June 24, 2025 • 51 mins
Tuesday on 2 Pros and a Cup of Joe, the Finals lacked gusto because of small market teams, a problem the NFL doesn’t have. With Achilles injuries to Tyrese Haliburton, Jayson Tatum and Damian Lillard, the Cavs and Knicks have inside tracks to the Easter Conference Finals. NFL Insider Pete Prisco talks about his Top 100 Players and offseason storylines.
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
Is the best of two pros and a couple Joe
with LaVar airings and rating Win and Jonas Knox on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Black and Track Baby, They're back.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
No One, no one in that title to carry the show.
She didn't know how much we didn't carry the show, dah.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It is two pros and a cup of Joe.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Fox Sports Radio, LaVar Arrington, Jonas NOx with you here.
We are going to take you all the way up
until nine am Eastern time, six o'clock Pacific. You can
listen to this show as always on the iHeartRadio app
and on hundreds of affiliates all across this country. Wherever
you are making us a part of your Tuesday morning, Lavarrington,
(00:53):
Good morning, sir.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
What's going on man? Good morning?
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Just uh, we did get confirmation yesterday that it is
a ruptured achilles for Tyrese Haliburton. Of course, the underwent surgery,
posted a long message on social media and he's on
his way to recovery. But it looks like he's going
to miss all of next year, and so then we
(01:18):
just he gave it a go. It was the risk
and now we've just got to deal with what the
recovery looks like and maybe he'll be back to full
health after next year.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
So we've got that. We've also got.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
A former NBA player with comments about the NBA Finals
in general, and that would be Gilbert Arenas, who was
on the Dan Patrick Show, which you can hear on
many of these Fox Sports radio affiliates. And Gilbert was
asked a very simple question by Dan Patrick and it
(01:57):
sounded like this, ten.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Years from now, we'll remember these NBA Finals for.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
What, nothing, nothing, nothing, We won't know. Let's just be honest.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
When it comes to small market teams, we really don't
remember much about them. We don't really talk about the
Toronto Championship, we don't really talk about the Bucks Gianna's championship.
And with this one, I mean, the only memorable thing
was Halle game winner, Game one. Other than that, there
(02:31):
was nothing in this finals that makes you say, oh
my god, this was the great finals. You know, And
I know, you know, when we talk about small markets,
it's needed because there are you know, cities that need finals.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
They need recognition.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
But you know, when you do have you know, teams
like that that match up, the sales is down, the
marketing is down, the views is down, it's clocked through history.
So you know, any kind of exposure that has to
do with the NBA, it is needed, no matter if
you like it or not.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
So that was Gilbert Arena's talking with Dan Patrick about
the NBA Finals, the memories and also small small markets
when it comes to the National Basketball Association.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It's an interesting take. I mean, gil is a super
if people haven't figured it out right by now, he's
a super intelligent dude, very cerebral in his approach to
things that he says, does the homework to back the
things that he puts out there, So I believe there's
probably data that supports what it is that he's saying.
(03:40):
I would say, depending on what SGA does the rest
of the way, depending on what Haliburton does the rest
of the way, would be the only reason why I
would say you could reference this this particular final is
based upon the buildout of brand recognition, because ultimately that's
(04:06):
what the NBA stands on, is being able to build
the league's popularity and the viewership, the buy in off
of the players off of their names, and so to me,
I think, I think when you're looking at it from
a small markets perspective, Gil, I believe one is correct
(04:27):
and spot on on what he's saying. I would I
would venture to say, just based off of watching it
and just listening to you know, Cuffs who comes on
our show on Saturday, who's an insider, I tend to
go with the idea that this was more. This was
a very competitive series and while it may have had
(04:50):
times during the course of a game, may not appear
to have been as competitive as it could have been.
So the first time it's gone to a game seven
and what nine years, I believe so when you look
at it from the competitive standpoint, if you wanted a
really good matchup for an NBA Finals, even if it
(05:13):
wasn't the desired markets, you got it, and you did
have big names in the game at least two you
got that. So I mean there's there have been players
that have not played in big markets. He markets. He mentioned, uh,
he mentioned the the the Raptors winning it right, and
(05:35):
that was Kawhi Leonard. I remember the Raptors series because
of Siakam and Kawhi Leonard and and that you know,
that's what I remember is Kawhi Leonard being the catalyst
of the Raptors winning and then you know he you know,
took his swan Dave after that. Right. But to me,
(05:58):
when you look at like a small market team that
has a developing talent that has happened, that has happened,
I mean, you had Shack and Penny. Will we consider
Orlando a small market?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Probably?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I would. Yeah, you had Shack and Penny in Orlando.
You know, you had you Hack, you had Lebron James
and Cleveland. And I don't think Cleveland is considered to
be a big market team. You know, maybe maybe decent,
but not big market.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
You know, it's interesting about it when he makes the
comments talking about small markets. It just reminds me that
the NFL, it's its own ecosystem. Yes, if the NFL
landed Green Bay versus Buffalo and the Super.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Bowl would not matter huge.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
And that's Green Bay, Wisconsin and Buffalo, New York Buffalo.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
If it was Jacksonville versus pick a team in the NFC.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Wouldn't matter, wouldn't It doesn't matter, And it just matter,
Like you see these problems and not that. Because the
way Gilbert explained it and the way he laid it out,
it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I get where he's coming from.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
But it's almost like the NFL has created a universe
to its own that, Oh, we don't care if you're
from Buffalo, We don't care if you're from Kansas City, Oh,
Green Bay, Sweet.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Doesn't matter at us.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Like those are pre eminent franchises that you look at
and go, if you could land them in a Super Bowl,
that's a big deal. Like if you could land them
in a championship game, that's a big deal. When Buffalo
plays Kansas City, come on, Like, that's what everybody's looking
forward to. That's why those matchups have mattered for so long.
(07:48):
And I just it reminds me yet again the gap
and the difference between the NFL to where they're not
worried so much about market size from the standpoint.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Of dude, do you have great players? Do you have
do you have a great team? Man?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
If Cincinnati could get to a Super Bowl, you need
to tell me that wouldn't be a huge get for
the NFL to get Joe Burrow on that stage and
then make it shitah, Like if they were to get
back there, to get them again in the Super.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Bowl, and that was a big ass game because it
was like, can Joe Burrow like climb that mountaintop. It
was the one thing again. And I think that the
NFL has been able to do so well, and I
think they're hit and shoulders above everyone else. Is their storytelling.
(08:38):
Their ability to storytell connect the storylines to the league,
to the players, to the franchises, to the communities. You
still have very very loyal NFL fans versus just NFL market,
And I think that that's the difference. Do you have
(08:59):
very very loyal NBA fans and very loyal NBA market, Yes,
you do, but it's just not as large. It's just
not as appealing for one reason or another. And I'll
say I believe because the NFL has been able to
create such great storytelling in storylines, I mean starting with
(09:23):
NFL films and the Sable family and what they've been
able to do, and being able to build such a
strong foundational fan base. It is passed along. The culture
is passed along from generation to generation through tailgating. Like
(09:43):
you don't tailgate for basketball games, do you Like? There's
just a different to me, a different culture that surrounds
football versus other sports. And because you're able to take
all of those elements and put them together. I think
that it creates the buy in and the experience. Right.
(10:04):
It's always about entertainment and the experience. Knowing your demo.
I call it deal right, that's my acronym. Deal. Know
your demo, be ready to entertain and create an experience
and have love for it. That's the deal right. And
I think that the NFL has done an amazing job
of it, not that the NBA hasn't. I just think
(10:26):
that it's so dependent upon star athletes, upon the names.
Like if it was jokiic and in the final and
it was you know, it was Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown,
then now all of a sudden, everybody's happy. If it's
old ass Lebron, you might not even get the greatest
(10:48):
of performances from Lebron. But if it's Luca and Lebron
versus it takes this one versus Halliburton and the Indiana Pacers,
it's still a bigger series because you have Lebron James
and Luca to draw from. You even have Bronnie James
to draw from in this series. So I just think
(11:09):
that that's the key to all of this is it's
the shield, is the brand versus the athlete is the
brand in the NBA.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, like you don't hear I mean like Yiannis for example. God,
maybe he wants out of Milwaukee. Maybe they're not doing
enough to surround him with enough pieces. Man, Like, you're
never going to hear that story about Patrick Mahomes in
Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
He's got to get out of here, got to get
out of here. There's just you know, maybe they're not
doing enough for him.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
It's like, and by the way, how big a market
is Kansas City? It's not where is that ranked in
the media market?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Listen, what about Baltimore, Baltimore?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
The media mark Baltimore.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Like if you look at the Super Bowl favorites right now,
three of the four Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City don't even
have NBA teams.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
They don't even have.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
And literally not necessary for them because those franchises carry
so much weight and have so much poll and are
so big in it's in themselves in the NFL ecosystem
that you don't have any of this discussion about well
you need this, Like you're pulling from so few teams
(12:21):
to try and generate buzz in the NBA or in
the NFL. Man, you could roll out. I mean Tampa
Bay and versus Baltimore in a Super Bowl and you're
going to do huge numbers, You're going to do huge ratings,
you're going to do huge revenue. And there's all sorts
of markets around the NFL that you look at and go, man,
(12:42):
those aren't I mean, those would be considered small markets,
but in the NFL ecosystem, they're massive.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
There seems to be two hundred and ten media markets
in the United States of America. Kansas City is ranked
thirty third in that ranking. And keep in mind thirty third,
meaning that is a major a major city. Right. So
(13:10):
we're talking about media markets, not just not just you know,
not just Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We're talking about
places like Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, Omaha, Springfield, Missouri, you know, Huntsville, Decatur, Florence.
(13:32):
You know, you're talking about a ton of media markets.
How do you weaven wrap all of these media markets
into one place. The NFL has figured out how to
do that. If you live in any one of these
these media markets, like if you take for instance, they
didn't have the Carolina Panthers, right, but for some reason,
(13:57):
the Washington Commanders were able to be the team of
the Carolinas or it was Atlanta, depending on what part
you were in Carolina, your team was generally speaking or
the Cowboys, the universal. If you don't have a team,
(14:18):
choose Dallas. It's a it's an amazing perfect storm to
say we can fill the gap with Dallas. If you
don't have anybody, maybe Pittsburgh right historically, maybe the Raiders historically,
those three franchises. Fill in the blank. If we don't
if we don't have a market for you, fill in
(14:39):
the blank with those three.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
I remember doing radio in Charleston, South Carolina, and there
was a Browns bar in South Carolina for the Browns.
Well there you go, and they were awful, and I'm like, why,
what what's happening here? It's just you could go to
pick a team in the NFL and you would probably
(15:02):
be able to find somewhere across the country a sports
bar or a location dedicated to that team.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
To watch games.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
One find me the Pacers bar, right, somebody find that,
Like somebody find me the Oklahoma City Thunderbar. And that's
not a knock on Oksee, it's more of a man
in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Oh you're a small market, Come hang.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Out with us.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Don't worry about it. Like, listen, you're a small market
that we don't care about that. Come over. Do you
like football? Do you like what we put together? Do
you like our product? This is our own universe, is
our own world. We don't have those problems like other
leagues do. It's kind of wild. And we don't share
our game like the game is in other places. It's
(15:47):
in it's in Canada, they play it overseas, but we
don't share this game. And I think that that's another
advantage of built in advantage that the NFL has that
it has to be stated, this is our game. Literally,
this is our game. What do they say, America's game?
(16:07):
You are here togin this is our game, America's game. Yeah,
you know, like that's that's where it is. And that's
an advantage that they use. You know, they don't leave
that on the table.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington, and
Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern, three am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know, listen, we talked, we opened up the show.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Gilbert Arenas was on the Dan Patrick Show, which you
can hear on many of these Fox Sports radio affiliates,
and he was speaking to Dan about what we'll remember
from this NBA Finals matchup, and he got to discuss
these small markets, et cetera, et cetera, and our whole
point on it was, well, look, the NFL doesn't really
have these problems. It's its own ecosystem, its own universe.
(17:00):
So a small market like a Kansas City or a
Green Bay that's huge in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
But you know, in the.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
NBA, there clearly are people that were unhappy with the matchup.
Even though Game seven had a monster rating that we
discussed earlier, sixteen million, I believe it was still down
from previous years. And some people have pointed to the
market size for that being the reaction or that being
the reason why and all of this is happening. Then
(17:30):
on top of that, you've got Tyrese Haliburton going down
with the injury, and there is one team who might
benefit from the injury, and it's a team that was
referenced in the market size and the problem in the
NBA earlier, and that would be the Cleveland Cavaliers. So
(17:50):
the Cleveland Cavaliers, who themselves have been hit with the
bad luck injury bug from multiple playoffs in a row
again this year, clearly not one hundred percent. Clearly not
one hundred percent last year in the postseason, and the
team that a lot of people thought had the goods
to be an NBA Finals team this year, all of
(18:12):
a sudden finds themselves in a conference where Halliburton's going
to be out for all of next year because of
the achilles, Jason Tatum's going to be out for all
of next year because of the achilles. Damian Lillard's going
to be out for all of next year because of
the achilles.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
If those teams.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Our holiday won't even be there next year because of
nothing other than he just won't be there.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
But it's interesting how Cleveland's been on the short end
of the stick when it comes to injury luck. Yet
if they look around their own conference right now, that's
three teams potential threats to make a run at the finals,
and Cleveland's sitting there going well, we don't have those
long term injury concerns. We just hit a bad run
(18:57):
of injury luck in the postseason this year and last year.
All of a sudden, the Cavs are looking around as
the favorite to win the East and the only team
within proximity to them is the New York Knicks. And
it's the Knicks, so you could always just bank on them.
Screwed it up at some point anyways, So Cleveland looking around, going,
(19:18):
do we just stumble upon a little bit of injury
luck of our own? And now that that could potentially
be another small market team getting to the NBA Finals
based on what has happened to their conference with all
these superstars going down with the same injury.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
That's sucked a crazy qualifier like it, just get ready
for the season and go out there, play and win, right.
I Mean, what you're saying is has some accuracy to it.
The East has been considered to be the more, you know,
the weaker of the two, you know, out of the
(19:57):
East and the West conference. But I mean when you
break it down that way and you look at the
you know, like Yannis being unhappy, will he even be back?
Speaker 6 (20:08):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
And then you're looking at like you said with with Tatum,
and you're looking at what took place with Halliburton. I mean, man,
that's just that's hard to bounce back from. You know,
if you're a team and your franchise guy goes down
and he's not going to be around, sure you're gonna
(20:29):
look for guys. Maybe this is Jalen Brown's time to
separate himself, you know, and and maybe he claims the
title of being, you know, the franchise guy uncontested for
for the Boston Celtics. Maybe somebody steps up and they
do something that was unexpected on on one of these teams.
(20:50):
But you got to think, if it is the New
York Knicks, if it is the Cleveland Cleveland Cavaliers, who
I believe they just find a way to come up short.
Because this was, to me, I felt like the perfect
year for them to be able to actually compete and
contend for for the title. And it just didn't. It
(21:12):
didn't unfold that way. But going in the next year,
some of these teams are already crippled by injury. Go figure,
you're not even in the new season and you have
to say they're already crippled by injuries. This is where
coaching comes into play, right, Like, let's be clear, this
is where GM work comes into play, and scouting reports
(21:33):
come into play. You got to be able to bring
in the type of personnel where you don't fall that
far off that the drop off is is minimum until
that that star gets back. That's doing your job, you know,
figuring out how how to call a game like this
was a tremendous miss by Carlisle in the championship round,
(21:58):
a tremendous miss because it was going to take coaching
to get it to that Game seven, which it did,
but then it was going to take coaching to win
game seven with or without Haliburton, with or without them,
that is the coach, right, Carlisle. Yeah, Rick Carlisle, I mean, yeah,
I just I just that's to me, that's how I
(22:20):
feel about it. Jonas. So when you think about it,
these teams that have those holes that they have to
feel you at least have a whole entire offseason to
dress it and set the tone for what that's going
to look like. Not having those guys right away or
even for the entirety of the season.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
There's nothing worse as a fan because like if you
like say, your NFL team loses their star player in
training camp for the rest of the year or a
significant amount of time, or even last year when the
Lions lost Aiden Hutchinson early in the year, it was like, well,
if they get to the super Bowl, he might come back.
(22:57):
It's like, no, he's done for the year. It's over.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
He's just not coming back.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Immediately, before the season even really gets going, or before
the season even starts, your team is most likely out
like without like the season is not even here to
your point, we're not even at the draft yet in
the NBA, and you know for a pretty good certainty
(23:23):
that the Celtics, the Bucks, and the Pacers are more
than likely not going to the finals next year. It's
just like, we're not even we're not even out of June,
and you know what next year is going to look like.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Well, look at it like this. If those injuries made
you temper your expectations that far, you doubt them back
that far, then to me, for one, you weren't that
good of a team. For one, you're not that well built,
even though one player can make the difference in basketball,
but I just don't think your team is built as
(23:59):
good as you thought it was. If a guy goes down,
even if it's your main guy, and you can't still
be competitive. That's one, But for two, if it does
take your fan base down that far based upon that
main player's injury, then you only have up to go
from rock bottom. Well, I can't. You can't underperform. You're
(24:19):
going to outperform the expectations anyway. So that's not a
bad way to go into the season if your team.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I wonder how Eagles fans were when Carson Wentz got
injured and was out for the year, because that was
a super Bowl caliber team. Carson Wentz was most likely
the MVP of the NFL that year. He was playing fantastic.
It was late in the year and he blows out
his knee trying to scramble to get into the end
zone against the Rams, and I wonder afterwards, when it
(24:47):
comes out in real time, blew his knee out, done
for the year, I wonder how many Eagles fans actually thought,
now we've still got a chance to win it all.
Now we've still got answer, We've got Nick Folest, we
got an opportunity, we can go win a Super Bowl.
Still like that deflated everybody. And in the NBA, it
(25:08):
feels like you go through an injury like that and
maybe it's because of the percentage of your starting five.
You lose a Halliburton, that's twenty percent of your starting five,
that's a big impact. But in the NFL, you know,
we've seen Jeff Hostetler back in the day when Phil
Simms got injured, Jeff Hostetler and the Giants went on
to win.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
A Super Bowl. We've seen the Eagles.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
You know, Carson Wentz goes down, Nick Foles steps up
and wins a Super Bowl. It doesn't happen a lot,
but it seems like in the NBA, when that happens,
that's a rap to where in the NFL you just
have to get creative and find new ways to try
and win games.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It just can't be. It has to be the same way.
It has to be the same approach, whether you like
it or not, whether it hasn't happened or not yet,
it still has to be the same approach. It's always
got to be the next man up. It's always. I
wonder if they used the term in basketball, like, oh,
you know, there it is Alibert went down riverside. You know, oh,
(26:04):
there goes Tatum riverside, moving down of the court.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
It's not I mean listen, I'll give the Pacers credit.
They played well in the second quarter. They had the
lead at halftime, and they were Somebody on the broadcast
was like, yeah, the Pacers were walking into the locker
room at halftime. They're like, we can do this, we
can do this. And then the second half started and
it was like, no, there's just a quick reminder.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
That's not that. But again, that quick reminder should be
prefaced by saying, how horribly did they play in the
third quarter? That wasn't a and listen, A lot of
it has to do with the way Okay see plays defense,
I get it, but a lot of that was just
(26:51):
sloppy play man, it was sloppy play.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Aliburton's on war and then somebody yelled. You imagine somebody
just yelling for riverside.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Dang, dang. I mean it would have made sense in
that in that moment, in that moment, just because you're
in the final game of the championship round, you better
be in riverside mode like a mother lover.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Could you please, just for the for the new listeners,
explain the riverside.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
The riverside is a term that football coaches use when
a guy crumbles in a heap of pain. So they
go down to any type of injury during practice, right,
you'll have you'll have you. You'll probably have a unit
in a practice squad that are together, or you may
(27:45):
be going through yeah, you might be going through like
teen period or something to that effect. Right, depending on
how serious the injury is, they'll hit you with like
a guy gets hit boom, he gets knocked out, he
goes down to the ground. If if the if at
any point the training staff comes out onto the field
(28:05):
and the guy doesn't come off the field, you'll hear
the coaches say riverside. And all that means is is
you move what you're doing in front of in front
of that player that's down on the ground that's hurt,
and then you start going the opposite direction. There's been
times where if the seriousness in nature of the injury,
(28:28):
it's not a riverside, it's a switch field, switch fields,
other field, and then everybody walks over to the other
field and you know, the other field. But if it
ain't that bad, if it's not perceivably that bad, they
hit you with a riverside, and basically they just put
the you know the practice, they put it behind. You know,
you're behind it. The injured player is behind the practice now.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
So it's you just turn around.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
So it's the equivalent to, you know, a horse coming
up lame in a race and they just bring.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Up a white tent and call to day.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
It would be like the equivalent of a horse going
down and needing the white tent and and them saying,
all right, change lanes.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
You know, he run in the other direction, Just run
just just it started over.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, just run in a different lane. That's all. That's
his that's his lane. You know. Let let you know,
just run in a different lane again.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Guy, guys, run it back the other way. I will
have by the time you re return there you go.
It's just the whole, the whole.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's one of my.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, here's a better one that that one I gave
wasn't good. Here's a better one. If the horse goes down,
they for the next race. They just moved the They
moved the starting gates in front of the horse that
went down.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Turned it turns into an equestrian race.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
They just make the horse's corpse a jumping a platform
to jump over if you can.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
They take the release gates and and flip them around
so that the horse that went is behind the starting gates.
That's that's the that's the equivalent of Riverside.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It's just, you know, like the idea.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
There's a teammate down on the ground, there's no prayer candles,
there's no there's no prayer circle, there's no candles lip,
there's no everybody get on the knee and just no, no, no, no,
no riverside.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
It's just although the one year with Marty when when
dude dude broke his arm and and and the was
it his arm or his leg? He broke something and
he went down and coach shot Driver goes, all right,
everybody bring it in. We're gonna pray. You heard I
(30:44):
always tell because it's the funniest story to be you
hear something out of the blue is Bruce Smith. Bruce
goes pray, pray for what pray? That's mad and that's
going on around here.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
That was that trading camp and he just had hitting.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
He made Bruce Smith at his age do Oklahoma drill
and Bruce Bruce did it. Bruce not only did it,
but he won. And then he fell out. He made
the play, got off the block, made the tackle and
then just dropped and grabbed his shoulder and didn't play.
Not one more down, not one more practice, not one
(31:25):
more rep the rest of that training camp.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
But he won legitimately, legitimately, And I didn't.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Ask, I didn't look, I didn't ask Riverside. It was
all about survival, Bro. This was Marty that I had
to go to the hospital for for heat exhaustion. I
couldn't see any color. I lost. I lost basically the
ability to see color. I was so dehydrated during that
traded cat. These cats be talking about how they got
(31:55):
it these days. I went through a Marty Marty training camp, Bro,
that that ass was wild.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
They're like, sure, can you give us a urine sample?
Looks like honey.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
That was the same year Corey Stringer had had passed
away from a heat heat exhaustion. It was like one
hundred some degrees and we were doing two days, and
I just remember I was out that bad boy, gigging
like that might've been my best seasons as a pro. Anyway.
I was out there, man, and I was just going
in every play, every play, challenge yourself, every play, let's go,
(32:28):
let's go, let's get it every play, Let's get it,
let's get it. And the next practice, like I was
looking around and I'm like, why can't I see color?
I can't. Then I started panicking, like am I dying?
Like is something wrong? Like something's wrong. I was like, Dan,
(32:51):
come get me. They rushed me to the hospital and
like he can't see any color. They took my they
took my levels. They're like, yeah, get us four bags,
four bags of ivy fluid in me and put me
on ice. They literally put my body on ice and
got me four bags of ivy fluid and then I
(33:15):
was back. I was back, ready to go. But man,
I was I was up out for like two seconds there.
I thought I was up out of there. Man.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
So you couldn't see color, so anybody could be anything
at that.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
So so basically I would have lived in the perfect world,
like I ain't got to call nobody blacks or whites
or Asians or Hispanics, like it would have just been
all love. Like, hey, y'all looked the same.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
You thought Patrick saw no color. You thought Patrick Ramsey
was Doug Williams.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Dang, you had to be a dark mother lover for it.
On my black but great scale, you had to be
dark as hell. You just looked the same to me.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Oh well, I got that hydrated.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I'll good. See your jersey color. Nothing, It's just all
the same color, man, Oh my god. Wild Experience.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington and
Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
And it is a Tuesday tradition.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
We welcome in Pete Prisco, senior NFL columnist for CBS Sports,
CBS Sports HQ analyst, our smooth operator, and if you
want that smoke, you can find him on x at
Prisco CBS Peak.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Good morning, what's up, guys?
Speaker 6 (34:35):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
We are good.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
We are taking a peek at your top one hundred
players of twenty twenty five. I know you do this yearly,
and I'm curious what has gotten you the biggest blowback
from people who have taken a look at your list
since you dropped this last week.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
You know, It's funny. I really haven't had a lot
of blowbacks, so I means it must be a pretty
don good list.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
I mean it usually Patrick Mahomes number one based on
the year he had people.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
I got pushed back from from some of my guys
in my office on that, and like when we did
some hits and stuff for HQ and the Sports Network,
and some of the things that they said were he
didn't play as well as numbers weren't as good, And
I said, my counter.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Is always is this.
Speaker 6 (35:17):
If you put the entire pool of players in the
NFL into into a pot and said, go ahead, take
the best player right now, how many teams would take
Patrick Mahomes every one of them? So he's the best player.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I don't know that would be every every one of them?
Speaker 6 (35:34):
Well, who wouldn't LeVar.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
It just depends on who's in that in that that
cup to pool from that hat to pool from I mean,
there may be Josh Allen, There may be a Josh
Allen fan. There, there may be a Lamar Jackson fan.
I mean, some would say Lamar Jackson has had the
more brilliant career over the last two three years, then
(35:57):
Patrick Mahomes. Even though Patrick Mahomes has made those those.
Speaker 6 (36:01):
Entries, he must be sitting at home polishing is Lombardi
Trophy then.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I guess yeah, But again I would have to say
a Lombardi trophy is not an individual award, and I
give you so that goes against the that goes against
the logic of I guess that.
Speaker 6 (36:18):
But he's also he's also put up amazing numbers in
his career and he's been the best player in the league.
Come on, you would you would take if you had
You're the general manager of a team hy for this
week and you get to pick between Mahomes and Lamar,
You're taking Lamar.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I'm not saying I would. I'm just saying conventional wisdom,
there would be some people that would find other players
more attractive to take, and it wouldn't be any further
than that position. It may be Josh Allen, it may
be Lamar, and in reality, it probably would be Joe Burrow. Now,
if you said I had to choose between Joe Burrow
(36:57):
and Patrick Mahomes, there's a strong chance I may say
today because it's not you know, and and with all
due respect, because he is he is one of the greats.
He's already one of the goats. Speaking of Patrick Mahomes,
but Pete, if I'm looking at today and I'm basing
it off of where we're looking at ceilings and trajectories
of today. I might look at at I might look
(37:19):
at at my guy in Cincinnati and say I want
Joe Burrow versus anybody else, Jess, And that's not saying
he's in Cincinnati. That's saying, if I'm starting a team
in a franchise, I might want to start it with
Joe Burrow. That's what I would be thinking. But again
it's just based off of today.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
Joe Burrow is your first.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Pick, yes, yes he would be quarterback.
Speaker 6 (37:45):
But he's not Patrick Mahomes. And we know that Josh
is a great quarterback, he's not Patrick Mahomes. And Lamar
Jackson's a great quarterback and he's not Patrick Mahomes. There's
a difference, and we see You'll see it this year,
by the way, and you'll see it this year, by
the way. Now they got some speedback outside, they fixed
the offensive line, You'll see a different Patrick Mahomes again.
(38:05):
You'll see the old Patrick Mahomes again this year.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
You're stamping that Garret stamping that to me again. Now,
if you're basing it off of that logic, I have
no problem with what you're saying, and I would be more.
I would be more towards saying that your debate point
is correct. I'm just saying, based off of what I've
seen this year going into next season, if you were
(38:30):
to say who is the player you would start your
franchise with, there might be two or three players, and
it will those names and circulation that I would say
to me, I'm the MVP. The MVPs of Kansas City
are the coaches, not the players. I'm sorry it wasn't
Patrick Mahomes this year with Spagnola and Andy Reid.
Speaker 6 (38:51):
Oh my god. Okay, Look he didn't put up great number.
He's still the MVP of the team, and he's still
the MVP. He's still the best player in THERV because
Allen earned the m v P last year and I'm
not going to take it away from it. And I've
been one of the joho was he?
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Who was he in competition with to get it?
Speaker 6 (39:09):
Lamar Jackson? But that's that's a whole nother story. That's
a whole nother.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Why why that's the m v P of the league.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Well, Pete, let me.
Speaker 7 (39:18):
I'm sorry, go ahead, because look, the m VP of
the league doesn't mean that you're the you're the best
player in the league.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
That's what that's what most Valuable Player means.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
No, that's not what it means because because here's why
you could have the best player in the league and
not be the m v P because you're not a quarterback.
We've seen that play out, haven't we Over the course
of history, it's happened.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
It's a it's a wonderful rebuttal because everyone will agree
with you, that's the heisman, and that's the league MVP.
They don't give it to the best player. They give
it to the quarterback. It's a it's a wonderful rebuttal,
but nonetheless it's still to the general public in layman's terms,
the best player in the National Football League that gets
the MVP award, Yes or no.
Speaker 6 (39:57):
No, because that's the best player in the NFL. And
Josh Allens. Josh Allen earned the MVP last year. Look
you would take Look. I love Josh Allen. Been on
him since the beginning when he came out of Wyoming.
It was one of the few that actually thought he
would be good, and early in his career he was
one of the few who actually kept pounding the pavement
that he will be good. And you know what, He's
been great, and I love Josh Allen, but Patrick Mahomes
(40:19):
is a better quarterback.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Pete Prisco joining us here on Fox Sports Radio, we
are taking a peek at his top one hundred players
for twenty twenty five here courtesy of cbssports dot com. So, Pete,
I'm curious. Saquon Barkley is third on your list. So
goes Patrick Mahomes, Miles Garrett, Saquon Barkley. Saquon Barkley wasn't
even in the top one hundred a year ago. So
(40:42):
a year ago you didn't think Saquon Barkley was one
of the top one hundred players in the league.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
They have was three point eight per rush the year before.
That's not a top one hundred player. And so okay,
he gets to a new system, he's got the best
offensive line, he's got the top two, in fact, the
top two offense linemen arm on my list of the
two tackles on the Eagles. He averages more per carry
than anybody in the league before he's touched. And he
(41:08):
puts up a great season and he's earned his way
onto that list at the number three spot. The year before.
Bad situation, but he didn't play that well. He had
a three point eight per rush, So okay, you can
blame the Giants and the offensive line, but that's not
going to earn you a spot. So that's why he's
at number three this year. And by the way, it
pains me to put a running back.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
That hut, but I did.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
I mean, what about Aiden Hutchinson at fifteen when he
only played up until Week six.
Speaker 6 (41:36):
But it's not based on just what you did. This
last year is going to be He's going to be healthy,
he's going to be back on the field, he's going
to be a disruptor again. So that's kind of where
it is. And by the way, when he did get hurt,
he was leading the league in facts he got hurt,
and so you saw the difference in that team when
he wasn't in there. So that's why he got to
take into account a lot of where people are going
(41:58):
from their injury issues where they might and I'll give
you another example, Trent Wade. I had a tough time
with Trent Williams, and Trent Williams has traditionally been a
top ten player on this list the last couple of years,
but I dropped him down in large part because when
he did play, he wasn't as good and he didn't
play and now he's coming off another of the injury
and a just starting to become a factor with him.
Age isn't a factor with Aiden Hutchinson. It's a factor
(42:19):
with a guy like Trent Williams. So that's why he
dropped out a little bit.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
I found that to be interesting because where was Patrick
Mahomes in the passing ratings or passing yards statistically last season?
Speaker 6 (42:33):
This past season, well, I mean you got to look
at the numbers. He wasn't It wasn't great. He didn't
throw a lot of touchdown passes and he didn't throw
a lot of.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Are you using stats against Sakwan Berkley?
Speaker 6 (42:47):
Did you go back and go back and watch Sai
Kwon Barkley from two years ago and you tell me
how good he was.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
He's really good. He was really good.
Speaker 7 (42:53):
He was just.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Situation.
Speaker 6 (42:57):
He wasn't really good two years ago.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
He just want was in a he got injured for one,
but he was in a really bad situation. I mean,
everybody knew stop Sakwon Barkley and you stopped the New
York Giants period. Everybody knew that. So it wasn't the
necessary fact that he wasn't great. It was the fact
that that he wasn't in a great situation that led
to him not getting the best of opportunities to get yardage. Pete,
(43:24):
the talent that were still there the play.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
But when a guy averages three point eight per rush,
it's not very good. That's terrible.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
As a matter of fact, if I take him and
I put him on a team like the Philadelphia Eagles,
which I'm building my team, and I say I get
to pick and I can choose, I'm taking Saquon Barkley
because of what he can do, even though I knew
he was getting three points some yards a carry with
this team. That's not my team. I'm looking at the talent.
(43:52):
Don't you have to look at the talent versus looking
at at the stats. If this is your hundred, your hundreds.
Speaker 6 (43:57):
List, well, he was talent. He was the top one
hundred player two years ago.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
He was last year, all right, Pete.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
So one of the things that you did point out,
we're talking with Pete Prisco here. You can go on
to cbssports dot com and you can check out Pete's
top one hundred players for twenty twenty five because there's
a lot of interesting decisions here. An interesting comment you
made at the top of the article, though, is that
you said, one thing is clear, there isn't a lot
of star power in the league right now.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
So where do you is this recent?
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Is this just within the past couple of years? Is
this since Brady retired?
Speaker 6 (44:34):
Like?
Speaker 4 (44:34):
What about the NFL? Do you think lacks star power
considering Lamar, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow. Is it just so
quarterback heavy that there aren't stars at other positions?
Speaker 6 (44:47):
Well, it's not just that, I think, and I you know, look,
there's four quarterbacks in the top ten, so the quarterbacks
are still stars, those four particularly, and there's a possibility
for more with a guy like Jayden Daniels. But you
drop it down and go into the twenty. And this
is what I made that point about me It was
a twenty to sixty. You could interchange those guys and
(45:09):
take player number fifty and move him to player number
twenty three, and you wouldn't have much difference, and you
wouldn't have much of an argument. And that's essentially the
point it used to be. You'd have twenty five tried
and true stars and now that's not the case, and
for variety of reasons. Don't get me wrong. You know,
injury is an issue as well, and age has become
(45:31):
an issue as well. But we're gonna start seeing and
I think next year when I do the list, you're
gonna see different stars. Jayde and Daniels will be a
Star of Stars and he will move up into this list.
I don't have any doubt about that. I know people
will point to C. J. Stroud. I don't see that
happening with Jade Daniels. I think Brian Thomas Junior is
a guy that's going to go into that Star Stars
(45:52):
list this year. He's gonna be one of the elite
receivers in the league and he's gonna go way up.
So you're gonna see that change a little bit. But
right now, for this time twenty to sixties, they're all
about the same. You can interchange them. For example, go
in and pick fifty one out fifty one, number five,
I don't even know who it is on the list.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Fifty one on Pete's list is Quinn from the Denver
Bronx qun Miner.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yeah, the center's it.
Speaker 6 (46:19):
All pro By the way, Yeah, take twenty eight out
and put him in and see what that would be.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
All Right, so you take out Quinn, you put in
number twenty eight would be Max Crosby.
Speaker 6 (46:29):
Okay, So look, Max Crosby.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
That's star power, that's star power.
Speaker 6 (46:34):
But he wasn't star power last year because he was
hurt and he didn't play as well when he was
on the field. And I love Max Crosby. I think
he's one of those guys, you know, he beats himself
to beat his body up. He plays too many plays,
but and kudos to him for doing it. I mean,
he's one of the few guys that plays every play
in a game for a defense, which you know that's
incredible in this era. But yeah, Max Crosby has star power,
(46:56):
but he wasn't a star last year.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
All I'm saying is is when you say a league
that is void of star power, that doesn't necessarily mean
that they're they're the best ever or the greatest football
player ever. That's two different conversations. Wouldn't you say it's
two different orizations?
Speaker 6 (47:13):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (47:13):
Absolutely, I mean, I mean ob J was star power
for quite some time and wasn't the top receiver in
the league for a few of them years where he
was still you know, leveraging star power.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
I mean there's something.
Speaker 6 (47:27):
These guys Jalen Ramsey star power.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
And he's got star power.
Speaker 6 (47:32):
Yes, he does not at he's not a star player.
He's got star power.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
It's potential. It has been seen before. It has come
to fruition at times. I just think you have hard
feelings with him. The way things happened in jackson Why
you're taking the stat Jalen Ramsey is the truth of
the man where rats ass come from? By the way,
(48:00):
what's the infatuation with the rats ass? I don't know,
By the way.
Speaker 6 (48:05):
All I can tell you is he wore as welcome
to Jacksonville. He wren as welcome to the Rams, and
he wore I was welcome in Miami.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
So you go ahead and hey, there's a problem pete
out of curiosity.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
So when you mentioned you know a guy like Quinn Miners,
who is you know, sitting at you know, fifty one
on your list? How do you go about ranking offensive linemen?
Is this just watching film? Because there's no real statistical
category you can use with a lineman? So is this
just all based on watching film?
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (48:34):
Absolutely, and by the way I mean, I'd go back
and they're a stats that say, okay, give up x
amount of sacks, but you also got to take into
account how the sacks are given up. And you know,
like there are guys you say, okay, give up five
sacks last year, and then you see, okay, well the
quarterback held the ball for half an hour in the
sack got you know, the guy eventually got home and
wanted to beat the beats the tackle that's not on
(48:56):
the tackle that's on the quarterback, or there's a loop
in a star and the back doesn't do his part,
and somebody blames the offensive tackle for it. So you
got to go back and watch the tape. You gotta
you gotta go about and look during the season. I
watched the games. I go back and from after the draft,
and from the time the draft is over until the
time I put that list out, I go back and
re evaluate and move guys all around. I talked to
(49:18):
guys in the league and kind of run it by
them and see if they agree with me. And by
the way, I didn't have.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Usually I don't like that, well, I don't like I mean.
Speaker 6 (49:27):
Guys that actually know about football. LaVar That's that's why.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
I don't like you. I don't like your list.
Speaker 6 (49:32):
Okay, but I can tell you this, I've gotten a
lot of pushback over the years on the top ten.
I got none this year, none, not one bit. Nobody
said somebody else should be in that list. It was
the first time in a long time where the top
ten was a clear top ten.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
I think you added a running back into your top ten,
and that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
He knew who to call Jonas. Yeah, I know that
push to get what he wants.
Speaker 6 (49:57):
It pays me, it paints Okay, you tell me who
shouldn't be in the top ten of part.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
We're out of time.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
We're out of time. You know what, you know what
we're going to have to do. We're going to have
to continue the conversation. We're we're out of time. Sa
Kwon Barkley definitely belongs there though.
Speaker 6 (50:14):
Yeah he does. He does along there and he is there.
By the way, if you had more time, you'd be
digging a deeper hole before. I'll tell you I.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Don't dig holes that You crow barred that in there.
You got me with it once before. You won't get
me today. You know, first time shame on you. Second time,
shame on me. I will I will not be going
into that hole.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
Pete dynamite list as always, We appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Let's do it again next Tuesday.
Speaker 6 (50:38):
You gotta take care of guys there.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
He is the great Pete Prisco, senior NFL columnist for
CBS Sports. CBS Sports HQ is at Prisco. CBS is
where you can find him on x and you can
go check out his top one hundred list of twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Pete.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Pete. Pete is fun because whatever you say to him
on social media, it's usually quick to the point, and
he exposes you in front of his audience, like he
will quote retweet it and then he'll call you out
and either block you or just move on with this.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
You love doing that too, so I get why you like.
That's so funny. Man.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
It is two pros and a couple of joals.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Don't like get in trouble, man, It ain't fun when
the rabbit got the gun man, It really isn't.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
I love Pizza got such a red ass and and
just owns it.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
He's proud of it, you know, just the way he
operates
Is the best of two pros and a couple Joe
with LaVar airings and rating Win and Jonas Knox on
Fox Sports Radio.
Speaker 2 (00:13):
Black and Track Baby, They're back.
Speaker 3 (00:18):
No One, no one in that title to carry the show.
She didn't know how much we didn't carry the show, dah.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
It is two pros and a cup of Joe.
Speaker 4 (00:32):
Fox Sports Radio, LaVar Arrington, Jonas NOx with you here.
We are going to take you all the way up
until nine am Eastern time, six o'clock Pacific. You can
listen to this show as always on the iHeartRadio app
and on hundreds of affiliates all across this country. Wherever
you are making us a part of your Tuesday morning, Lavarrington,
(00:53):
Good morning, sir.
Speaker 3 (00:55):
What's going on man? Good morning?
Speaker 4 (00:57):
Just uh, we did get confirmation yesterday that it is
a ruptured achilles for Tyrese Haliburton. Of course, the underwent surgery,
posted a long message on social media and he's on
his way to recovery. But it looks like he's going
to miss all of next year, and so then we
(01:18):
just he gave it a go. It was the risk
and now we've just got to deal with what the
recovery looks like and maybe he'll be back to full
health after next year.
Speaker 2 (01:30):
So we've got that. We've also got.
Speaker 4 (01:35):
A former NBA player with comments about the NBA Finals
in general, and that would be Gilbert Arenas, who was
on the Dan Patrick Show, which you can hear on
many of these Fox Sports radio affiliates. And Gilbert was
asked a very simple question by Dan Patrick and it
(01:57):
sounded like this, ten.
Speaker 2 (01:58):
Years from now, we'll remember these NBA Finals for.
Speaker 3 (02:01):
What, nothing, nothing, nothing, We won't know. Let's just be honest.
Speaker 5 (02:09):
When it comes to small market teams, we really don't
remember much about them. We don't really talk about the
Toronto Championship, we don't really talk about the Bucks Gianna's championship.
And with this one, I mean, the only memorable thing
was Halle game winner, Game one. Other than that, there
(02:31):
was nothing in this finals that makes you say, oh
my god, this was the great finals. You know, And
I know, you know, when we talk about small markets,
it's needed because there are you know, cities that need finals.
Speaker 3 (02:46):
They need recognition.
Speaker 5 (02:48):
But you know, when you do have you know, teams
like that that match up, the sales is down, the
marketing is down, the views is down, it's clocked through history.
So you know, any kind of exposure that has to
do with the NBA, it is needed, no matter if
you like it or not.
Speaker 4 (03:05):
So that was Gilbert Arena's talking with Dan Patrick about
the NBA Finals, the memories and also small small markets
when it comes to the National Basketball Association.
Speaker 3 (03:16):
It's an interesting take. I mean, gil is a super
if people haven't figured it out right by now, he's
a super intelligent dude, very cerebral in his approach to
things that he says, does the homework to back the
things that he puts out there, So I believe there's
probably data that supports what it is that he's saying.
(03:40):
I would say, depending on what SGA does the rest
of the way, depending on what Haliburton does the rest
of the way, would be the only reason why I
would say you could reference this this particular final is
based upon the buildout of brand recognition, because ultimately that's
(04:06):
what the NBA stands on, is being able to build
the league's popularity and the viewership, the buy in off
of the players off of their names, and so to me,
I think, I think when you're looking at it from
a small markets perspective, Gil, I believe one is correct
(04:27):
and spot on on what he's saying. I would I
would venture to say, just based off of watching it
and just listening to you know, Cuffs who comes on
our show on Saturday, who's an insider, I tend to
go with the idea that this was more. This was
a very competitive series and while it may have had
(04:50):
times during the course of a game, may not appear
to have been as competitive as it could have been.
So the first time it's gone to a game seven
and what nine years, I believe so when you look
at it from the competitive standpoint, if you wanted a
really good matchup for an NBA Finals, even if it
(05:13):
wasn't the desired markets, you got it, and you did
have big names in the game at least two you
got that. So I mean there's there have been players
that have not played in big markets. He markets. He mentioned, uh,
he mentioned the the the Raptors winning it right, and
(05:35):
that was Kawhi Leonard. I remember the Raptors series because
of Siakam and Kawhi Leonard and and that you know,
that's what I remember is Kawhi Leonard being the catalyst
of the Raptors winning and then you know he you know,
took his swan Dave after that. Right. But to me,
(05:58):
when you look at like a small market team that
has a developing talent that has happened, that has happened,
I mean, you had Shack and Penny. Will we consider
Orlando a small market?
Speaker 2 (06:11):
Probably?
Speaker 3 (06:12):
I would. Yeah, you had Shack and Penny in Orlando.
You know, you had you Hack, you had Lebron James
and Cleveland. And I don't think Cleveland is considered to
be a big market team. You know, maybe maybe decent,
but not big market.
Speaker 4 (06:31):
You know, it's interesting about it when he makes the
comments talking about small markets. It just reminds me that
the NFL, it's its own ecosystem. Yes, if the NFL
landed Green Bay versus Buffalo and the Super.
Speaker 3 (06:45):
Bowl would not matter huge.
Speaker 4 (06:49):
And that's Green Bay, Wisconsin and Buffalo, New York Buffalo.
Speaker 3 (06:53):
If it was Jacksonville versus pick a team in the NFC.
Speaker 4 (06:58):
Wouldn't matter, wouldn't It doesn't matter, And it just matter,
Like you see these problems and not that. Because the
way Gilbert explained it and the way he laid it out,
it makes a lot of sense.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
I get where he's coming from.
Speaker 4 (07:12):
But it's almost like the NFL has created a universe
to its own that, Oh, we don't care if you're
from Buffalo, We don't care if you're from Kansas City, Oh,
Green Bay, Sweet.
Speaker 2 (07:24):
Doesn't matter at us.
Speaker 4 (07:26):
Like those are pre eminent franchises that you look at
and go, if you could land them in a Super Bowl,
that's a big deal. Like if you could land them
in a championship game, that's a big deal. When Buffalo
plays Kansas City, come on, Like, that's what everybody's looking
forward to. That's why those matchups have mattered for so long.
(07:48):
And I just it reminds me yet again the gap
and the difference between the NFL to where they're not
worried so much about market size from the standpoint.
Speaker 2 (08:01):
Of dude, do you have great players? Do you have
do you have a great team? Man?
Speaker 4 (08:05):
If Cincinnati could get to a Super Bowl, you need
to tell me that wouldn't be a huge get for
the NFL to get Joe Burrow on that stage and
then make it shitah, Like if they were to get
back there, to get them again in the Super.
Speaker 3 (08:18):
Bowl, and that was a big ass game because it
was like, can Joe Burrow like climb that mountaintop. It
was the one thing again. And I think that the
NFL has been able to do so well, and I
think they're hit and shoulders above everyone else. Is their storytelling.
(08:38):
Their ability to storytell connect the storylines to the league,
to the players, to the franchises, to the communities. You
still have very very loyal NFL fans versus just NFL market,
And I think that that's the difference. Do you have
(08:59):
very very loyal NBA fans and very loyal NBA market, Yes,
you do, but it's just not as large. It's just
not as appealing for one reason or another. And I'll
say I believe because the NFL has been able to
create such great storytelling in storylines, I mean starting with
(09:23):
NFL films and the Sable family and what they've been
able to do, and being able to build such a
strong foundational fan base. It is passed along. The culture
is passed along from generation to generation through tailgating. Like
(09:43):
you don't tailgate for basketball games, do you Like? There's
just a different to me, a different culture that surrounds
football versus other sports. And because you're able to take
all of those elements and put them together. I think
that it creates the buy in and the experience. Right.
(10:04):
It's always about entertainment and the experience. Knowing your demo.
I call it deal right, that's my acronym. Deal. Know
your demo, be ready to entertain and create an experience
and have love for it. That's the deal right. And
I think that the NFL has done an amazing job
of it, not that the NBA hasn't. I just think
(10:26):
that it's so dependent upon star athletes, upon the names.
Like if it was jokiic and in the final and
it was you know, it was Jason Tatum and Jalen Brown,
then now all of a sudden, everybody's happy. If it's
old ass Lebron, you might not even get the greatest
(10:48):
of performances from Lebron. But if it's Luca and Lebron
versus it takes this one versus Halliburton and the Indiana Pacers,
it's still a bigger series because you have Lebron James
and Luca to draw from. You even have Bronnie James
to draw from in this series. So I just think
(11:09):
that that's the key to all of this is it's
the shield, is the brand versus the athlete is the
brand in the NBA.
Speaker 4 (11:16):
Yeah, like you don't hear I mean like Yiannis for example. God,
maybe he wants out of Milwaukee. Maybe they're not doing
enough to surround him with enough pieces. Man, Like, you're
never going to hear that story about Patrick Mahomes in
Kansas City.
Speaker 2 (11:30):
He's got to get out of here, got to get
out of here. There's just you know, maybe they're not
doing enough for him.
Speaker 3 (11:34):
It's like, and by the way, how big a market
is Kansas City? It's not where is that ranked in
the media market?
Speaker 2 (11:41):
Listen, what about Baltimore, Baltimore?
Speaker 3 (11:45):
The media mark Baltimore.
Speaker 4 (11:46):
Like if you look at the Super Bowl favorites right now,
three of the four Buffalo, Baltimore, Kansas City don't even
have NBA teams.
Speaker 3 (11:56):
They don't even have.
Speaker 4 (11:58):
And literally not necessary for them because those franchises carry
so much weight and have so much poll and are
so big in it's in themselves in the NFL ecosystem
that you don't have any of this discussion about well
you need this, Like you're pulling from so few teams
(12:21):
to try and generate buzz in the NBA or in
the NFL. Man, you could roll out. I mean Tampa
Bay and versus Baltimore in a Super Bowl and you're
going to do huge numbers, You're going to do huge ratings,
you're going to do huge revenue. And there's all sorts
of markets around the NFL that you look at and go, man,
(12:42):
those aren't I mean, those would be considered small markets,
but in the NFL ecosystem, they're massive.
Speaker 3 (12:48):
There seems to be two hundred and ten media markets
in the United States of America. Kansas City is ranked
thirty third in that ranking. And keep in mind thirty third,
meaning that is a major a major city. Right. So
(13:10):
we're talking about media markets, not just not just you know,
not just Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania or Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. We're talking about
places like Flint, Saginaw, Bay City, Omaha, Springfield, Missouri, you know, Huntsville, Decatur, Florence.
(13:32):
You know, you're talking about a ton of media markets.
How do you weaven wrap all of these media markets
into one place. The NFL has figured out how to
do that. If you live in any one of these
these media markets, like if you take for instance, they
didn't have the Carolina Panthers, right, but for some reason,
(13:57):
the Washington Commanders were able to be the team of
the Carolinas or it was Atlanta, depending on what part
you were in Carolina, your team was generally speaking or
the Cowboys, the universal. If you don't have a team,
(14:18):
choose Dallas. It's a it's an amazing perfect storm to
say we can fill the gap with Dallas. If you
don't have anybody, maybe Pittsburgh right historically, maybe the Raiders historically,
those three franchises. Fill in the blank. If we don't
if we don't have a market for you, fill in
(14:39):
the blank with those three.
Speaker 4 (14:40):
I remember doing radio in Charleston, South Carolina, and there
was a Browns bar in South Carolina for the Browns.
Well there you go, and they were awful, and I'm like, why,
what what's happening here? It's just you could go to
pick a team in the NFL and you would probably
(15:02):
be able to find somewhere across the country a sports
bar or a location dedicated to that team.
Speaker 2 (15:09):
To watch games.
Speaker 4 (15:09):
One find me the Pacers bar, right, somebody find that,
Like somebody find me the Oklahoma City Thunderbar. And that's
not a knock on Oksee, it's more of a man
in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (15:24):
Oh you're a small market, Come hang.
Speaker 3 (15:26):
Out with us.
Speaker 4 (15:27):
Don't worry about it. Like, listen, you're a small market
that we don't care about that. Come over. Do you
like football? Do you like what we put together? Do
you like our product? This is our own universe, is
our own world. We don't have those problems like other
leagues do. It's kind of wild. And we don't share
our game like the game is in other places. It's
(15:47):
in it's in Canada, they play it overseas, but we
don't share this game. And I think that that's another
advantage of built in advantage that the NFL has that
it has to be stated, this is our game. Literally,
this is our game. What do they say, America's game?
(16:07):
You are here togin this is our game, America's game. Yeah,
you know, like that's that's where it is. And that's
an advantage that they use. You know, they don't leave
that on the table.
Speaker 3 (16:20):
Yeah.
Speaker 1 (16:21):
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington, and
Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern, three am Pacific
on Fox Sports Radio and the iHeartRadio app.
Speaker 2 (16:35):
You know, listen, we talked, we opened up the show.
Speaker 4 (16:37):
Gilbert Arenas was on the Dan Patrick Show, which you
can hear on many of these Fox Sports radio affiliates,
and he was speaking to Dan about what we'll remember
from this NBA Finals matchup, and he got to discuss
these small markets, et cetera, et cetera, and our whole
point on it was, well, look, the NFL doesn't really
have these problems. It's its own ecosystem, its own universe.
(17:00):
So a small market like a Kansas City or a
Green Bay that's huge in the NFL.
Speaker 2 (17:06):
But you know, in the.
Speaker 4 (17:07):
NBA, there clearly are people that were unhappy with the matchup.
Even though Game seven had a monster rating that we
discussed earlier, sixteen million, I believe it was still down
from previous years. And some people have pointed to the
market size for that being the reaction or that being
the reason why and all of this is happening. Then
(17:30):
on top of that, you've got Tyrese Haliburton going down
with the injury, and there is one team who might
benefit from the injury, and it's a team that was
referenced in the market size and the problem in the
NBA earlier, and that would be the Cleveland Cavaliers. So
(17:50):
the Cleveland Cavaliers, who themselves have been hit with the
bad luck injury bug from multiple playoffs in a row
again this year, clearly not one hundred percent. Clearly not
one hundred percent last year in the postseason, and the
team that a lot of people thought had the goods
to be an NBA Finals team this year, all of
(18:12):
a sudden finds themselves in a conference where Halliburton's going
to be out for all of next year because of
the achilles, Jason Tatum's going to be out for all
of next year because of the achilles. Damian Lillard's going
to be out for all of next year because of
the achilles.
Speaker 2 (18:29):
If those teams.
Speaker 3 (18:31):
Our holiday won't even be there next year because of
nothing other than he just won't be there.
Speaker 4 (18:36):
But it's interesting how Cleveland's been on the short end
of the stick when it comes to injury luck. Yet
if they look around their own conference right now, that's
three teams potential threats to make a run at the finals,
and Cleveland's sitting there going well, we don't have those
long term injury concerns. We just hit a bad run
(18:57):
of injury luck in the postseason this year and last year.
All of a sudden, the Cavs are looking around as
the favorite to win the East and the only team
within proximity to them is the New York Knicks. And
it's the Knicks, so you could always just bank on them.
Screwed it up at some point anyways, So Cleveland looking around, going,
(19:18):
do we just stumble upon a little bit of injury
luck of our own? And now that that could potentially
be another small market team getting to the NBA Finals
based on what has happened to their conference with all
these superstars going down with the same injury.
Speaker 3 (19:34):
That's sucked a crazy qualifier like it, just get ready
for the season and go out there, play and win, right.
I Mean, what you're saying is has some accuracy to it.
The East has been considered to be the more, you know,
the weaker of the two, you know, out of the
(19:57):
East and the West conference. But I mean when you
break it down that way and you look at the
you know, like Yannis being unhappy, will he even be back?
Speaker 6 (20:08):
You know?
Speaker 3 (20:09):
And then you're looking at like you said with with Tatum,
and you're looking at what took place with Halliburton. I mean, man,
that's just that's hard to bounce back from. You know,
if you're a team and your franchise guy goes down
and he's not going to be around, sure you're gonna
(20:29):
look for guys. Maybe this is Jalen Brown's time to
separate himself, you know, and and maybe he claims the
title of being, you know, the franchise guy uncontested for
for the Boston Celtics. Maybe somebody steps up and they
do something that was unexpected on on one of these teams.
(20:50):
But you got to think, if it is the New
York Knicks, if it is the Cleveland Cleveland Cavaliers, who
I believe they just find a way to come up short.
Because this was, to me, I felt like the perfect
year for them to be able to actually compete and
contend for for the title. And it just didn't. It
(21:12):
didn't unfold that way. But going in the next year,
some of these teams are already crippled by injury. Go figure,
you're not even in the new season and you have
to say they're already crippled by injuries. This is where
coaching comes into play, right, Like, let's be clear, this
is where GM work comes into play, and scouting reports
(21:33):
come into play. You got to be able to bring
in the type of personnel where you don't fall that
far off that the drop off is is minimum until
that that star gets back. That's doing your job, you know,
figuring out how how to call a game like this
was a tremendous miss by Carlisle in the championship round,
(21:58):
a tremendous miss because it was going to take coaching
to get it to that Game seven, which it did,
but then it was going to take coaching to win
game seven with or without Haliburton, with or without them,
that is the coach, right, Carlisle. Yeah, Rick Carlisle, I mean, yeah,
I just I just that's to me, that's how I
(22:20):
feel about it. Jonas. So when you think about it,
these teams that have those holes that they have to
feel you at least have a whole entire offseason to
dress it and set the tone for what that's going
to look like. Not having those guys right away or
even for the entirety of the season.
Speaker 4 (22:36):
There's nothing worse as a fan because like if you
like say, your NFL team loses their star player in
training camp for the rest of the year or a
significant amount of time, or even last year when the
Lions lost Aiden Hutchinson early in the year, it was like, well,
if they get to the super Bowl, he might come back.
(22:57):
It's like, no, he's done for the year. It's over.
Speaker 2 (23:00):
He's just not coming back.
Speaker 4 (23:02):
Immediately, before the season even really gets going, or before
the season even starts, your team is most likely out
like without like the season is not even here to
your point, we're not even at the draft yet in
the NBA, and you know for a pretty good certainty
(23:23):
that the Celtics, the Bucks, and the Pacers are more
than likely not going to the finals next year. It's
just like, we're not even we're not even out of June,
and you know what next year is going to look like.
Speaker 3 (23:37):
Well, look at it like this. If those injuries made
you temper your expectations that far, you doubt them back
that far, then to me, for one, you weren't that
good of a team. For one, you're not that well built,
even though one player can make the difference in basketball,
but I just don't think your team is built as
(23:59):
good as you thought it was. If a guy goes down,
even if it's your main guy, and you can't still
be competitive. That's one, But for two, if it does
take your fan base down that far based upon that
main player's injury, then you only have up to go
from rock bottom. Well, I can't. You can't underperform. You're
(24:19):
going to outperform the expectations anyway. So that's not a
bad way to go into the season if your team.
Speaker 4 (24:25):
I wonder how Eagles fans were when Carson Wentz got
injured and was out for the year, because that was
a super Bowl caliber team. Carson Wentz was most likely
the MVP of the NFL that year. He was playing fantastic.
It was late in the year and he blows out
his knee trying to scramble to get into the end
zone against the Rams, and I wonder afterwards, when it
(24:47):
comes out in real time, blew his knee out, done
for the year, I wonder how many Eagles fans actually thought,
now we've still got a chance to win it all.
Now we've still got answer, We've got Nick Folest, we
got an opportunity, we can go win a Super Bowl.
Still like that deflated everybody. And in the NBA, it
(25:08):
feels like you go through an injury like that and
maybe it's because of the percentage of your starting five.
You lose a Halliburton, that's twenty percent of your starting five,
that's a big impact. But in the NFL, you know,
we've seen Jeff Hostetler back in the day when Phil
Simms got injured, Jeff Hostetler and the Giants went on
to win.
Speaker 2 (25:27):
A Super Bowl. We've seen the Eagles.
Speaker 4 (25:29):
You know, Carson Wentz goes down, Nick Foles steps up
and wins a Super Bowl. It doesn't happen a lot,
but it seems like in the NBA, when that happens,
that's a rap to where in the NFL you just
have to get creative and find new ways to try
and win games.
Speaker 3 (25:43):
It just can't be. It has to be the same way.
It has to be the same approach, whether you like
it or not, whether it hasn't happened or not yet,
it still has to be the same approach. It's always
got to be the next man up. It's always. I
wonder if they used the term in basketball, like, oh,
you know, there it is Alibert went down riverside. You know, oh,
(26:04):
there goes Tatum riverside, moving down of the court.
Speaker 4 (26:09):
It's not I mean listen, I'll give the Pacers credit.
They played well in the second quarter. They had the
lead at halftime, and they were Somebody on the broadcast
was like, yeah, the Pacers were walking into the locker
room at halftime. They're like, we can do this, we
can do this. And then the second half started and
it was like, no, there's just a quick reminder.
Speaker 3 (26:28):
That's not that. But again, that quick reminder should be
prefaced by saying, how horribly did they play in the
third quarter? That wasn't a and listen, A lot of
it has to do with the way Okay see plays defense,
I get it, but a lot of that was just
(26:51):
sloppy play man, it was sloppy play.
Speaker 2 (26:54):
Aliburton's on war and then somebody yelled. You imagine somebody
just yelling for riverside.
Speaker 3 (27:00):
Dang, dang. I mean it would have made sense in
that in that moment, in that moment, just because you're
in the final game of the championship round, you better
be in riverside mode like a mother lover.
Speaker 4 (27:16):
Could you please, just for the for the new listeners,
explain the riverside.
Speaker 3 (27:22):
The riverside is a term that football coaches use when
a guy crumbles in a heap of pain. So they
go down to any type of injury during practice, right,
you'll have you'll have you. You'll probably have a unit
in a practice squad that are together, or you may
(27:45):
be going through yeah, you might be going through like
teen period or something to that effect. Right, depending on
how serious the injury is, they'll hit you with like
a guy gets hit boom, he gets knocked out, he
goes down to the ground. If if the if at
any point the training staff comes out onto the field
(28:05):
and the guy doesn't come off the field, you'll hear
the coaches say riverside. And all that means is is
you move what you're doing in front of in front
of that player that's down on the ground that's hurt,
and then you start going the opposite direction. There's been
times where if the seriousness in nature of the injury,
(28:28):
it's not a riverside, it's a switch field, switch fields,
other field, and then everybody walks over to the other
field and you know, the other field. But if it
ain't that bad, if it's not perceivably that bad, they
hit you with a riverside, and basically they just put
the you know the practice, they put it behind. You know,
you're behind it. The injured player is behind the practice now.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
So it's you just turn around.
Speaker 4 (28:52):
So it's the equivalent to, you know, a horse coming
up lame in a race and they just bring.
Speaker 2 (28:56):
Up a white tent and call to day.
Speaker 3 (29:00):
It would be like the equivalent of a horse going
down and needing the white tent and and them saying,
all right, change lanes.
Speaker 4 (29:09):
You know, he run in the other direction, Just run
just just it started over.
Speaker 3 (29:16):
Yeah, just run in a different lane. That's all. That's
his that's his lane. You know. Let let you know,
just run in a different lane again.
Speaker 4 (29:24):
Guy, guys, run it back the other way. I will
have by the time you re return there you go.
It's just the whole, the whole.
Speaker 2 (29:30):
It's one of my.
Speaker 3 (29:33):
Yeah, here's a better one that that one I gave
wasn't good. Here's a better one. If the horse goes down,
they for the next race. They just moved the They
moved the starting gates in front of the horse that
went down.
Speaker 2 (29:46):
Turned it turns into an equestrian race.
Speaker 4 (29:49):
They just make the horse's corpse a jumping a platform
to jump over if you can.
Speaker 3 (29:55):
They take the release gates and and flip them around
so that the horse that went is behind the starting gates.
That's that's the that's the equivalent of Riverside.
Speaker 2 (30:05):
It's just, you know, like the idea.
Speaker 4 (30:07):
There's a teammate down on the ground, there's no prayer candles,
there's no there's no prayer circle, there's no candles lip,
there's no everybody get on the knee and just no, no, no, no,
no riverside.
Speaker 3 (30:20):
It's just although the one year with Marty when when
dude dude broke his arm and and and the was
it his arm or his leg? He broke something and
he went down and coach shot Driver goes, all right,
everybody bring it in. We're gonna pray. You heard I
(30:44):
always tell because it's the funniest story to be you
hear something out of the blue is Bruce Smith. Bruce
goes pray, pray for what pray? That's mad and that's
going on around here.
Speaker 2 (30:58):
That was that trading camp and he just had hitting.
Speaker 3 (31:03):
He made Bruce Smith at his age do Oklahoma drill
and Bruce Bruce did it. Bruce not only did it,
but he won. And then he fell out. He made
the play, got off the block, made the tackle and
then just dropped and grabbed his shoulder and didn't play.
Not one more down, not one more practice, not one
(31:25):
more rep the rest of that training camp.
Speaker 2 (31:27):
But he won legitimately, legitimately, And I didn't.
Speaker 3 (31:32):
Ask, I didn't look, I didn't ask Riverside. It was
all about survival, Bro. This was Marty that I had
to go to the hospital for for heat exhaustion. I
couldn't see any color. I lost. I lost basically the
ability to see color. I was so dehydrated during that
traded cat. These cats be talking about how they got
(31:55):
it these days. I went through a Marty Marty training camp, Bro,
that that ass was wild.
Speaker 2 (32:02):
They're like, sure, can you give us a urine sample?
Looks like honey.
Speaker 3 (32:06):
That was the same year Corey Stringer had had passed
away from a heat heat exhaustion. It was like one
hundred some degrees and we were doing two days, and
I just remember I was out that bad boy, gigging
like that might've been my best seasons as a pro. Anyway.
I was out there, man, and I was just going
in every play, every play, challenge yourself, every play, let's go,
(32:28):
let's go, let's get it every play, Let's get it,
let's get it. And the next practice, like I was
looking around and I'm like, why can't I see color?
I can't. Then I started panicking, like am I dying?
Like is something wrong? Like something's wrong. I was like, Dan,
(32:51):
come get me. They rushed me to the hospital and
like he can't see any color. They took my they
took my levels. They're like, yeah, get us four bags,
four bags of ivy fluid in me and put me
on ice. They literally put my body on ice and
got me four bags of ivy fluid and then I
(33:15):
was back. I was back, ready to go. But man,
I was I was up out for like two seconds there.
I thought I was up out of there. Man.
Speaker 2 (33:23):
So you couldn't see color, so anybody could be anything
at that.
Speaker 3 (33:27):
So so basically I would have lived in the perfect world,
like I ain't got to call nobody blacks or whites
or Asians or Hispanics, like it would have just been
all love. Like, hey, y'all looked the same.
Speaker 2 (33:38):
You thought Patrick saw no color. You thought Patrick Ramsey
was Doug Williams.
Speaker 3 (33:42):
Dang, you had to be a dark mother lover for it.
On my black but great scale, you had to be
dark as hell. You just looked the same to me.
Speaker 2 (33:59):
Oh well, I got that hydrated.
Speaker 3 (34:02):
I'll good. See your jersey color. Nothing, It's just all
the same color, man, Oh my god. Wild Experience.
Speaker 1 (34:08):
Be sure to catch live editions of Two Pros and
a Cup of Joe with Brady Quinn, LeVar Errington and
Jonas Knox weekdays at six am Eastern three am Pacific.
Speaker 2 (34:19):
And it is a Tuesday tradition.
Speaker 4 (34:20):
We welcome in Pete Prisco, senior NFL columnist for CBS Sports,
CBS Sports HQ analyst, our smooth operator, and if you
want that smoke, you can find him on x at
Prisco CBS Peak.
Speaker 2 (34:33):
Good morning, what's up, guys?
Speaker 6 (34:35):
How are you?
Speaker 2 (34:36):
We are good.
Speaker 4 (34:38):
We are taking a peek at your top one hundred
players of twenty twenty five. I know you do this yearly,
and I'm curious what has gotten you the biggest blowback
from people who have taken a look at your list
since you dropped this last week.
Speaker 6 (34:54):
You know, It's funny. I really haven't had a lot
of blowbacks, so I means it must be a pretty
don good list.
Speaker 4 (34:58):
I mean it usually Patrick Mahomes number one based on
the year he had people.
Speaker 6 (35:04):
I got pushed back from from some of my guys
in my office on that, and like when we did
some hits and stuff for HQ and the Sports Network,
and some of the things that they said were he
didn't play as well as numbers weren't as good, And
I said, my counter.
Speaker 3 (35:16):
Is always is this.
Speaker 6 (35:17):
If you put the entire pool of players in the
NFL into into a pot and said, go ahead, take
the best player right now, how many teams would take
Patrick Mahomes every one of them? So he's the best player.
Speaker 3 (35:31):
I don't know that would be every every one of them?
Speaker 6 (35:34):
Well, who wouldn't LeVar.
Speaker 3 (35:37):
It just depends on who's in that in that that
cup to pool from that hat to pool from I mean,
there may be Josh Allen, There may be a Josh
Allen fan. There, there may be a Lamar Jackson fan.
I mean, some would say Lamar Jackson has had the
more brilliant career over the last two three years, then
(35:57):
Patrick Mahomes. Even though Patrick Mahomes has made those those.
Speaker 6 (36:01):
Entries, he must be sitting at home polishing is Lombardi
Trophy then.
Speaker 3 (36:05):
I guess yeah, But again I would have to say
a Lombardi trophy is not an individual award, and I
give you so that goes against the that goes against
the logic of I guess that.
Speaker 6 (36:18):
But he's also he's also put up amazing numbers in
his career and he's been the best player in the league.
Come on, you would you would take if you had
You're the general manager of a team hy for this
week and you get to pick between Mahomes and Lamar,
You're taking Lamar.
Speaker 3 (36:34):
I'm not saying I would. I'm just saying conventional wisdom,
there would be some people that would find other players
more attractive to take, and it wouldn't be any further
than that position. It may be Josh Allen, it may
be Lamar, and in reality, it probably would be Joe Burrow. Now,
if you said I had to choose between Joe Burrow
(36:57):
and Patrick Mahomes, there's a strong chance I may say
today because it's not you know, and and with all
due respect, because he is he is one of the greats.
He's already one of the goats. Speaking of Patrick Mahomes,
but Pete, if I'm looking at today and I'm basing
it off of where we're looking at ceilings and trajectories
of today. I might look at at I might look
(37:19):
at at my guy in Cincinnati and say I want
Joe Burrow versus anybody else, Jess, And that's not saying
he's in Cincinnati. That's saying, if I'm starting a team
in a franchise, I might want to start it with
Joe Burrow. That's what I would be thinking. But again
it's just based off of today.
Speaker 6 (37:38):
Joe Burrow is your first.
Speaker 3 (37:39):
Pick, yes, yes he would be quarterback.
Speaker 6 (37:45):
But he's not Patrick Mahomes. And we know that Josh
is a great quarterback, he's not Patrick Mahomes. And Lamar
Jackson's a great quarterback and he's not Patrick Mahomes. There's
a difference, and we see You'll see it this year,
by the way, and you'll see it this year, by
the way. Now they got some speedback outside, they fixed
the offensive line, You'll see a different Patrick Mahomes again.
(38:05):
You'll see the old Patrick Mahomes again this year.
Speaker 3 (38:07):
You're stamping that Garret stamping that to me again. Now,
if you're basing it off of that logic, I have
no problem with what you're saying, and I would be more.
I would be more towards saying that your debate point
is correct. I'm just saying, based off of what I've
seen this year going into next season, if you were
(38:30):
to say who is the player you would start your
franchise with, there might be two or three players, and
it will those names and circulation that I would say
to me, I'm the MVP. The MVPs of Kansas City
are the coaches, not the players. I'm sorry it wasn't
Patrick Mahomes this year with Spagnola and Andy Reid.
Speaker 6 (38:51):
Oh my god. Okay, Look he didn't put up great number.
He's still the MVP of the team, and he's still
the MVP. He's still the best player in THERV because
Allen earned the m v P last year and I'm
not going to take it away from it. And I've
been one of the joho was he?
Speaker 3 (39:07):
Who was he in competition with to get it?
Speaker 6 (39:09):
Lamar Jackson? But that's that's a whole nother story. That's
a whole nother.
Speaker 3 (39:14):
Why why that's the m v P of the league.
Speaker 2 (39:17):
Well, Pete, let me.
Speaker 7 (39:18):
I'm sorry, go ahead, because look, the m VP of
the league doesn't mean that you're the you're the best
player in the league.
Speaker 3 (39:24):
That's what that's what most Valuable Player means.
Speaker 6 (39:27):
No, that's not what it means because because here's why
you could have the best player in the league and
not be the m v P because you're not a quarterback.
We've seen that play out, haven't we Over the course
of history, it's happened.
Speaker 3 (39:36):
It's a it's a wonderful rebuttal because everyone will agree
with you, that's the heisman, and that's the league MVP.
They don't give it to the best player. They give
it to the quarterback. It's a it's a wonderful rebuttal,
but nonetheless it's still to the general public in layman's terms,
the best player in the National Football League that gets
the MVP award, Yes or no.
Speaker 6 (39:57):
No, because that's the best player in the NFL. And
Josh Allens. Josh Allen earned the MVP last year. Look
you would take Look. I love Josh Allen. Been on
him since the beginning when he came out of Wyoming.
It was one of the few that actually thought he
would be good, and early in his career he was
one of the few who actually kept pounding the pavement
that he will be good. And you know what, He's
been great, and I love Josh Allen, but Patrick Mahomes
(40:19):
is a better quarterback.
Speaker 4 (40:20):
Pete Prisco joining us here on Fox Sports Radio, we
are taking a peek at his top one hundred players
for twenty twenty five here courtesy of cbssports dot com. So, Pete,
I'm curious. Saquon Barkley is third on your list. So
goes Patrick Mahomes, Miles Garrett, Saquon Barkley. Saquon Barkley wasn't
even in the top one hundred a year ago. So
(40:42):
a year ago you didn't think Saquon Barkley was one
of the top one hundred players in the league.
Speaker 6 (40:48):
They have was three point eight per rush the year before.
That's not a top one hundred player. And so okay,
he gets to a new system, he's got the best
offensive line, he's got the top two, in fact, the
top two offense linemen arm on my list of the
two tackles on the Eagles. He averages more per carry
than anybody in the league before he's touched. And he
(41:08):
puts up a great season and he's earned his way
onto that list at the number three spot. The year before.
Bad situation, but he didn't play that well. He had
a three point eight per rush, So okay, you can
blame the Giants and the offensive line, but that's not
going to earn you a spot. So that's why he's
at number three this year. And by the way, it
pains me to put a running back.
Speaker 3 (41:27):
That hut, but I did.
Speaker 4 (41:30):
I mean, what about Aiden Hutchinson at fifteen when he
only played up until Week six.
Speaker 6 (41:36):
But it's not based on just what you did. This
last year is going to be He's going to be healthy,
he's going to be back on the field, he's going
to be a disruptor again. So that's kind of where
it is. And by the way, when he did get hurt,
he was leading the league in facts he got hurt,
and so you saw the difference in that team when
he wasn't in there. So that's why he got to
take into account a lot of where people are going
(41:58):
from their injury issues where they might and I'll give
you another example, Trent Wade. I had a tough time
with Trent Williams, and Trent Williams has traditionally been a
top ten player on this list the last couple of years,
but I dropped him down in large part because when
he did play, he wasn't as good and he didn't
play and now he's coming off another of the injury
and a just starting to become a factor with him.
Age isn't a factor with Aiden Hutchinson. It's a factor
(42:19):
with a guy like Trent Williams. So that's why he
dropped out a little bit.
Speaker 3 (42:23):
I found that to be interesting because where was Patrick
Mahomes in the passing ratings or passing yards statistically last season?
Speaker 6 (42:33):
This past season, well, I mean you got to look
at the numbers. He wasn't It wasn't great. He didn't
throw a lot of touchdown passes and he didn't throw
a lot of.
Speaker 3 (42:41):
Are you using stats against Sakwan Berkley?
Speaker 6 (42:47):
Did you go back and go back and watch Sai
Kwon Barkley from two years ago and you tell me
how good he was.
Speaker 3 (42:52):
He's really good. He was really good.
Speaker 7 (42:53):
He was just.
Speaker 3 (42:56):
Situation.
Speaker 6 (42:57):
He wasn't really good two years ago.
Speaker 3 (42:59):
He just want was in a he got injured for one,
but he was in a really bad situation. I mean,
everybody knew stop Sakwon Barkley and you stopped the New
York Giants period. Everybody knew that. So it wasn't the
necessary fact that he wasn't great. It was the fact
that that he wasn't in a great situation that led
to him not getting the best of opportunities to get yardage. Pete,
(43:24):
the talent that were still there the play.
Speaker 6 (43:26):
But when a guy averages three point eight per rush,
it's not very good. That's terrible.
Speaker 3 (43:30):
As a matter of fact, if I take him and
I put him on a team like the Philadelphia Eagles,
which I'm building my team, and I say I get
to pick and I can choose, I'm taking Saquon Barkley
because of what he can do, even though I knew
he was getting three points some yards a carry with
this team. That's not my team. I'm looking at the talent.
(43:52):
Don't you have to look at the talent versus looking
at at the stats. If this is your hundred, your hundreds.
Speaker 6 (43:57):
List, well, he was talent. He was the top one
hundred player two years ago.
Speaker 2 (44:01):
He was last year, all right, Pete.
Speaker 4 (44:04):
So one of the things that you did point out,
we're talking with Pete Prisco here. You can go on
to cbssports dot com and you can check out Pete's
top one hundred players for twenty twenty five because there's
a lot of interesting decisions here. An interesting comment you
made at the top of the article, though, is that
you said, one thing is clear, there isn't a lot
of star power in the league right now.
Speaker 2 (44:25):
So where do you is this recent?
Speaker 4 (44:30):
Is this just within the past couple of years? Is
this since Brady retired?
Speaker 6 (44:34):
Like?
Speaker 4 (44:34):
What about the NFL? Do you think lacks star power
considering Lamar, Patrick Mahomes, Joe Burrow. Is it just so
quarterback heavy that there aren't stars at other positions?
Speaker 6 (44:47):
Well, it's not just that, I think, and I you know, look,
there's four quarterbacks in the top ten, so the quarterbacks
are still stars, those four particularly, and there's a possibility
for more with a guy like Jayden Daniels. But you
drop it down and go into the twenty. And this
is what I made that point about me It was
a twenty to sixty. You could interchange those guys and
(45:09):
take player number fifty and move him to player number
twenty three, and you wouldn't have much difference, and you
wouldn't have much of an argument. And that's essentially the
point it used to be. You'd have twenty five tried
and true stars and now that's not the case, and
for variety of reasons. Don't get me wrong. You know,
injury is an issue as well, and age has become
(45:31):
an issue as well. But we're gonna start seeing and
I think next year when I do the list, you're
gonna see different stars. Jayde and Daniels will be a
Star of Stars and he will move up into this list.
I don't have any doubt about that. I know people
will point to C. J. Stroud. I don't see that
happening with Jade Daniels. I think Brian Thomas Junior is
a guy that's going to go into that Star Stars
(45:52):
list this year. He's gonna be one of the elite
receivers in the league and he's gonna go way up.
So you're gonna see that change a little bit. But
right now, for this time twenty to sixties, they're all
about the same. You can interchange them. For example, go
in and pick fifty one out fifty one, number five,
I don't even know who it is on the list.
Speaker 4 (46:09):
Fifty one on Pete's list is Quinn from the Denver
Bronx qun Miner.
Speaker 2 (46:17):
Yeah, the center's it.
Speaker 6 (46:19):
All pro By the way, Yeah, take twenty eight out
and put him in and see what that would be.
Speaker 4 (46:23):
All Right, so you take out Quinn, you put in
number twenty eight would be Max Crosby.
Speaker 6 (46:29):
Okay, So look, Max Crosby.
Speaker 3 (46:31):
That's star power, that's star power.
Speaker 6 (46:34):
But he wasn't star power last year because he was
hurt and he didn't play as well when he was
on the field. And I love Max Crosby. I think
he's one of those guys, you know, he beats himself
to beat his body up. He plays too many plays,
but and kudos to him for doing it. I mean,
he's one of the few guys that plays every play
in a game for a defense, which you know that's
incredible in this era. But yeah, Max Crosby has star power,
(46:56):
but he wasn't a star last year.
Speaker 3 (46:58):
All I'm saying is is when you say a league
that is void of star power, that doesn't necessarily mean
that they're they're the best ever or the greatest football
player ever. That's two different conversations. Wouldn't you say it's
two different orizations?
Speaker 6 (47:13):
Oh?
Speaker 7 (47:13):
Absolutely, I mean, I mean ob J was star power
for quite some time and wasn't the top receiver in
the league for a few of them years where he
was still you know, leveraging star power.
Speaker 3 (47:27):
I mean there's something.
Speaker 6 (47:27):
These guys Jalen Ramsey star power.
Speaker 3 (47:30):
And he's got star power.
Speaker 6 (47:32):
Yes, he does not at he's not a star player.
He's got star power.
Speaker 3 (47:36):
It's potential. It has been seen before. It has come
to fruition at times. I just think you have hard
feelings with him. The way things happened in jackson Why
you're taking the stat Jalen Ramsey is the truth of
the man where rats ass come from? By the way,
(48:00):
what's the infatuation with the rats ass? I don't know,
By the way.
Speaker 6 (48:05):
All I can tell you is he wore as welcome
to Jacksonville. He wren as welcome to the Rams, and
he wore I was welcome in Miami.
Speaker 2 (48:11):
So you go ahead and hey, there's a problem pete
out of curiosity.
Speaker 4 (48:14):
So when you mentioned you know a guy like Quinn Miners,
who is you know, sitting at you know, fifty one
on your list? How do you go about ranking offensive linemen?
Is this just watching film? Because there's no real statistical
category you can use with a lineman? So is this
just all based on watching film?
Speaker 3 (48:33):
Yes?
Speaker 6 (48:34):
Absolutely, and by the way I mean, I'd go back
and they're a stats that say, okay, give up x
amount of sacks, but you also got to take into
account how the sacks are given up. And you know,
like there are guys you say, okay, give up five
sacks last year, and then you see, okay, well the
quarterback held the ball for half an hour in the
sack got you know, the guy eventually got home and
wanted to beat the beats the tackle that's not on
(48:56):
the tackle that's on the quarterback, or there's a loop
in a star and the back doesn't do his part,
and somebody blames the offensive tackle for it. So you
got to go back and watch the tape. You gotta
you gotta go about and look during the season. I
watched the games. I go back and from after the draft,
and from the time the draft is over until the
time I put that list out, I go back and
re evaluate and move guys all around. I talked to
(49:18):
guys in the league and kind of run it by
them and see if they agree with me. And by
the way, I didn't have.
Speaker 3 (49:23):
Usually I don't like that, well, I don't like I mean.
Speaker 6 (49:27):
Guys that actually know about football. LaVar That's that's why.
Speaker 3 (49:29):
I don't like you. I don't like your list.
Speaker 6 (49:32):
Okay, but I can tell you this, I've gotten a
lot of pushback over the years on the top ten.
I got none this year, none, not one bit. Nobody
said somebody else should be in that list. It was
the first time in a long time where the top
ten was a clear top ten.
Speaker 2 (49:47):
I think you added a running back into your top ten,
and that's what happened.
Speaker 3 (49:52):
He knew who to call Jonas. Yeah, I know that
push to get what he wants.
Speaker 6 (49:57):
It pays me, it paints Okay, you tell me who
shouldn't be in the top ten of part.
Speaker 2 (50:02):
We're out of time.
Speaker 3 (50:04):
We're out of time. You know what, you know what
we're going to have to do. We're going to have
to continue the conversation. We're we're out of time. Sa
Kwon Barkley definitely belongs there though.
Speaker 6 (50:14):
Yeah he does. He does along there and he is there.
By the way, if you had more time, you'd be
digging a deeper hole before. I'll tell you I.
Speaker 3 (50:20):
Don't dig holes that You crow barred that in there.
You got me with it once before. You won't get
me today. You know, first time shame on you. Second time,
shame on me. I will I will not be going
into that hole.
Speaker 4 (50:32):
Pete dynamite list as always, We appreciate it.
Speaker 2 (50:36):
Let's do it again next Tuesday.
Speaker 6 (50:38):
You gotta take care of guys there.
Speaker 4 (50:40):
He is the great Pete Prisco, senior NFL columnist for
CBS Sports. CBS Sports HQ is at Prisco. CBS is
where you can find him on x and you can
go check out his top one hundred list of twenty
twenty five.
Speaker 2 (50:54):
Pete.
Speaker 4 (50:55):
Pete. Pete is fun because whatever you say to him
on social media, it's usually quick to the point, and
he exposes you in front of his audience, like he
will quote retweet it and then he'll call you out
and either block you or just move on with this.
Speaker 3 (51:12):
You love doing that too, so I get why you like.
That's so funny. Man.
Speaker 2 (51:17):
It is two pros and a couple of joals.
Speaker 3 (51:19):
Don't like get in trouble, man, It ain't fun when
the rabbit got the gun man, It really isn't.
Speaker 4 (51:25):
I love Pizza got such a red ass and and
just owns it.
Speaker 2 (51:30):
He's proud of it, you know, just the way he
operates
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Brady Quinn
LaVar Arrington
Jonas Knox
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