert is able to do. And
he's coached really well by Jim Harball. Really, they had
no business winning that game the other day, but they were.
You know, they got a good kickoff return at the
end and then Herbert made the great play the Wuddian

(01:57:00):
climbing up in the pocket, hits Lad mcconkee for a
big game and then they win a walk off winner.
So they're a very good team despite some of their
overall statistics. But I think if they were better in
the red zone, they would be one of the best
elite teams. In the NFL on offense.

Speaker 1 (01:57:15):
But you know, one of the signs of a good team, Matt,
Let's be real, and I know it's a cliche. Good
teams find ways to win games, right. You know, you
look at whether we're talking about IU or for that matter,
for the Colts this year games. To me, the Colts
game against Arizona was signed of a good team because
they kind of slogged their way through that game, but

(01:57:36):
when it came down to it, they made the plays
they needed to to win. And that's what good to
great teams do, right.

Speaker 5 (01:57:42):
And I think last Sunday's game is way more than
norm in the NFL than the previous Sunday's game. When
you blow out the Raiders forty to six. I mean,
I think Jacoby Brissett and you know some of their backs,
Michael Kurter, I mean they were down their top two
backs last week as well. I mean, the NFL is
just man up and these guys are just krim to lakrim.
I think that's what most people don't really understand, is

(01:58:05):
like there's just not a huge drop off at at
most positions. I mean, you can plug and play because
they're just these guys are so good, and every team
is operating under the salary cap, right, I mean, every
team has only so much money to pay their guys,
which means there's gonna be a lot of parody in
the NFL, which is why all of these games seemingly
come down to the fourth quarter and the final four minutes.

(01:58:29):
That's why it's way more, you know, the exception than
the rule to see the Colts blow three teams out
by twenty plus points. It just hasn't happened here since
twenty twenty one, so I thought it was important, especially
the way that the day started for the Colts. Jake.
I mean, you know, two major injuries before the game

(01:58:49):
even starts. Like what I'm thinking to myself in the
press box, like what what is going on? Like this
is this is unheard of? And then it's you know,
you're you're you're starting. You know, your top corner back
is unavailable to play, and that changes the personnel, It
certainly changes the game plan. It's kind of a scramble
job by lou Anne Rumo and the defensive staff to
make it work, and they did make it work. It

(01:59:11):
wasn't pretty, but they got to stop when they needed it.
Was fourth down inside the ten yard line under minute
to go. So yeah, I think that was very indicative
of where the cults are at right now, just finding
a way to win. And that's what good teams do,
is just make more plays in crunch time. The offense
score two fourth quarter touchdowns, the defense got the stop

(01:59:31):
they needed and it was just enough. And more often
than not in the NFL, that's what it comes down to.

Speaker 1 (01:59:37):
Okay, So let's talk about the injuries. You know, a
couple of them. Josh Downs not practicing yesterday due to concussion,
Ashton Dulan didn't practice yesterday due to a chest injury.
Obviously we know now Anthony Richardson on ir after that incident,
and then Mooney Ward with the concussion. Where do things
stand right down.

Speaker 5 (01:59:55):
Matt, Well, that's currently where they're at too. So the
practice report is going to come out here in about
an hour, right around four o'clock. And you know the
one I'm gonna be watching the most is probably Josh Downs,
I mean, Sarvarius Ward. I mean, this is really unfortunate
for him. Right this is a second concussion of the season,
and it's just hard. History shows us that and rightfully

(02:00:16):
so it should be hard for players and the and
the idea of player safety. It should be tough to
come back from a concussion a week later. It's tough
to clear the five step process. And that's on purpose
because you know the NFL wants to continue player safety
with head injuries, and so you know that's in place
for a reason. So I think ward is it's gonna

(02:00:38):
be tough. I don't know where Josh Downs is because
there just wasn't. I mean, they didn't report that until
the injury report came out yesterday, So you know, you
can't sit here and speculate. Okay, maybe on Monday or
Tuesday he cleared a couple of those phases and then
yesterday was still in the protocol, and it has a
decent chance. I mean, we're not going to know on

(02:00:59):
that until tomorrow when Shane Stiken meets with the media.
But I'll be really interested to see where Josh Downs
is here in terms of the injury reporting about an
hour because he's the big one. I'm not saying he's
not replaceable, but man, he's just so good in the slot.
I mean, he's already one of the best slot receivers
in the game, he's clutched for the Colts on third down.

(02:01:20):
I think he's got the second most first down catches
this year among slot receivers, and so he just does
a lot for you in those short yardage situations in
the passing game. And so how the Colts would adjust
with his absence is a big storyline going into this game.

Speaker 2 (02:01:35):
Matt.

Speaker 1 (02:01:35):
When you look at Matt Taylor is our guest, he's
on the Java house, peel and poor guest line. When
you look at the Colts overall, and maybe the scenario,
they've already been tested and been able to prove it.
But in your opinion, the area where they have the
most depth is where.

Speaker 5 (02:01:52):
Oh that's a good question. I mean a lot of areas,
which is good. I mean, just initially thinking about there's
a couple of answers that come into my head. I mean,
I think offensive line. I mean, you still have, you know,
guys like Danny Pinter and Dalton Tucker. You know, I
think you're you're pretty good there. Defensive line. You know,

(02:02:13):
you've had some guys really show up the last couple
of weeks, and specifically in the interior of that defensive line,
like Neville Gallimore, and I think's playing pretty well. And
the guy that I think has taking a big step
from year two to year three, or maybe it's year
three to year four now that I think about it,
because drafted in twenty two is at a tamil out
of Barre. He's really done a nice job. And we've

(02:02:34):
talked about this before in the past, right when when
Buckner and Stewart are out of the game. In the past,
it's just been kind of like, you know, there's a
guy up in the press box for the opposing team
with binoculars and he's relaying down to the head coach
or the offensive coordinator is saying, hey, ninety nine and
ninety you're out of the game. Let's pound it. And
that's what they've done. Teams have done to the Colts.

(02:02:54):
They just haven't had that backup interior tackle depth, and
I think out of Barres giving him that depth and
and and that productivity both in the run game and
in his pass rush too. So that's been good to see.
You know, wide receiver is a good depth uh position.
I mean when when things are normal. Obviously right now

(02:03:15):
things aren't normal with with Josh downs being the concussion
protocol and Ashton Dolan, as you said, dealing with the
chest injury, and then also too, I mean, ad Mitchell
still in the doghouse right He was relegated to an
active list last week and we'll see where that is.
But if those two guys can't play, Mitchell's got a play,
and it'll be interesting to see and Matt how he's

(02:03:36):
matured and how he's bounced back from.

Speaker 1 (02:03:37):
That, and that, you know what I was saying, for
his confidence standpoint, this might be what's needed is for
them to go to him and say we need you.
It's not We're not just putting you out there because
you were a top draft pick and we see potential
in you.

Speaker 2 (02:03:52):
We actually need you.

Speaker 1 (02:03:53):
And for you know, for the first time, maybe he
he'll realize And that sounds condescending, but you got what
I'm saying.

Speaker 2 (02:03:59):
Right that that that will awaken him.

Speaker 1 (02:04:01):
Before I let you go, I wanted to ask you
about one other guy, because you have to, Matt Taylor.
As the voice of the Colts, you literally watch every
snap and one guy that I have been impressed by.
But I want you to tell me if my if
I'm giving too much credit here, not that he hasn't
played well. But I think Tanner BORDERLINI to me, has

(02:04:22):
really been impressive because not only has he is he
locked down just that position, but I watch him as
well almost a center doesn't pull per se, but he
will continue and follow through a block. In spring, Jonathan
Taylor notably open in situations that I think is impressive

(02:04:42):
and beyond almost even what you would expect. And for
a guy that you know was a spot fill in
last year and now a full time starter, I think
he has been very very solid your thoughts.

Speaker 5 (02:04:54):
Yeah, agreed. I mean he's been an iron man out there.
I mean he's played one hundred percent of the snaps
and four of the six games this season, and the
only reason why he didn't play one hundred percent in
the other games is because the Coults are beating the
crap out of teams, you know what I mean. And
he's done a really really good job, like you said,
of opening up runs in the interior of the offensive
line for Jonathan Taylor. Uh. I mean, those guys are

(02:05:16):
just playing so well. I mean, gonzalveez Is he's really
assimilating well to his new position at right guard, and
then obviously Quentin Nelson just he's on another level. I mean,
he just I mean, Rick, you asked Rick Venturi about
Quentin Nelson, and I hope you got about three hours
because he's gonna talk your ear off about how well
he's playing. No doubt, he's one of the best guards

(02:05:36):
in the league. And you know, Shane Stikeen the other
day kind of called him. I know, we're kind of
veering off on Nelson a little bit, but you know,
Shane stike and actually schemes up ways to get Nelson,
you know, sort of out of the pocket on the move,
so that he can be a road grater and kind
of a lead blocker for you know, whether it's Daniel
Jones on a rollout or you know, a polling guard

(02:05:59):
for for Jonathan Taylor. But yeah, going back to Bordolini,
he's you can tell he's really comfortable in year number two,
settling in with the idea that he's going to be
the starting center for this team for for a long
long time. And he's remained durable. He's playing at a
high level, and you can tell those five guys along
along that offensive line are just completely bought in. They're

(02:06:21):
all doing a good job of play with each other,
and then I think two give credit for Jonathan Taylor
because he has to know sort of the ins and
outs and the makeup of the blocking abilities or maybe
some of the deficiencies of the offensive line. And then
just you know, changing his running style play by play
based on where the play is going, you know, in

(02:06:44):
the direction of certain offensive linemen. So he's showing great patience,
he's showing great bursts when he needs to have a burst.
And I mean this offensive line is just playing at
a very very high level. It's spearheaded by Tanner Bordolini,
but certainly Jonathan Taylor's may can all of those guys
look great with some individual effort as well. But the

(02:07:04):
running game is in a great spot right now.

Speaker 1 (02:07:06):
And the play by play will be provided by Matt
Taylor on this radio station. Coming up on Sunday, Colts
in Los Angeles, back to SOFI Stadium this time to
take on the Chargers. Matt appreciated as always, enjoy the
great weather out in Los Angeles.

Speaker 5 (02:07:22):
All right, we'll do Jake Man, I'll talk you next week.

Speaker 2 (02:07:24):
All it sounds good.

Speaker 1 (02:07:25):
Matt Taylor, the Voice of the Colts, speaking of JMV
and his fabulous impersonation of him. He will join us
next on the other side as we do the JMB
crossover brought to you by the good guys at Love
Heating and Air Love dash HVAC dot Com three one
seven three five three twenty one forty one. Love Heating
and Air has been in business for over one hundred
years in Central Indiana. Love dash HVAC dot Com three

(02:07:47):
one seven three five three twenty one forty one is
the telephone number. Now is the time to get that
furnace checked. Make sure that you are good to go
before mother Nature turns things all fayalthy. Hold outside. The
drinks will be cold, the conversation will always be good.
With JMV at Joe's Grill up in Westfield and he

(02:08:09):
joins us now to get a set for what he's
got going on a Thursday.

Speaker 2 (02:08:12):
Hello John, Hey j.

Speaker 1 (02:08:14):
Man, Jake.

Speaker 2 (02:08:15):
It is always great up here.

Speaker 6 (02:08:17):
Joe's Grill off of spring Mill Road, very easy to
find up in Westfield, and we got week seven Larcit
bourbon locks, Lunazuela tequila shots. Joe rides at the bottom
of the hour the former offensive lineman from the Colts
Radio Network. I think JJ Jeremiah Johnson is going to
slide by here in the four o'clock hour two chapel
me Brent Halverson and the Free Samples, which always alter

(02:08:39):
important here, Jake.

Speaker 1 (02:08:41):
Free Samples, of course have an distillery. Yeah, absolutely love
it right, and it's brilliant outside. I haven't been I've
not got a chance to look outside yet, but it
was gorgeous earlier. I assume it still is.

Speaker 2 (02:08:50):
Right.

Speaker 6 (02:08:51):
It was when I went down to the Greyhound Pass
Goodwill on my way up here.

Speaker 2 (02:08:55):
I've never been to that one before.

Speaker 6 (02:08:57):
Holy crap, buddy, she's talking about a treasure for with Goodwill.
That was it right down the way here, a great
hoound pass. Shout out and somebody else's.

Speaker 2 (02:09:05):
Would you bring home anything good? Oh man? I went deep.

Speaker 6 (02:09:10):
I'm telling you, it was like that was like the
Calvin Kleine Men's Clothes Goodwill of all time right there,
all right, everything was like Calvin Kline.

Speaker 2 (02:09:18):
It was outstanding.

Speaker 6 (02:09:20):
So we'll we'll take it home and wash it, and
then I could be if you live up here in
Hamilton County, I could be wearing your clothes coming up
tomorrow on the road.

Speaker 2 (02:09:31):
Beautiful.

Speaker 1 (02:09:32):
All right, Well, we'll let you bring us, bring us
all home for the rest of the day. We'll throw
it out to you here in just a little bit.
John with you at Joe's grill out in Westfield again
you heard the lineup of who he will have talking
about everything getting set for the weekend in sports and
of course tomorrow as well, so still at a day
left of that on Again, Thank Corbyn for the tremendous

(02:09:53):
hustle today. Also to Matt money Smith, the voice of
the Chargers, for circuitously joining us.

Speaker 2 (02:09:58):
On the program. Matt Taylor as well.

Speaker 1 (02:10:00):
We will be back with you at noon tomorrow and
I thank you for listening to the Query Company.

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